Imperial Valley Christian Center

Faith is a human faculty like sight, or taste…

It's always kind of exciting to have a Biblical insight confirmed by a scholarly type. Here's J.B. Phillips, the translator of, The New Testament in Modern English, comparing faith to one of our human senses. This is from the Chapter 4, The Faith Faculty, of his book, New Testament Christianity.

"As I write these words I am aware of various things through my physical senses ‐ as it happens, at the moment these are chiefly: the light and warmth of sunshine, the beauty of trees in full leaf, the varied songs of birds, and the distant sound of children at play. I am also mentally aware of the truth I am trying to express, and of you, my imaginary reader, following the line of thought I am trying to make clear. Doubtless as you read you are taking in similar sense impressions, as well as having your thoughts guided by the complicated system of marks made upon paper which we call printing. But simultaneously in the immediate world of you the reader and me the writer there are radio programmes of various kinds actually in our rooms with us. The "ether" ‐ for that is the name given to this all‐pervasive but intangible medium ‐ is continually pulsing and vibrating, strongly or feebly, with perhaps a hundred or more near or distant radio transmissions. In common parlance, we frequently say that a certain programme is "on the air"; but that of course is quite inaccurate. Radio transmissions are not vibrations in the air. They would function just as well if there were no air at all, and they make their way, as we all know, with very little hindrance through such things as timber, stone, and concrete. It is only when they meet conductors or partial conductors of electricity that these inaudible, invisible vibrations become minute electric currents, and even then they are undetectable except by that commonplace but quite complicated piece of circuitry known as a radio‐set. In your body, as in my body, there are at this very moment minute electrical currents of which we are quite unaware. They are, in fact, an untuned jumble of electrical vibrations representing the assorted offerings of many radio transmissions. Now, we are unaware of this and normally we take no notice of it. It is only when we want to hear a particular radio programme that we tune in a certain band of these etheric, vibrations, and by means of the radio‐set turn them back into audible sound. For, even if we disapprove of radio, even if we refuse to believe in its all‐pervasive presence, it makes not the slightest difference to the fact. Whether we like it or not, or whether we believe it or not, we are permeated by this mysterious "ether", and that is a fact which can easily be demonstrated. Before the advent of radio less than a century ago, such an idea would have seemed in the highest degree improbable and even impossible. We know today that it is true; that simultaneously with our ordinary‐world sense‐impressions there co‐exists a world of mysterious "ether" of which we only become aware when certain apparatus is used.

Now, this seems to me a most helpful, if simple, analogy. Suppose it is possible that the whole material world, and the whole psychological world, are interpenetrated by what we may call the "spiritual". For some reason or other we are inclined to think of the physical world, and even the demonstrable world of the "ether", as somehow real, while the "spiritual" is regarded as unreal and imaginary. I believe the opposite to be true. As Paul foresaw long ago ‐ "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18). Suppose what we are seeing and measuring and observing are the outward expressions in the time and space set‐up of what is really eternal and spiritual! If we make such a supposition, we are in for a revolution in our whole way of thinking. But New Testament Christians had already experienced this revolution.

To sense the reality of the God‐dimension, to conform to its purpose and order, to perceive its working in and through the visible world system is, speaking broadly, what the Bible calls faith. The heroes of Old Testament days were invariably the men, and in some cases the women, who exercised their faculty of faith even when it appeared to contradict the evidence of their five senses. In those old days, the king, the prophet, the priest, the warrior, sensed intuitively what has today become very largely a missing dimension. There is much in the Old Testament which may strike us as outmoded and even tedious, but its particular genius is to point to and record the actions of those people who were, however dimly, living life with a consciousness of the Eternal Order."

The biggest departure in Christian thinking from the Bible is this idea that somewhere, way up there, are the true, and the good, and the real, and the right, things. That's Greek philosophy not the Bible.

Faith is no more a probabilistic assessment than sight.

Faith isn't a judgment you make after examining the arguments and determining that something is probably true. Any more than sight is a judgment you make after examinig the arguments and determining something is so.

The only people arguing about the probability of something being true are people who cannot see.

Five Clues That Righteousness Doesn't Mean Righteousness.
(Just a little note to myself. Something I'm working on.)

Here's five clues that the word "righteousness" and it's cognates, righteous, justified, justification are being mistranslated in the New Testament.

1. The Jewish people were not keeping the law to attain righteousness in any Christian sense of that word. So when Paul talks about being justified by faith he can't mean what we mean by righteousness. If you want to know what righteousness meant to the Apostle Paul find out why the Jews were keeping the law.

2. The Hebrew word Jesus and his disciples, including Paul, would have used, that we're translating as righteousness, meant, and still means, charity, and when used in reference to God, it meant deliverance, salvation, redemption, blessing, things like that.

3. Righteousness isn't an important theological issue in the Eastern Christian churches. Righteousness is the central issue in Western Christian theology but unimportant in Eastern Christian theology? That should be a clue that something might be amiss.

4. When looked at in context the New Testament scriptures which use righteousness often make more sense when translated with the traditional Jewish translation of righteousness as charity or Godly deliverance. Matthew 6:1, 2 Cor. 9:9-10, Acts 10:2, 35, Galatians 3:8, 1 John 3:10, Romans 1:17.

5. Parallelisms in the New Testament where the words parallel to righteousness and justification often match the Jewish understanding of righteousness.

