.
I have been in houses that were more mausoleum than home. Where I always feel on edge where everything screams “Do Not Relax” … “Do Not Touch (Anything)” … “Do Not Flop (Anywhere)” … A home where the only relaxed human beings are the hosts (so long as I obey the unspoken rules).
Sin now “gets me” the same way. More and more I find that Sin Avoidance is a mausoleum of another’s making.
“None can be saved but by Grace. And don’t touch the bible, young man. And take your feet off the liturgical table. And will you please sit up straight in church!”
Why … ?
How does any of that bring me closer to God? How does any of that bring anyone closer to God? How does a system driven by Sin Avoidance bring “God” to anyone?
How can I relax, how can I flop, how can I be still and know that I am God? How can I love freely – how can I live freely – how can I be who I am born to be: free of fear and fulfilled in my skills, talents, and gifts? Free in my diversity!
“None can be saved but by Grace. And don’t touch the bible, young man. And take your feet off the liturgical table. And will you please sit up straight in church!”
Is no longer my home. It is a mausoleum – another’s rules – another’s need to be something I am not nor will ever be: a Good Christian living in Sin Avoidance.
More and more I see the bible as a great long parable (all of it). The setting and the content have been mashed and arranged so many times – and every time it is for a purpose and reason. That “purpose and reason”, I believe, is to have a certain people believe and behave a certain way about a certain something without straying from that certain belief and behaviour. And there is nothing wrong in that.
Until it becomes this: “None can be saved but by Grace. And don’t touch the bible, young man. And take your feet off the liturgical table. And will you please sit up straight in church!”
When Sin Avoidance becomes stronger than Love Living … when Sin Avoidance becomes stronger than Love Embracing … when “That Is Sin” rules over “That Is Another Human Being” … when all the “unspoken rules” become that is “The Way” …
THAT is Living In Sin (Avoidance)
And you will find anything you need in the bible by taking “a very long parable” as “the literal spoken word” of God. Because the bible supports any belief at all. Very Long Parables allow that – even Very Short Parables invite that – parables always expect each to take from them.
Except we seem to prefer taking Sin and Sin Avoidance. Which is very controlling …
“None can be saved but by Grace. And don’t touch the bible, young man. And take your feet off the liturgical table. And will you please sit up straight in church!”
I have no time for Sin anymore. I look for love and have no time to look for sin. And I have no need to defend where in the bible it says that is okay. The bible says anything I want it to say.
It even says this: “You have heard that it was said … “ Matthew 5 (x 5 – as Jesus picks apart “The Word of God” as written and used then)
Even Jesus used the bible “to support” what he “believed”. So let’s look at what he believed.
and it isn’t a belief in (the lifeless mausoleum of) Sin Avoidance.
.
Just me being curious 
That is a liberating thought. I hate being in homes with glass and crystal. I am always afraid I will break something.
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🙂
And I have been in homes of “glass and crystal” where the hosts have seen them as “items” rather than “valuable possessions”. I love those homes!
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Did JC use the KJV or did he reference the original Aramaic Matthew as suggested by Maurice Casey?
😉
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Don’t you know, have you been told that the good old English of the KJV was the only language Jesus spoke. He used a tardis to move forward and quoted from the KJV as he had dictated it to james 1
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Was this after or before they executed Tyndale, do you think?
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after, jesus used to use him but found it a little too hot to touch, and rather tortuous English.
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Enough, already …. you’re gonna crucify me!
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i’ve got the nails – hello just passing, this page just opened up here.
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“All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.”…..1 Cor 10
28But if someone tells you, “This food was offered to idols,” then do not eat it, for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience— 29the other one’s conscience, I mean, not your own. For why should my freedom be determined by someone else’s conscience? 1Cor. 10:
Love this paul! .. living in sin avoidance, a way I have lived most of my life,..is living in fear of punishment…which is living as if we were still under the law of sin and death. . .
Then the real snake in the grass here is we are doing exactly Jesus came to set us free from… living in bondage of a lie instead of the freedom of grace..
The Lord showed me this. Its like we can’t be arrested because the law no longer applies to us. Because we are the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. We can only truly stand before God in this truth.
“1What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? 3Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
I believe we have been taught perfectionism/legalism disguised as grace.
It is a whole list of …If you do and don’t wrapped up in fear, punishments, and rewards.
Before this faith came, we were held in custody under the Law, locked up until faith should be revealed. 24So the Law became our guardian to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. 26You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Gal 3:23-27
Agree …Mausoleum living is not living and it’s not biblical. It is oppressive, and keeps us from walking in our God given freedoms, power, and authority that could truly help, love, and save the lost.
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“Then the real snake in the grass here is we are doing exactly Jesus came to set us free from… living in bondage of a lie instead of the freedom of grace.”
Sublime! Thank you!! ((hugs))
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Jesus who?
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ben Sirach
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Ah yes; leader of the People’s Front of Judea, if memory serves?
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I like Your memory best since biography puts him as a scholar
“that Ben Sira was a scholar, and a scribe thoroughly versed in the Law, and especially in the “Books of Wisdom.””(wikipedia)
Then there is that law thing again
‘Sirach addresses many issues related to human life including money, relationships, worship, business and even table manners! Its focus is to help the reader know how to live within the covenant, how to be faithful to God even in the small things”( Catholic News Agency)
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Hi both, during my incarceration in Romanism when we/I went to Confession we would spend time pondering whether our deeds truly contravened the 10 Commandments or praise be to God we found a loophole. It was a religion of sin and death to me, especially when unlocking the doors of my closet.
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That word “religion” again.
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Christ … Christianity.
Er … anything else one need explain, Paul?
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The Prison ‘religion”
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