Luke's Take on the Talents (Luke 19: 11-27)

[unsafe]

What if someone believes in approaching something but doesn't call it "God" (or the equivalent in their language)? I was watching a video last night, which I should post in R&F, about how Swedes have largely abandoned traditional religion but apparently talk a lot about finding connection in nature. So if they get from their experience of nature what others get in church, is that "approaching God" without actually using the word?

My View
You can certainly experience the nature of God by viewing our Physical Nature on this earth ---I agree with this statement -----you need not Go to a Church to see God --you see God in all nature -----and God says in His Word that there is no excuse for anyone not to know that God exists -----

if one does not care about where they might reside in there end --that is in the dark -then ---viewing Nature can give you a view that there must be a higher power who created all of this but it won't help you see the light ---only God's faith can do that

If one does care about where they might reside in their end -----then ----they have to use the Word as the Word who is Jesus inbirths the Right Fain in the Person to be in the light which dispels the darkness ---

So we have free will to choose ------

 

[paradox3]

Perhaps, but devaluing their love of neighbour because they don't love God is equally so and I suspect certain people would do exactly that. Perhaps that is why GRR argued as he did.

Sure that makes sense. But did anyone on this thread mention devaluing love of neighbor?

 

[paradox3]

We are straying a bit from the BPoTW topic. OTOH maybe this is a parable doing its job.

 

[Mendalla]

Sure that makes sense. But did anyone on this thread mention devaluing love of neighbor?

I was just commenting on your post, not responding to anyone in particular.

 

[Mystic]

That God seems too small for the creation that amazes me.

A God that has purposes like expressing love is too small for Rev. Jim, a UCCan minister.
I wonder if his congregations know Jim rejects Jesus' claim that God loves us.
No wonder young people are jumping out of the windows to flee the United Church of Canada~

 

[jimkenney12]

Mystic, I wonder if you have any real idea about how incredibly great and awesome God's love is. The One in whom I believe has s love that is boundless. You are the one who keeps trying to put boundaries on God's love, making it commercial or transactional instead of endlessly flowing forth. I do not need my children to do anything for me. I do want them to have good lives and hearts that love generously and boldly, but I cannot command them to do any if that and would not want them to do it just for me.

 

[Mendalla]

No wonder young people are jumping out of the windows to flee the United Church of Canada

In a world where a God of love rules, denomination and even religion should be irrelevant. We should be offering Love to all. Being alive should be all that matters.

 

[jimkenney12]

Neale Donald Walsh wrote something similar to the following in his book, Conversations with God. When you take your children to a playground, do you care on which playground equipment they play or do you just want them to play?

 

[Mystic]

Mystic, I wonder if you have any real idea about how incredibly great and awesome God's love is. The One in whom I believe has s love that is boundless. You are the one who keeps trying to put boundaries on God's love, making it commercial or transactional instead of endlessly flowing forth. I do not need my children to do anything for me. I do want them to have good lives and hearts that love generously and boldly, but I cannot command them to do any if that and would not want them to do it just for me.

Now you're contradicting yourself: you just said that a god with purposes and wants is too small.
Yet you cite Neale Donald Walsh who actually claims God dictated his books on "Conversations with God."

 

[unsafe]

When you take your children to a playground, do you care on which playground equipment they play or do you just want them to play?

Well jimkenney12 ----I would think that the parent would definitely care what playground equipment their child is playing on ---as if the child accesses a piece of play equipment that they cannot handle at their age or strength -----they could be seriously injured ---so your statement here seems foolish to me -----you want them to play but play safe and understand that they just play on what they can handle ---

 

[jimkenney12]

Now you're contradicting yourself: you just said that a god with purposes and wants is too small.
Yet you cite Neale Donald Walsh who actually claims God dictated his books on "Conversations with God."

I wrote that your God seems too small. The wants and purposes you name are small wants and small purposes. I choose to believe that a purpose of the Holy Mystery is to grow the world to a place of creative, constructive, and complex of interdependent relationships in which all people have enough to fill our material, social, emotional, physical, and spiritual needs. It will be a dynamic shalom with cooperation and competition, continually evolving, and exploring the limits of our creative potential. Among other things, Jesus pointed in the direction we will be going as a species, even if we take many detours along the way. There are many fine trees in your forest. I do not believe you see the forest as a whole.

