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. . . . . I Ching loosely translates to Book of Change. Basically it’s a fortune-telling book. The Bible, of course, puts fortune-telling among such things as wizardry and sorcery. I had a book titled The Black Arts which Mary must have thrown away. There was a chapter about astrology, and one which I read on numerology.
. . . . . I really haven’t ever dabbled much in even the dark arts. Using pennies instead of yarrow stalks, I used the I Ching twice to tell my fortune. The first time, in 1978, I was leaving home for the unknown, and I got an interesting fortune. The second time was about 1981. I got the second best fortune in the book, what it called "perfectly passive" or something like that.
. . . . . (I know I’m talking a lot about myself here; I just hope I’m not speaking "of" myself, but rather am being guided in my speech by the Holy Spirit [like John 16:13 says, "when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak"].) The people of the East place a great deal of emphasis on humility, and as a group have to a large degree subjugated themselves to their various national interests. While they have been and remain rather high-minded and very competitive as nations, still, individually I think we have a lot to learn from them.
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. . . . . This translates to The Way of Change. Legend has it that Lao Tsu was the emperor’s librarian, and a very wise man. Sick at heart at the ways of man, he was leaving the province to wander in the wilderness and die. A gatekeeper at the Great Wall is said to have known him and asked him to leave to posterity some of his knowledge. In eighty-one paragraphs, say, he left behind what must be one of the great books of our civilization (translated into more languages than any other book except the Bible.
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. . . . . People I know have differed in their interpretations of this quote. Some people think it is better to know, and doubtless consider themselves among those who do know. The humble (and wise) approach is to try and be learned, leaving behind such things as pointless arguments. Among other things, Lao Tsu tells us that "To talk little is natural", "The Tao that can be written is not the real Tao", "The way of heaven is to take from those who have too much and give to those who do not have enough," and even, cryptically, "The perfect square has no corners".
. . . . . The emphasis which this book places on being passive is remarkable. The back cover of my favorite translation (co-translated by Jane English) says that the philosophy espoused in the Tao recommends understanding (i.e., "to stand under", to serve) whatever situation or person is in front of you. To "simply be" is the ideal.
. . . . . I mention all of this because it seems to me there should be little doubt that Jesus studied this book, given the incredible degree to which he extolled the virtues of being passive. We are taught to turn the other cheek, to give our cloak if we’re sued for our coat, to go two miles if we’re asked to go one, to serve and be humble. Lao Tsu’s book is said to have been written about 450 B.C., and though I’m sure not many people in His day were able to read, the Bible tells us Jesus did. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that He would read as extensively as possible.
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. . . . . Actually, it is the matter of doctrine that is the main reason I am speaking to you today. We know the people were astonished at Jesus’ doctrine, but all the Bible tells us really is that he didn’t speak like the scribes and Pharisees. While He said that He was not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, He also preached that the doctrine of the day was far from God even though, remember, their doctrine originated with those laws and those prophets.
. . . . . What I am here for today is to ask everyone to consider where our doctrines originate, whether they are of God or man, whether Jesus was not speaking of just His day but prophetically as well, speaking of our day when he said something like "in vain [the believers] do worship God, teaching for doctrine the commandments of men.(see Matthew 15:9)" I suppose in Southern Baptist circles there is no cow more holy than the one regarding the inerrancy of scripture. (2014 note: i was wrong about that; now anyway it has to be assurance of salvation) To quickly show a doctrinal problem, when I wanted to be obedient to God’s Word and be baptized, I went to an associate pastor and told him I wanted to be baptized. I also told him, so as not to be hypocritical, that, while I thought the Bible was perfect, I also thought it contained imperfections. I didn’t get baptized. That strikes me as a doctrinal problem that might not be specific to me; there could be lots of believers around who don’t want to be caught up in the hypocrisies that sadly abound in the world of organized religion. Even worse are Paul’s admonitions that God is blasphemed because of Christians; we probably are keeping people from believing in God because of our distorted doctrinal view of Him.
. . . . . Genesis 22.2, in what might be the most famous contradiction in the Bible, refers to "Abraham’s only son", while a quick look back at chapter 17 shows us another son. I learned this because Mary and I happened to catch the last ten minutes of one of the televised episodes of Bill Moyer’s "Genesis". The lady who mentioned this contradiction also mentioned an explanation. Of course there are explanations, and commentaries, and sermons. All attempt to explain or interpret the Bible. These explanations or interpretations, mostly coming from men who have worked and studied under other men, are where the doctrines of the various churches and, yes, religions of the world, originate.
. . . . . Proverbs, I pointed out to a former pastor of mine, in the King James version, contains two identical verses, not of particular import. This struck me then, and still does now, as at least an oversight on someone's part. (See A Bible Puzzle.)
