For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play." We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example [or model or pattern], but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
Clearly Paul reads more into the Old Testament text than the history it records. In saying "the Rock was Christ" he has what is called "spirtualised" the text. Which is all very well because we believe in a God outside time who has orchestrated the Whole Deal so such patterns in history or, indeed, in nature as in "For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse" are to be expected. Which is all very well... up to a point...
It's just that, if you try hard enough, you can read just about anything into a given text. Especially if you are prepared to misuse Greek or Hebrew lexicons, take passages out of context, give questionable significance to numbers or their various factors and other dubious mathematical tricks or read the description of a bloody battle without any thought for the fate of the combatants. The process is nicely caricatured in this site in which a girl Marvel was on her exercise bike praying and listening to inspirational music. At exactly seven p.m.—seven being the number of perfection—God revealed to her, by the spirit, that Jerusalem is Schenectady, New York.
Anyway I think "spiritualise" is a misnomer for this eeking out hidden meaning. I'm suspicious when certain passages are spiritualised whilst others are taken at face value, the choice seeming to me to be somewhat random. I'm even more suspicious when a passage is spiritualised to the dismissing of its face value.
Which brings me onto UFO's. And is the apostrophe correct here? Most people think alien UFO reports are bogus but some folk seriously regard them as fact. The pattern is not so different from things of the "spirit", and anyway does this word describe another plane of existence or just the innermost workings of the human ego? You'd have thought that humans would have things like this sussed by now, but this is not the case. Try Googling "define spirit"!
The point I am making (trying to) is that, instead of becoming more and more sure about what I believe is true as one would expect of a maturing adult, I find myself instead becoming less sure. Many of the the things I was taught as a child and used to accept without hardly a question I now find myself questioning. Don't get me wrong: I want to believe in a God who only wants my good and I daily seek evidence of this. And, true, I have been blessed. To have been born into a society that values freedom of life, born to loving parents, enjoyed an education freely given to me, for my wife and children, for the loving community I am part of...
We humans, funky creatures, each need a reason to live. Otherwise we wilt. Some find their reason in their hobbies - I know someone who makes custom vehicles, another who traipses all over Ireland on hikes, another who spends every spare moment in running or cycling competitions. Others have their belief systems of which some are wackier than others.
The preacher has it fairly well sussed, though not always helpfully, in judging all is vanity. But he does add, somewhat more helpfully: Enjoy life with the wife whom you love and there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil--this is God's gift to man.
Which brings me onto UFO's. And is the apostrophe correct here? Most people think alien UFO reports are bogus but some folk seriously regard them as fact. The pattern is not so different from things of the "spirit", and anyway does this word describe another plane of existence or just the innermost workings of the human ego? You'd have thought that humans would have things like this sussed by now, but this is not the case. Try Googling "define spirit"!
The point I am making (trying to) is that, instead of becoming more and more sure about what I believe is true as one would expect of a maturing adult, I find myself instead becoming less sure. Many of the the things I was taught as a child and used to accept without hardly a question I now find myself questioning. Don't get me wrong: I want to believe in a God who only wants my good and I daily seek evidence of this. And, true, I have been blessed. To have been born into a society that values freedom of life, born to loving parents, enjoyed an education freely given to me, for my wife and children, for the loving community I am part of...
We humans, funky creatures, each need a reason to live. Otherwise we wilt. Some find their reason in their hobbies - I know someone who makes custom vehicles, another who traipses all over Ireland on hikes, another who spends every spare moment in running or cycling competitions. Others have their belief systems of which some are wackier than others.
The preacher has it fairly well sussed, though not always helpfully, in judging all is vanity. But he does add, somewhat more helpfully: Enjoy life with the wife whom you love and there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil--this is God's gift to man.
And finally, just when you thought, hakuna matata style, that was all there was to life, he adds: Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter... fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgement, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
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