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Recommended by Dr. Elbert Joseph
When Cain found himself facing the consequences of the murder of his brother he confessed that he was incapable of bearing his punishment. Like the Hebrew term for guilt and guilt-offering (asham, <v^a**) the idea of bearing (nasa, ac*n*) also designates the relief from bearing the burden of punishment and certain other things. To “forgive” is to “bear” and this is the intent of Christ’s mission: He bore our sins because for us to bear our own sins would be to die without remedy. We have therefore from earliest times an indication that human guilt and punishment find their solution in a divine act.
We are familiar with Alexander Pope’s saying that to forgive is divine, and we think that this means that real forgiveness is patterned after God’s character. Yeshua holds out this pattern of forgiveness from the cross, asking the heavenly Father to forgive the hostile and ignorant. In His instruction on prayer He points to our forgiving one another as a means of assuring of divine acceptance and offer of forgiveness. He says in Matthew 6:14-15 14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: 15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
We must now consider what is meant by forgive in the teaching of the apostles. Again, the teaching of our Lord is vital. In an encounter with Peter who sought to understand the power of forgiveness by asking “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?” our Lord responded “490 times”. The one who is ready to forgive 490 times shows kingdom citizenship: the kingdom of heaven is like a king who readily forgives huge amounts of debt whereas humans are loath to forgive even a tiny amount (Matt. 18:23-35). This truly a high standard to which one does not come easily or with human willpower or natural capacity.
Apostolic instruction exhorts in this direction with Christ as the example. Consider the following examples which show that forgveness is a display of grace. The term chariz’omai (karIDzoma-ee carivzomai) is what Paul uses for forgive. This term is from the charis root, that is the grace family of New Testament words.
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Colossians 3:13
To what extent is forgiveness a matter of memory? We ask this question because we often say to someone who has violated us “Forget it” and we also hear frequently “Forgive and forget”. If the hurt is sufficiently deep one cannot but remember the violation, and it is in recalling the event or events that we are asked to not hold our fellowman liable. In forgiving we are not at liberty to retell the sin against us, but rather to treat the violator as innocent. In forgiving our fellowman we turn away from thoughts of revenge and any desire to exact punishment, for this is what Christ did for us. In forgiving others we appropriate the character of the heavenly Father, and we should especially seek to dismiss any notion that men have to give us an account of their wrongdoing before we can forgive them. It should be enough that they ask and we set them free. Since divine forgiveness brings about reverence or deep respect it is to be expected that human forgiveness also gives birth to a new respect for the one who readily forgives.
Now there forgiveness with You, that You may be revered. (Psalm 130:4, my translation)
CBC news is reporting today on the worsening of the plight of Canada’s Aborioginal people in prison. The fact of life for Aboriginals who want to be Aboriginal is that they live ion a prison called Canada. The worsening of conditions for the First Nations is the legacy of a evil European idea – cross the oceans and play “chosen people” venturing into a “promised land”.
The Americans did it openly with religious fervour and a cruel slave trade, but Canadians have been sugar-coating the oppression of First Nations and have not had the guts to identify publicly that it is the “bad ” in the treatment of First Nations that needs to be addressed, not the alarmist “worse” as in the latest CBC report.
The national broadcaster can do much more. Who will fix the bad in Canada’s treatment of FirstNations?
If you belong to the generation that moved to “soul” music you will be aware that the ideals were mostly healthy celebrations of love and peace and good stewardship. Some soul music had no particular moral or spiritual markers. The Church’s soul music seems to have more spirit and often points to the future. Most of us however live with a view to dealing with today’s issues.
The soul of the Gospel message is the Spirit of God, whose unique intervention in human lives began on the Pentecost Festival. Along with manifestations that were entirely in His control the Risen Messiah, Jesus, gave the unmistakable sign of His baptism in speaking-in-tongues (or with tongues, called simply, glossolalia). As with many other truths there have been interpretations and applications that do not acknowledge the value of glossolalia as a sign of life.
