One of the things I find funniest in KFC's writings (our resident god-botherer, in case you don't know her) is that she thinks she and hers ought to be protected from trials and difficulties because she's saved and knows the Lord.

Really? I've said that Christians, like me, NEVER go thru trials? You should know that I know scripture better than to believe that.

"Beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings that when his glory shall be revealed you may be glad also with exceeding joy. If you be reproached for the name of Christ happy are you, for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you; on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a usybody in other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian let him NOT BE ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf." 1 Peter 4

So while I believe Christians go thru trials and temptations I also believe God protects his own and shows us he's with us. There are many ways we suffer. Sometimes our suffering is because of our own choices in life, plain ol' stupidity and pride. . Other times we suffer as Peter said here because we proclaim the gospel and Christ warned us this would be the price we would pay for following him.

Peter is saying to make sure if we are going to suffer it's for the right thing and not to get caught up in the wrong things that will take us off track and eventually bring us pain and suffering.

Paul's suffering by beatings and imprisonment wasn't because of anything he did anymore than Christ's sufferings on the cross was anything he did wrong. Paul and the other martyrs suffered on account of Christ which is something Christ told us would happen. Many times we read of God's protection in their lives.

You're mixing two things here. You're mixing suffering thru trials and temptations with God's protection and provision for his own. I have, as well as my family been protected and provided for. Absolutely without a doubt. I've also gone thru trials and temptations, some because of my own doing and others by those who mock and ridicule me (like you).

But nowhere have I ever said a Christian doesn't go thru trials whether it's caused by themself or by others.

I am blessed by God. I see God in my life everyday, but it doesn't mean I don't go thru trials and tribulations. I live in a world that offers nothing much more than that.

My wife fears the Lord in the sense that the inhabitants of Moab ought to have. I seek the fear of the Lord in the latter sense, the spirit of counsel and might. And there's no other way to do that except to stand up to the trials and difficulties of life, and by determined will discover the supernatural in the everyday. Which requires trials and difficulties, unfortunately.

I believe that the two types of fear are valid. Yours is the one that makes you behave in a certain way (and suffer if you have to as you said) in order to gain the love of or at least avoid displeasing the one you care about or love. Hers, is the one that recognizes the consequences of the actions which displeases the one she cares about or love. The two usually go hand-in-hand.

If you only have one of the two types, you either taking the one you love for granted or you really dont care or love that one at all and the relationship is imposed on you.

Emp,

I stopped by and found your article quite interesting.

A lot to think about here.

I fear God in the "awe" sense and also in the shaking in my shoes sense.

I simultaneously can't believe God, in all His power and glory cherishes me, while feeling RELIEVED that he does because I don't want to be on the wrong end of His wrath.

 

Really? I've said that Christians, like me, NEVER go thru trials?

I seem to remember something about a child of yours not having his property stolen because he was living such a godly life - unlike the sinful schmucks who shared a house with him but didn't live in the attic.

But no, I can't accuse you of having ever explicitly stated that you haven't had trials and difficulties in your life - but I can accuse you of the kind of specious self-satisfaction that's punctured by, say, the sudden appearance of a bastard grandchild. Which in reality is all I've ever accused you of - other than the fact that you consistently misunderstand scripture, portraying it as nothing more than your own petty prejudices and obsessions writ large.

Are you mocked and ridiculed? Then you should thank me. So was Jesus, apparently.

Other times we suffer as Peter said here because we proclaim the gospel and Christ warned us this would be the price we would pay for following him.

and I will still say, he was being protected. He felt it and I did as well. He was being blessed. What's wrong with that? That's still NOT saying as Christians we are not to have testings and trials.



Thank you for that. That's true.



and this is just nasty and untrue. You can accuse me of everything if you'd like, doesn't make you right.



No, I just pray for you. I know you probably don't want me to and could care less, but it's something I feel led to do. I pray for anyone that God lays on my heart to pray for. I'll admit it's not always easy.

Hi EOIC,

Glad to see you are feeling better...

I will add my 2 cents worth tommorrow....

I enjoyed reading your article. I understand there are two kinds of 'fear of God'.


"Fear of God" is related to the supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity (love).


