Showing posts with label I Corinthians 10. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I Corinthians 10. Show all posts

Monday, February 26, 2024

Going to the Lord's Supper in any American church involves the high likelihood of dining with demons, including in the LCMS

 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. 

-- I Corinthians 10:21

 


Saturday, July 8, 2023

Italian disciple of The Limits to Growth and peak oil completely unaware of a Roman citizen who envisioned the collapse of the Empire

 Ugo Bardi, professor of physical chemistry at the University of Florence, here, in September 2009:

 I think it is enough to say that the Romans did not really understand what was happening to their Empire, except in terms of military setbacks that they always saw as temporary. ... it gives us an idea of what it is like living a collapse “from the inside”. Most people just don’t see it happening ... we can’t rule out that at some moment at the time of the Roman Empire there was something like a “Roman ASPO”, maybe “ASPE,” the “association for the study of peak empire”. If it ever existed, it left no trace.

Ugo Bardi admits he's no historian, but one would like to think that a contemporary Italian would remember with pride the most famous Roman citizen of Italy's Christian past.

Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come.  

-- I Corinthians 10:11

Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:  But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 

-- Galatians 4:3ff.

For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 

-- Ephesians 1:9f.

Saturday, July 30, 2022

Nothing belongs to Caesar: The idea that Jesus believed anything else is preposterous

Tiberius

The earth is the Lord's.

-- Exodus 9:29

For all the earth is mine.

-- Exodus 19:5

Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD'S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.

-- Deuteronomy 10:14

The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

-- Psalm 24:1

For the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.

-- I Corinthians 10:26, 28

For all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine.

-- I Chronicles 29:11

The day is thine, the night also is thine.

-- Psalm 74:16 

The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine

-- Psalm 89:11

Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest?

-- Isaiah 66:1

Sunday, March 21, 2021

Paul's ideas of imitation, from which we get Imitatio Christi, are quite contrary to the teaching and intent of Jesus


Paul's idea of imitation is a repudiation of Jesus' radical ideas of eschatological repentance, which involved flight from traditional social conventions in order to escape the imminently coming judgment. In point of fact Jesus' idea left nothing positive to imitate. This is why Schweitzer could speak of Jesus' ethic as a negation of ethics.

Paul's "way" on the other hand was a rationalization of those conventions after the failure of the eschaton and the impending failure of the parousia. Instead of rejecting traditional social roles he simply accepted them and invested them with new meaning.

For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. Therefore I sent to you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.

-- I Corinthians 4:15ff. (RSV)

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit;

-- I Thessalonians 1:6 (RSV)

As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children,

-- I Thessalonians 2:11

Paul is, in fact, all over the map on this, spilling a lot of ink on the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as fathers even though he knows we have but one father, God. He seems completely ignorant of the teaching of Jesus, which rejected all human fathers in favor of the fatherhood of God. Paul notably also does not use the language of "following" as found in the gospels ("come after me", "follow me"). Instead he speaks of mimesis, which in its turn is foreign to the gospels.

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, 

-- Romans 4:16

And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; 

-- Romans 9:10

As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.

-- Romans 11:28

... all our fathers were under the cloud ...

-- I Corinthians 10:1

But ye know the proof of him [Timothy], that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel.

-- Philippians 2:22

The whole thing degenerates into the familial as the pressure of the delay of the parousia re-invigorates traditional human social roles:

Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.

-- I Timothy 1:2

Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren;

-- I Timothy 5:1

To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

-- II Timothy 1:2

To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.

-- Titus 1:4

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And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.

-- Matthew 23:9

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Paul imagines many brethren, but Jesus only a chosen few

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

-- Romans 5:19

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

-- Romans 8:29

Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the [profit] of many, that they may be saved.

-- 1 Corinthians 10:33



And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.

-- Mark 13:20

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

-- Matthew 7:14

So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

-- Matthew 20:16