The paths that some have taken lead away from the revealed information. The first path is that at conversion people are baptized into the Church, holding that there is no personal evidence, as in the book of acts; one simply takes it on faith that the baptism has occurred. This path equates the act of baptism by Christ with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
The second path insists on making Paul’s teaching on glossolalia in the Church the canon for understanding the meaning and importance of glossolalia. This view does not acknowledge the two-fold function of tongues in the assembled Church, namely self-edification and edification for all when the utterances are translated. This “in-the-church view tries to make glossolalia a tool for (preaching to) unbelievers.
The occurence of glossolalia in the lives of converts and its appearance in a church service are separate issues.
For example, there were no limits on the person who is being baptized by Jesus, but Paul insists that only three at most should be allowed in the church service. The most glaring sample of sucking the soul out of believers’ lives is discarding the apostolic recognition of Holy Spirit baptism (performed by Jesus) as (1) an individual experience and (2) as evidence that God had given life to the recipients.
Whatever variations of Holy Spirit descent we encounter our response should not include throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Do we need to be afraid of believers who have assurance of Christ’s sealing or are we aiming for followers who depend solely on teaching from the pulpit?
The vitality of a baptizing Jesus has disappeared; gone with the notion that there is no sign of such a momentous and promised occurence; gone with the picture of an end to miraculous gifts (because we now have the Bible). The soul is being sucked out of the lives of believers alongside a rise of demonic activity and the church’s tendency of embracing extra-biblical theories about what it means to come to life, be alive, and die. How much soul do you have left?
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry by Dr. Elbert Joseph.
The real brave and the free spoke loud and clear in the 2012 US election. The incumbent Barack Obama made decent people all over the world proud with a decent and dignified campaign. The notion that a nation can best use a businessman at the helm has been handily defeated. The dream of a theocracy is like Moses, dead. There is great joy that God has dunked the GOP’s unrealistic expectations.
All the polls about a close race should awaken us to the manipulation of news and facts by the big media outlets like FOX and CNN.
Let cooperative government begin!
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry by Dr. Elbert Joseph.
A rash of TV programmes with supernatural themes are grabbing attention. Both the sci-fi and religious worlds are pulling out all the stops to create narratives and discussions that they hope will convince the audience of life after death, long-standing and ongoing contact with extra-terrestrial beings.
I don’t have to wonder why. The practitioners of sorcery, necromancy, and witchcraft are often the religious. In the modern era psychics can be found in most neighbourhoods. The newspapers have several pages of spiritualist advertisements. However, Saul’s visit to the witch of Endor, people consulting the dead instead of the [L]iving in Isaiah’s days, and the insistence of people all over the globe from antiquity to the 21st century that the living can contact the dead, or be contacted by the dead is condemnable as the lie, that humans do not (cannot) die.
Greek mythology, Dante’s inferno and other extra-biblical sources of thanatology are utterly false and contradict the facts and explicit wisdom of the two Testaments of the Christian Bible. When the dead are not really dead and God is not unique and incomparable in the area of life and death we can be sure that the source of these sentiments are the same as that first lie. Demonic doctrines should not dominate Christian beliefs. For an introduction to demonic influences in religious circles please read 1 Timothy 4:1-11
Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry by Dr. Elbert Joseph.
Governor Mitt Romney seems to have forgotten his lines in the third round of the presidential debates. Or was it that he was told to stick to the script? He kept returning to the last four years or just simply four years. Poor Governor. He found himself repeatedly having to agree with the truth – President Barack Obama has done a remarkable job with the economy, foreign affairs and of keeping the country safe. The Republicans can hope and dream, but their candidate is no Sarah Palin, and at least, the shrill and sometime soundbyte duchess from Alaska was able to stir up the crowds with her ignorance. Somewhere in the dark chambers of the GOP someone thought that a busines-person could best speak to the capitalist dream. Governor Romney is a ruthless business-person – they are all expected to be, but he seems to think that he is in the race to be business-person of the year or of the Americas. Not once did the GOP acknowledge that the wars in the Middle East, under two gentlemen of the Bush family, ate up the money the people of the United States had saved. Not once did the governor even refer to the “with us or against us” ultimatum to the world that the Republican party supported, which was such an insult to friends and neighbours who clearly stood with the hurting American people, but who were not willing to shed any blood in response to the World Trade Centre attacks, that the United States is still trying to rebuild its relationships with real friends and some supposed allies.