If a person turns to God becasue he fears to be punished by God, this what St.Thomas Aquinas calls servile fear. Servile fear is found in the person who has faith and hope, but has lost grace and love through sin.

It is good for man becasue it can lead him to repentance and love of God.


But if a person turns to God becasue of a fear of offending God by sin, then it is filial fear, the fear which a son has of offending the father he loves. Filial fear is found in the man in the state of grace and love. Becasue he has love, he fears to offend God whom he loves.

Isaias 11:2 "And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD:"


A Christian understanding of these words of Isaias finds them in reference to the action of the Holy Spirit in souls. The "spirits" that repose in the Messiah are stable gifts through which the Holy Spirit acts.

There are six gifts according to the Hebrew text and the Greek version divides the gift of fear into two----piety and fear of the Lord. Christian theology speaks of their being 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit---wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord. They belong in their fulness to Christ, Son of David.

They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them.

It is filial fear which is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Filial fear really perfects hope by leading man to make certain of his salvation by avoiding sin.

Psalm 110:10 Fear of the Lord is the "beginning of wisdom."

Both servile fear and filial fear are the beginning of wisdom. Servile fear enables man to rule his actions according to the divine law by holding before him the threat of divine punishment.

And filial fear is the beginning or the first step in practice of wisdom since it leads man to fear God and submit himself to the Divine Law.

No doubt, you've heard it said that love casts out fear. When we apply this saying to the love and fear of God it is both partly true and partly false. It is true that the love of God takes away the servility or craveness of servile fear. For the more a man loves God the less he thinks of himself even from the point of view of punishment. And the more he loves God, the more confident he is that he will escape punishment and attain eternal happiness.

But filial fear, the gift of the Holy Spirit, increases as a man's love of GOd increases. For the more a man loves someone the more he fears to offend him or be separated from him. So too, the more a man loves God the more he will fear to offend Him or be separated from Him.

The perfection of hope and fear is found in the First Beatitude: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." When a person submits to God in filial fear, he ceases to seek greatness in himself or in anything else but GOd. As a consequence he no longer sins through vanity or pride in himself or through attachments to the treasures of this world. He is then "poor in spirit". He seeks his happiness only in God. ANd his reward is the reward of hope, "the kingdom of Heaven".

Ahhhhh,

OK, I lied...from the length, that was more than 2 cents worth..  

To: lulapilgrim

OK, I lied...from the length, that was more than 2 cents worth

But a benficent lie, because both interesting and informative - and rather more on topic than KFC's self-obsessed animadversions designed, as always, to turn the topic to her faith in her Lord. Not even I will deny that she's anything but sincere - merely utterly deluded, certain of her own righteousness, and convinced that her personal relationship with the Protestant Chimaera she calls 'Jesus' constitutes theology.

Seperating the fear of the Lord into servile fear and piety is an interesting discrimination, and so far as it goes it is an accurate understanding of a kind of Christian psychology, the 'Hellfire and Damnation' school of Protestantism for example - but piety itself is still a response which has the characteristic Christian quality of bargaining with God for some thing wanted by the bargainer - in this case, salvation. I shall be pious, says the Christian, in the hope of my good reward in Heaven.

I shall suppose that everything related in the dogma and doctrine of the Catholic Church is true. Except one thing. God does not love us. If you knew that God did not love you, what would become of your piety? The Jews know that God will save Israel - but not necessarily any particular Jew, and there are pious believing Jews to this day. It's in this regard that I prefer the religiosity of Jews to the religiosity of Christians. There's something less personally craven in it, and less of the huckster. If your God did not love you, would you still love Him?

No doubt, you've heard it said that love casts out fear. When we apply this saying to the love and fear of God it is both partly true and partly false. It is true that the love of God takes away the servility or craveness of servile fear. For the more a man loves God the less he thinks of himself even from the point of view of punishment. And the more he loves God, the more confident he is that he will escape punishment and attain eternal happiness.

There is a sense in which I agree with you. If you conceive of your God as something which loves you, and which you love in return, then certainly you will wish to avoid seperation from your Beloved. Even in the world of human relationships who wishes to be seperated from the one he loves? But what if the one you love tells you 'I will always love you - but unless you do only what I want and what I tell you I will cut you off from me. I'll still love you - but you will burn in the fires of Hell while I do it." If, through love of the Beloved, you accept this condition then even the sincerest piety is still a form of servility, and a dishonest form at that.