. . . . . Exodus 33:11 starts "And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend" (and Deuteronomy 34:10 says something about "Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face"), yet verse 20 of the same chapter declares "And (the LORD) said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." Hard not to say there's been a mistake made somewhere. (But hey, just look around huh? And there's also the obvious answer, which had escaped me: Moses was like "caught up to the third heaven"; of course he was an angel!)
. . . . . Jeremiah contains a verse about "The heart is deceitful above all things; who can know it?" James 1.14-15 outlines, according to that same preacher (who, by the way, told me I had "passed Proverbs"), how we first have sinful thoughts, then we entertain those thoughts in our mind, and finally (worst-case scenario) our hearts are changed via our minds and we commit sin.
. . . . . The heart, i think, is the center of our wicked thoughts, certainly our hypocrisies, our sin. A cursory examination of a concordance led me to acknowledge that preacher’s correctness in interpreting the passage in James. Several verses tell us that The Lord views "the heart and the reins". I don’t think spiritual discernment need be too significant to recognize that the reins are, in fact, the mind, and that the mind leads the heart into hypocrisy and sin. Thus, I have in the past maintained it is the mind which is wicked above all things, though I have since changed my mind (hehe). (We might liken the heart to a horse, and the mind to its reins; then we see that the mind directs the horse, and our top priority is to ascertain the rider. Bob Dylan sang, "You’ve got to serve somebody__it might be the devil and it might be the Lord, but you’ve got to serve somebody." We fight principalities and powers. Our hearts are on some course, and the course of the world is broad and leads to destruction, in which case the hands on the reins are those of Satan. Ordinary mind is the enemy. The Mormons, I think, don’t like to speak of that evil power, and certainly don’t like to give a name to it, maintaining that it adds to its power. To be spiritually minded is life, the Bible tells us; the bad news to most maybe ["Woe to them that are at ease in Zion," Amos wrote in chapter 6 verse1; "that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination to God," Jesus said in Luke 16:15] is that the mind of Christ is extraordinary, and it leads the heart down a narrow, non-conformist way which transforms.)
. . . . . Consider, if you will, what was going on during those first thirty years of Jesus’ life. He was announced by angels, sought out by Herrod for death, visited by wise men bearing gifts and shepherd’s probably beside themselves, given a witness by Simeon at the temple as a babe in his momma’s arms. Do you suppose He was the talk of the town? There is a reference to Him asking questions at the temple, good questions, and "being about His Father’s business", but there is a lot of unaccounted time. He grew, we are told, "in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and men". Actually, He was under a microscope, and He apparently failed to pass muster with man, at least those in His home country. He was a carpenter! and a person with a reputation as a sinner we should learn in Matthew 13:54-57 and Mark 6:2-4, Matthew 19:17 and Mark 10:18, John 9:16 and 10:20, and the prophetic chapter 22 of Psalms contains verse 6: "But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people", one of many similar prophecies regarding the Christ.
. . . . . Isaiah 53:3, a famous prophetic chapter about the Messiah I think contemporary doctrine maintains, goes "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." Think about it. Verse 12 of that chapter says "he was numbered with the transgressors". And where does it say He was a drunkard and a glutton? Not (I maintain), as man's doctrine would have us believe that He was perfect and without sin, only that He was crucified with thieves, because if there had been no rumours of sin in His life He would not have been crucified. Debatable, sure, everything is, but I think the logical answer to this issue is that He simply could not have avoided all appearance of sin. He certainly would have been a church leader. Think about it: He would have ruled! The church would have wanted Him to (if He had been one of them), and the people basically did believe in Him until the church people gossiped Him to death. (And I'm not addressing here the issue of non-conformity of thought, which surely was a mark of His, at least past that tender age when He stayed behind to discourse with the leaders of the temple, nor the fact that the wisdom He acquired was foolishness in the eyes of the world [see 1 Corinthians 3:19].)
. . . . . Church doctrine holds that He was God in man’s form except for that one forsaken moment on the cross, at which time he took on the sins of the world. How come He sweat as it were blood the night before, dreading what He knew was coming? ("Knowledge of the future is but a flowery trapping of the Tao," Lao Tsu wrote. "It is the beginning of folly.")
. . . . . The four gospels show us a seeming contradiction that can lead us toward a right dividing of The Word into truth. Two of them show Jesus dying, giving up the ghost, with a loud shout; two of them indicate a quiet expiration. This seemingly minor point, with a view toward the big picture, might shed light on the nature of what is truly the living Word of God.