Who besides American (and the mostly Asian and Canadian) wannabes is convinced that capitalism is what makes the world livable, enjoyable or safe? Who, pray tell, believes that business operatives can be trusted to heal the ills of modern society. It seems to me that the people whom the GOP and ostensibly Governor Romney can call on to create jobs are uncooperative hate-filled and discriminatory patriots, because it remains to be seen whether they are refusing to create jobs while a democrat is in the White House. It is true, some Americans are more equal than others.
Watching Mitt Romney make claims about his capacity to lead the civilized makes some people wish they could get back George Walker Bush. GW did not pretend to be anything. GW did not pretend to know a great deal about anything beyond the state of Texas. This Romney character however is incredibly ignorant of how the lines he’s been given to chant expose the venom that has recently characterized the Republican Party and its offshoot Tea Party.
Everyone knows that the GOP wants to start another war: that is the only way they know how to keep Americans excited about jobs and patriotism. Then when the election rolls around, they will expect all to fall in behind the commander-in-chief, and not rock the ship of state with changes at the top.
The cruelty of the GOP and its game of capitalizing on the ignorance of many Americans is evident when the Governor’s poor record on education, his personal choices for investment, and the claim that Israel has been neglected. I do not see people in the west weeping for the sins of Germany and not for the sins of NATO and ASEAN and all the other alliances that claim priority. Americans had better start getting used to the fact that the Zionist State is nobody’s friend. It has no real friends, but many people call themselves friends of the Jewish State and the Jewish people. Americans will recognize the concerns for civic society in Palestine when the wild animal traits of all the parties are exposed. The GOP and the challenger have made their case quite clear. They want to pretend that they can redistribute wealth and avoid being labelled socialist/communist. Then they have the gall to talk about nation under God. This race for the presidency is at most levels a race for which side of the tracks will control the most of the nation’s wealth. The real race is still about liberty for all and the absolute right to pursue happiness. By the looks of the GOP’s insensitive pitch, looming war, more reckless spending, denial of human rights, slighting women’s reproductive rights, they want the world to forget the sickness of capitalism, the enslavement of Africans, the rape of the American continent, and the shame of having everything for sale.
The land of the free is full of chains and walls. Freedom is a farce when CNN and Fox can pretend to be information-houses while they openly side with the right to be intolerant, striving to be champions of a consistent view of the world, the poor and God.
The only brave in the land seem to be those who want to silence the voice of real freedom. We have seen a few brave individuals who will face and speak the truth about Islam, Zionism, Judaism, and the popular prostitution of Christianity. People can see where Gov. Romney stands: against the first honourable attempt to care medically for all Americans. This, more than anything else, paints the picture of the GOP racing for the cash cow.
I am returning to a familiar theme as the leader of the Ontario Libaral Party and the prepares to move on to other things. This man happens to be the premier of Ontario: has been for ov er 20 years. The premier’s resignation is also happening at a time when the nation’s parliamentary representatives are being called to legislate against bullying. Where were these anti-bulliers when the nations who thought their bigger navies and armies could whip the world into shape? Isnt the world still being whipped in to shape with the warmomgering recommendations of Republicans in the US and Conservatives in Canada?
Where was Canada’s conscience when this nation stood with the tin [sic] alliance which included Australia, the Us and the UK? The gold, silver, brass, and iron of national character have long vanished. What can this nation give up to ensure that no-one in the world get’s bullied ever again? Isn’t that what they are asking.
Give Up
If we can take these actions we will soon see the end of public bullyng!