 

[BetteTheRed]

Well jimkenney12 ----I would think that the parent would definitely care what playground equipment their child is playing on ---as if the child accesses a piece of play equipment that they cannot handle at their age or strength -----they could be seriously injured -

In many cultures, approaches to childhood vary. In many, some bad experiences lead to some good information. Some of my childhood playground equipment taught us such things as controlling nausea, not getting fingers pinched, and occasionally, not breaking arms. We also climbed many feet into trees, and biked for miles without helmets. We were, generally, fitter, and more resilient, than current children. We also had no screens. 3 channels on a black and white tv, if you were lucky. Radio was bigger.

 

[jimkenney12]

Well jimkenney12 ----I would think that the parent would definitely care what playground equipment their child is playing on ---as if the child accesses a piece of play equipment that they cannot handle at their age or strength -----they could be seriously injured ---so your statement here seems foolish to me -----you want them to play but play safe and understand that they just play on what they can handle ---

A wise parent explains assessing risks to their children and lets them decide what feels safe to them, explaining potential risks of some equipment if appropriate. Experience provided by thousands of organizations through free play shows that children become very good at making their own risk assessments. God seems to be this kind of parent with us.

 

[Mystic]

I wrote that your God seems too small.

Wow, you like to put words in people's mouths! iust made the general comment that God has purposes that He wants (= wills) to be fulfilled.

The wants and purposes you name are small wants and small purposes.

And what wants and purposes did I identify?

I choose to believe that a purpose of the Holy Mystery is to grow the world to a place of creative, constructive, and complex of interdependent relationships in which all people have enough to fill our material, social, emotional, physical, and spiritual needs.

Translation: You feel entitled to invent a God of personal biases without regard to biblical grounding.
So how do you integrate these 3 sayings into your kumbayah Jesus?
"Whoever is not with me is against me (Matthew 12:20)."
"Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me (Matthew 10:37)."
"Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division (Luke 12:49)!"

I do not believe you see the forest as a whole.

Duh, Then why am I a universalist?

 

[jimkenney12]

I look at historical trends and look towards where those trends point. I assume that the Holy Mystery is responsible for those trends. I assume that, if the Holy Mystery is patient enough to take billions of years to get this planet to this point, over a million years to develop the human race, and hundreds of thousands of years to develop our society to where it is now, that we have hundreds or thousands of years yet to reach whatever is intended for us.

 

[BetteTheRed]

that we have hundreds or thousands of years yet to reach whatever is intended for us.

Which might be the 'kin'-dom. Shalom.

 

[Luce NDs]

Give a mortal power and will they use God in vengeance for the good of all or for contained purposes? It is better if the greater portion doesn't know what the vengeful one is up to ... and an open mouth will fill with something ... profane? Maybe just simple avarice of a control freak????

Well accordingly; to considerations of where they came from in the cycle of rationalization, if they didn't go overboard with the sharing of power so as to burn the neighbor ... thus the heavens are full of sparks!

Do controllers take onus for what they directed in Eire? Ayres are said not to have done that ... they as just Jah 'z men ... and are not up on awareness and sentient matters ... maybe way over their head into unknowns?

Thus always mores to look intuit!

 

[paradox3]

Which might be the 'kin'-dom. Shalom.

This is a very appealing idea. But the Jesus we see in the Gospels believed we needed an apocalypse to get there.

And if the parable of the minas is talking about the Second Coming (which it seems to be) Jesus didn't anticipate it would be pretty.

 

[Mendalla]

that we have hundreds or thousands of years yet to reach whatever is intended for us

Assuming some kind of open/relational theology, God can only lead us there. If we eff up, that's on us, and it seems we are doing better at that than at following the leader right now.

But the Jesus we see in the Gospels believed we needed an apocalypse to get there.

And did that mean he/God would actually be coming down in glory, or simply him recognizing that only a wholesale remake of the world he knew would bring about such a kingdom? That a certain amount of chaos would be necessary to get there? Get rid of the Romans, get rid of the corrupt priesthood and leadership (e.g. the Herodian dynasty), put God's Word first. Which was not unique to Jesus. The Essenes were teaching similar things, which is why they had their own priesthood at Qumran. They felt the Temple and its leadership were corrupt and needed cleansing.

To some degree it did happen, too, with the events of 70CE (and again in 132 with the Bar Kokhba Revolt) and I think the Gospel writers did retrospectively insert some of that experience into the narrative, too. Unfortunately, it only got rid of the corrupt leadership and also got rid of some Jewish reformist movements like the Essenes. The Romans remained very much in control. OTOH, it did open the door for Christianity, which had already spread beyond the Jews and beyond Judaea, which one could argue from a certain point of view represents the beginning of the Kingdom.

Subsequent history makes me less sure of that.

 

[jimkenney12]

Hate dies a messy death. Look at the backlash against women's rights happening in many places.