It's more honest to say "I fear to suffer the wrath of God and will do anything to avoid it" than it is to say "I obey God because I love Him" while all the while knowing that you are in as much peril of the wrath of God as the servile man, as much subject to it and as much afraid of it - when the man of piety has the courage to contemplate the question at all.

There is a complete contradiction at the heart of Christianity. On the one hand, we are all sinners subject to the wrath of God because we have all fallen short of the requirements of God (which is straightforward enough and readily understandable by the meanest intellect). And Jesus is the perfect Sacrificial Atonement for those failures. On the other, even those who like KFC find a personal salvation in Jesus, and those who like you accept the role of the Church as the true expression of Jesus in this world (the Church Militant, after the Ascension of Jesus) are still in peril of Hellfire through falling into unrepentant sin.

How can you fall into unrepentant sin when God has decreed, and made real through His offering of Himself in Christ, that the power of sin is broken? If you are saved through an eternal sacrifice how can you become damned? If God wills a universal atonement that renews the Old Adam and makes of him the New adam, how can that will be resisted by the creature so that it falls into a state that God has decreed no longer exists? If that state continues to exist then the sacrifice of Christ is impotent. If it does not, the notion of sin is nonsense - a malicious nonsense, perpetrated to maintain the powerful in their power.

This is the contradiction simply put. Either the sacrifice of Jesus was made at one moment for all time, and all men, and is universal in its efficacy throughout the created Universe. Or it was not, and that sacrifice was a particular act, made on behalf of a particular category of men, an act provisional and conditional in nature because its efficacy applies only so long as that category of persons, those who believe in Jesus, continue in obedience and faith.

If it is a universal act then the category 'sin' no longer exists. Jesus did not save us from 'sins' but from 'sin'. Sin absolute, not the particular acts but the condition of the soul, so that sin is blotted out, no longer a quality of the human soul. If it were not universal but particular, which it must be if those who are 'saved' can also become those who are 'damned', then the entire Passion would be repeated for every act of sin ever committed: past, present, future - and the entire Universe becomes nothing but the body of Christ eternally tortured and eternally screaming.

Which is a wonderfully entertaining thought for a Sadist such as myself, but not, I think, sound theology, since it reduces the quality of an act of God to something conditional in its efficacy, and entirely dependent upon the will of Man.

God does not depend on the power and will of his creation for the efficacy of His acts.

I've wandered rather from my original topic. But your comment was interesting.

Emp,

I see two aspects that you are touching on here.

There is a fear to drive you into the "order" to live in harmony or Shalom with G-D. Outside of this harmony is the wrath of G-D. But once you are inside there is a blessing in living in this harmony which a person could grow to love (implying that fear is the original motivator to move towards order).

Being a Jew I fear the wrath of G-D of living outside the Laws of Torah but inside them I find rest and comfort in the order. To many it seems like I am under legalism and am 'bound' by the Torah.

From my perspective I see them living in utter chaos (disorder) while I am enjoying the blessing of order. Although I do love the Torah and its instructions I continue to have a reverent fear of the Almighty "cutting me off from HIS people" for taking G-D or G-D's instruction irreverently.

Just some thoughts from this feeble mind.

To: Adventure-Dude

There's nothing feeble in what you have to say, and I appreciate you taking the time to say it. Thank you. It's a worthy comment.

Let me tell you a brief story. I once went to one of those sites online where you can find out what religion you are - it's awhile ago and I no longer remember the name. The site asked some insightful questions which I answered as honestly as I could given the range of options presented to me. It turns out that I am, according to this site, 100% orthodox Jew in my beliefs. I am a monotheist (the Lord my God, the Lord is one). I do not believe in a personal saviour. I see God involved in the lives of peoples, not individuals. I believe that Earth, and Heaven, and Hell, will pass away and be no more, and that all things will be renewed in righteousness.