. . . . . Let's look at that big picture a bit more. Remember how He would tell His disciples things that He wouldn’t tell the multitudes who were following Him? We have no earthly reason to believe that they wrote what He told them. The reason He didn’t tell the people was that they weren’t ready for the truth. (John 16:12 records Jesus saying to the disciples "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." He told them that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand because it had been and was and will be, until the heavens and earth pass away. To turn away from maya or sin and to love God like He loves us did indeed (and still does) mean a new creature. But not, for the most part, a sentient one.
. . . . . The disciples gave us a clue in the way they wrote so differently of that crucial moment of His death. Think about it. There might just be one person in the Gospels whose devil left with a loud shout, but the truth was too hard (or, more likely, Jesus just said people weren't ready for the truth),and the disciples hid the truth, but very cleverly; perhaps those sayings which the disciples could not bear included this. Those with devils who were cured were cured with a loud shout. That’s all it takes to find that straight and narrow gate, is to realize and to believe with all your heart, and to turn your being from this world to God. Not easy to find heaven. Little children are better at it than old folks (only the good die young?), who usually harden their hearts (via mind-sets) as they grow older. Lots of angels walking around among us looking like people is how i see it; and acting like them too. Jesus referred rather mysteriously to them. Paul gives us lots of evidences of that, with his man caught up the third heaven who God knows about, his angels visiting us at home unawares, his admonition to let no man beguile us of our reward in a voluntary worship of angels. Jacob’s huge ladder could signify that angels routinely visit earth in human form and, when that bodily existence ends, go back to heaven until they are called to a new body, but with that divine spark for soul and heart and mind. (There is a link to a scriptural study on angels i did on this site).
. . . . . Jesus was a man thirty years old before God spoke by the river, and started Him on His quest; apparently, judging from His main sermon and His model prayer, a quest to establish the Father's kingdom on earth.
. . . . . The big picture also shows us that more and more people followed Jesus until His sayings started getting harder, and finally (again the disciples say a lot with a little, just leaving hints and clues regarding the truth; "Jesus wept" appears to be another example of this) the multitudes were gone. Apparently it started out with Jesus thinking everybody could get together and nobody would be hungry or oppressed and that's the kingdom of heaven He kept saying was "at hand". Anyway, people would bring offerings to Him and the disciples, which would be used for immediate needs and the rest probably went to the poor. Sometimes they ran short, and the worst-case was sending the people away. The miracles of feeding might have hinged on the lack of faith even of the multitudes who followed. They were holding back food for emergencies, concealed in cloaks and stuff, and the little child giving all that he had helped shame them once into revealing what was being concealed. Maybe.
. . . . . Not that His doctrine was generally easy. (Don’t get me wrong about this church doctrine of today: the intent of most churches is to worship God, which makes them a good place to start; and a person should be able to get some good out of a bad sermon. I wondered a long time about Jesus saying we should hate our children, and I learned from a commentary that it is written in the comparative sense, and His lesson is that we should love God so much that the love we have for our children compares to hatred.) Tough doctrine. His yoke was easy, and His burden light because faith is compass and map, but putting on the yoke apparently required renouncing the ways of the world, something quite difficult for most people. "Ordinary mind is the enemy" is the succinct message I once read, and that was the message Jesus preached. "Take no thought for the morrow," "you cannot serve God and money," "be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." I think people actually were selling what they had, giving it to the poor, leaving their jobs and their homes, and following Him and His crowd, which got bigger and bigger. He probably saw the policy was unworkable and, realizing His time was not long, told His disciples not to try that again. Paul apparently didn’t preach it, but the policy for members of the church had so much momentum it couldn’t be stopped quickly. (Remember how they held all things in common early on?) Again, the Bible sometimes says a whole lot with very little (e.g., Jesus uses the word "patience" four times in the gospels, only once about something which seems preeminently important ["in your patience ye possess your souls"]; and the Revelation of John quotes Jesus using the word four times, though again in a seemingly less-than-critical fashion), and church doctrine is as bad now as it was then, maybe worse; so strong that delusions, and strong ones, have become commonplace. (See 2 Thessalonians 2.11 for just one crucial example.)
. . . . . We confuse this "will" stuff. God is love, and there is no darkness in Him. Jesus might have willed His mission from earth, volunteered to visit God’s peoples, and come in the form of man, heart and mind, body and soul. It was more than we deserved.
. . . . . Reading the Bible today I am struck by several things; perhaps most importantly is doctrine (and mine is limited pretty much to Baptist doctrine) relating to the future. Ecclesiastes tells us that a second child will lead us; Jesus tells us that He will send a Comforter, who is the Holy Ghost. There is a second covenant prophesied in Jeremiah 31:33-34 which hasn't happened. More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that we are warned time and again about the Beast and Anti-Christ. Jesus said one will come in his own name and we will accept him; another place He says we won’t accept him. I thought this was the Comforter; Scofield calls this one the Beast. Different doctrine. But again, today’s doctrine tells me that if somebody comes along with signs and wonders and miracles it will probably be the Anti-Christ. What if it is the Comforter, and he is also the Holy Ghost, and people test, and judge, and mock him like they did Christ? We are told that those who blaspheme him will not be forgiven. "All who search for iniquity will be cut off," Isaiah said. I don’t want to be numbered among those transgressors.