Bible faith is…

Bible faith is not a mental effort, it is not an act of the will. It is seeing, hearing and knowing, with your spirtual faculties. And it is acting on what your spirit sees and knows though your physical senses, your physical seeing and knowing, contradict your spirit. And it is holding on to your spiritual seeing and knowing and holding on to acting on it, until the answer comes.

That which is coming will come and it will not tarry.

Righteousness is the unobtanium of Hellenized Christian theology.

Rabbi, and Professor of religion and philosophy at the University of Toronto, David Novak  on tzedakah, the word usually translated righteousness in Old and New Testaments:

Now dikaiosyne is the Septuagint’s rendering of the Hebrew tsedaqah.Tsedaqah primarily means what God does graciously for humans. Secondarily, it means the human response to God’s grace. Often that response is an act of imitatio Dei. (David Novak, Talking With Christians: Musings of A Jewish Theologian,  pg. 53)

Little tidbit from something I'm working on in the background about the forgotten triumph of Jesus.

A lot of people interpret Ephesians as being about Jesus reconciling Jews and Gentiles, allowing gentiles to enter the family of God, but the real point is about the triumph of Jesus. Here's a crucial clue to the misunderstanding.

Here's the King James

Ephesians 1:9-10(KJV)
9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

Here it seems like the mystery of his will is to gather together in one all things, the usual interpretation of Ephesians. But now look at this, this is from the 1980s version of the NIV no longer available online, displaced by order of the Publisher, Zondervan, by the newer versions, but still available on my computer Bible:

“9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.” Ephesians 1:9, 10, NIV.

Now read this note from the NET (New English Translation) Bible about translations of verse 10. First here's the translation:

Ephesians 1:9-10
New English Translation (NET)
9 He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ—the things in heaven and the things on earth.

Here's the note:

" 25 tn The precise meaning of the infinitive ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι (anakefalaiwsasqai) in v. 10 is difficult to determine since it was used relatively infrequently in Greek literature and only twice in the NT (here and Rom 13:9). While there have been several suggestions, three deserve mention: (1) “To sum up.” In Rom 13:9, using the same term, the author there says that the law may be “summarized in one command, to love your neighbor as yourself.” The idea then in Eph 1:10 would be that all things in heaven and on earth can be summed up and made sense out of in relation to Christ. (2) “To renew.” If this is the nuance of the verb then all things in heaven and earth, after their plunge into sin and ruin, are renewed by the coming of Christ and his redemption. (3) “To head up.” In this translation the idea is that Christ, in the fullness of the times, has been exalted so as to be appointed as the ruler (i.e., “head”) over all things in heaven and earth (including the church). That this is perhaps the best understanding of the verb is evidenced by the repeated theme of Christ’s exaltation and reign in Ephesians and by the connection to the κεφαλή- (kefalh-) language of 1:22 (cf. Schlier, TDNT 3:682; L&N 63.8; M. Barth, Ephesians [AB 34], 1:89-92; contra A. T. Lincoln, Ephesians [WBC], 32-33)."

 

Ephesians isn't about the gentiles being accepted into the family of God, though Paul does touch on the fact that the Gentiles, he's writing to gentiles, and he's been sent to the Gentiles, need to understand that they too are part of the family. Ephesians is about, Jesus being made head over all things,  Jesus being given all authority in heaven and in earth, being seated at the right hand of power, Jesus becoming Lord, becoming King of Kings, and more specifically the churches part in implementing his reign. That's what Paul is praying the Ephesians will see.

Here's Ephesians 1:10 in a number of English translations. And here it is in some more English translations. (You have to scroll past the Greek versions to get to the English translations.)

The number one thing Christians need to learn is to identify the voice of their spirit, to identify their heart.

Helpful.
Torah doesn't actually mean "law."
"The word "Torah" in Hebrew is derived from the root ירה, which in the hif'il conjugation means "to guide/teach" (cf. Lev 10:11). The meaning of the word is therefore "teaching", "doctrine", or "instruction"; the commonly accepted "law" gives a wrong impression.[6] Other translational contexts in the English language include custom, theory, guidance,[7] or system.[8]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah

The master, George Foot Moore, on the subject:
"Moreover, the word Torah itself does not mean "law," in the juristic sense, but something more like "instruction, direction"; nor is the Torah exclusively or even predominantly legal. The instructions or responses of the priests are Torah; the message of the prophets is Torah; the counsel of the wise is Torah; a Psalmist introduces his review of the great deeds of God, "Give ear, my people, to my Torah"; in the Pentateuch, Genesis is as truly Torah as Leviticus, the story of the Exodus and the wandering, the exhortations of Moses in Deuteronomy, as truly as the strictly legislative parts of the books.
Still less do these various terms for "law" express the content of Torah, which may be concisely defined as revealed religion, with the further weighty implications, first, that the whole Torah is a revelation of religion; second, that all religion is explicitly or implicitly contained in the revelation; and finally, that revealed religion embraces the whole life of the individual and the nation; there' is no partition between secular and religious; righteousness and holiness are the principles of civil and social life as well as of that which we set off as specifically religious, of morals as well as of piety, of ceremonial purity as well as moral integrity."

http://www.adath-shalom.ca/idea_torah.htm

You can see why the Jewish people don't look at Torah as a bad thing, it's life to them, health to their flesh, through it is the way of prosperity, joy, peace and a good life. How could the teaching, guidance and instruction given directly by God to the children of Israel be thought by anyone to be a bad thing?