But. If I am a Jew in spirit I am no ordinary Jew. I am one of those referred to as the 'Merkabah Riders'. There is no good thing except God, because all other things are transitory while God remains, steadfast and entirely true - if utterly incomprehensible. Of all the sources of faith there are in the world I remain faithful to that which originally inspired me - the Books of the Old Testament Prophets. In particular, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Habbakuk, Ecclesiastes, to the Psalms of David and the Proverbs of the Wise, and perhaps most important of all, to the Song of Solomon. I am not a Jew, of course. I no more believe in the God of Israel than I do in the God of the Christians, or the God of the Muslims. But I am, and will always remain, one of the people of the Book.

There is a fear to drive you into the "order" to live in harmony or Shalom with G-D. Outside of this harmony is the wrath of G-D. But once you are inside there is a blessing in living in this harmony which a person could grow to love (implying that fear is the original motivator to move towards order).

This is an insightful comment and I welcome it. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of peace, as it is the beginning and end of all wisdom. In my own religious life I find in Ritual that same sense of order, of harmony, that you refer to. And what the Christians of all denominations fail to understand is that the fear of the Lord is simply that. Fear. I fear my God, and rightly so. There is no distinction to be made between 'servile fear' and 'piety' because both alike form the basis of a slave mentality that says 'I will obey - because of what I will receive'. I receive nothing from my God but the certainty of Its existence and the experience of worship that certainty inevitably brings with it.

God is. I am. And what more is there to be said; or what more is there that can be said?

I fear my God in the way that an ant, if it could be made aware of the existence of human beings, would fear them. As something vast, incomprehensible, utterly unpredictable, and utterly powerful. As something capable of shattering my reality for no more reason than a whim.

Years ago, very early in my life as a Christian, I came to that realization without understanding it, and I was filled with terror. But I took comfort in these words:

Psa 91:14 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
Psa 91:15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I [will be] with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
Psa 91:16 With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

Whatever God is, I have set my heart upon It, and upon Its Name I have called. And truly, I have been delivered, and I have been honoured.

Maybe feeble was a poor choice of word. Maybe my ignorant thoughts would be more appropriate as I have learned enough to know that I know so very little and have lots to learn.

From what you have said, you and I may not be much different. I too am person of the book or as I see it: The people of the Covenant. The Covenant of Torah. I do not look towards Rabbinic Judaism nor Christianity for some of the answers as I often find they conflict with what I read in this book. However where we do differ is in the acceptance of the New Testament Messiah. But I'm okay with that.

Until next time I will keep on studying as that is what I enjoy doing.

BTW, have you found a new line of work yet? just curious.

Thanks for the update LW.

To: Adventure-Dude

However where we do differ is in the acceptance of the New Testament Messiah

I think you have misunderstood me, a little. While I was at one time one of those who accepted the 'New Testament Messiah' in the Christian sense, those days are long gone. I no longer have any faith at all in the revelation of the Biblical New Testament. I respect the words of that revelation, in the sense that I respect the words of the Prophetic Tradition, in that they are enabled to elucidate, by the grace of God, our existential condition. But I place no faith in them as determinants of our eternal condition. Jesus is no more my God than is the god of Israel.

In case there is some confusion in the matter let me attest that I have no doubt that the God of Israel, and the God of the Christians, are both alike real spiritual entities. This does not stop me from believing that both alike are spiritual shams, frauds, deceits and lies, (notwithstanding that both alike are real and true) occasioned by the Protean impulse of the human imagination to recreate GOD IN ITS OWN IMAGE. Let me repeat, GOD IN THE FORM OF THE HUMAN IMAGINATION. If You believe you know God, then by definition you know nothing of God, because God in Its fullness is unknowable.

God Is Not What We Imagine Or Believe. God Is Always More. God is more than 'the Christ', or Allah, or Jehovah. God is always more.

Always.

Since you are a Jew, and, I think, a believing Jew, let me tell you the truth. I will to behold the Chariot-Throne. And not merely to behold it but to possess it for myself, and to go beyond it. Because God is more than any tradition teaches, and I will have the fullness of God in my life. The fullness, not the understanding of that fullness. I am the most ignorant man alive. I know nothing of God, save that It is to be worshipped in perfect truth.

God is. I am. What need for more?