. . . . . One of the more poignant verses in the scriptures relates Jesus saying, "If I with the finger of God cast out demons, then no doubt the kingdom of God is with you (emphasis mine)" or something like that. (repeat) If I work miracles through the love of God, then no doubt the kingdom of God is available to mankind.
. . . . . The Bible tells us that Elisabeth and Zacharias were "blameless". It doesn’t get much better than that. Jesus was without sin, but apparently not without the appearance of it. People knew Him (sarcasm is intended; see Matthew 13:54-56 e.g.), and had no doubt He could not be a prophet, to say nothing of The Messiah. My big fear is that we will fall short of God’s loving (not exactly)will (because He's SPIRIT only, Perfect Love), and the Comforter Jesus prophesied will be in the form of man too, and will be rejected too, and we will see the prophesies of fire and doom this time, not water again. What if there is a second child who is the Comforter, and he is The Holy Ghost in the flesh, another volunteer from heaven? What if he needs to ghostly visit all these countries with nuclear weapons to avoid a fiery holocaust? What if we are teaching for doctrine the commandments of man, and are worshipping God in vain? What if "attention is energy" is true, and we helped with the miracles by reading the Bible and believing it? (And caused Jesus to do things that appeared to be sin say.) What if everybody who isn’t an angel will be judged by Jesus, and every idle word that we speak really will be called into account on the Day of Judgment (Matthew 12:36)? What if thoughts count too? (Jesus certainly said they do.) And even non-believers acknowledge that actions are accountable. What if God is love, and it’s up to us to agree to follow all of Jesus’ teachings? After all, He said every jot of the law is His standard (Matthew 5:18).
. . . . . Another verse that has puzzled me mightily for years is the one where Jesus says, "For that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). I have reached the conclusion (ha ha) that people generally highly esteem a combination of two things: success and integrity. Worldly success is easy to see; integrity is something people acquire, as reputation is built. Without success, integrity seems to mean little in the eye's of the world's multitudes; without integrity, success is often scorned (albeit often envied too). Regrettably, it also appears that the resultant conformity to the world, at least in terms of buying into the system, the status quo, is such that it is abomination to God. He doesn't respect people like we do. Not a respecter of persons the Bible says. An example springs to mind: I have kind of followed Trent Lott's career for a number of years, actually shook hands with him at an airport and wrote him once to give him my (unsolicited) advice. For whatever reason, I used to have to work not to hate what the man stands for. Not the man. He's quite likeable (naturally, huh? a political being who worships God is the image he has polished). I wonder. (This integrity business is pursued a bit in A Journal Chapter 8 and Chapter 21.) Notice that respect of persons could be the foundation of my premise.
. . . . . Perhaps the basis for this theory is derived from James 4:4 ([I'm skipping the intro since we should be agreed that there is none righteous and I address this on the site:] "Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." 1 John 3:13 ("Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.") might come from John 15:18 (Jesus saying "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.")
. . . . . I don’t know about you, but when I read the Bible I get the distinct impression that Jesus gave a clear message (Another example of saying a lot with a little: The poor we shall always have with us is a saying that appears more than once; "whensoever ye will ye may do them good" only shows up once. The inconsistency seems aimed at drawing attention to it; in context, my fear is that our mission is to do good to all the poor, not by paying a tithe and feeling like we’ve done good [see Matthew 23.23], but by being sacrificial in our giving. Feeding His sheep appears to not indicate spiritual bread. I know The Lord loves obedience and not sacrifice, but anyone who doubts that Jesus loves obedience AND sacrifice should take a quick self-check to see how hard that heart is. [I know Hosea 6:6 (and Jesus referencing it in Matthew 9 & 12) says mercy and not sacrifice, but mercy is defined as "merciful kindness" and "compassion . . . especially active"; we are to have active compassion toward humankind, that is God's idea of mercy. (See 1 John 3:17 ["But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?"] and Mat 22:37-40 ["Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."] for ideas on kindness and compassion. The tithes and sacrifices of those who don't show mercy to others is abomination to God. In other words: mercy and sacrifice is obedience to God's will, because mercy is sacrifice, it's caring about others so much that you want to have less so those [merely, barely] surviving in abject poverty can have more. [This study of the poor might be a good part of the Bible to investigate now.])]).
. . . . . The message is simple: look out for a righteous judgment.
. . . . . Thank you for your time and attention.
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