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Look at Jesus and you will understand the Word…

Roberto — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:54:57 +0000

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.

Hebrews 1.1-2

“The Word became flesh…”, that being the case, the Incarnation becomes our only and possible hermeneutic key to understand the Word, myself, others and reality. And it is the Spirit who reveals Jesus as the Word and the Word in Jesus.

In reading of the Bible, the great temptation is to make the Scriptures pass as Word. The Scriptures are illuminated as the Word only when those who seek it have, as their sole motivation, an encounter with the Word of God. Or when the God of the Word speaks beforehand, to the heart!

And to conquer such a great temptation, I propose the following practical orientations:

The Bible should be read existentially as having its spirit fullfilled in Christ. He came to fulfill everything. Did he fulfill it? Yes! It is acomplished! But he fulfilled it in a legal-to-the-senses way? No! The proof is that the fulfillment of the Word in Jesus was exactly what the masters of the Law in His days called transgression. Therefore, there is a spirit even in the Law. Jesus fulfilled this spirit, not its materializations!

One should read the “speeches” of Jesus and not only work on (when it is done) the exegesis of the text. Rather, one should ask: what is the meaning of this teaching of Jesus for Jesus? And the answer is only one: see how He dealt with life, with people, with the facts! If we compare one thing to another, we are liberated from the construction of two irreconcilable beings: the Jesus that lived full of love and grace, and the Jesus that taught things that only the authorized interpreters are able to “detect”.

In this way, then, one should never reach a textual interpretation that does not coincide with the behavior and attitude of Jesus in relation to the question, according to the Gospel. I compare everything to the spirit of Jesus, according to the Gospel.

Only in this way is Jesus not made schizophrenic before our senses: what He said, He lived; and what He lived, is what He said.

The Bible is the Book.

The Scripture is the Text.

The Word IS!

“Scripture” without God is only a religious text, open to all sorts of manipulations!

It is only in Grace that the reading of the Bible holds the Word for the human heart. Without the illumination of the Spirit, the Bible is only the most fascinating of all best-sellers.

Caio Fábio

www.caiofabio.net

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Text adapted by Francisco Pacheco

Translation: Joel Costa Jr. (Jota)

Text revision by Thiago Fuschini

Picture credits La Vista Church of Christ

Look at Jesus and you will understand the Word… publicado por: Site cristao

Paul´s unconfessed secret

Roberto — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:07:34 +0000

photo credit: kevindooley

A thorn in the flesh and flesh in the Thorn! What a predicament! Or not?

Paul said he had great visions and spiritual revelations — he was caught up to Paradise and heard what no one hears nor can tell. This, he said, was the reason why God sent a messenger of Satan to torment him so the apostle would not become conceited because of the surpassingly great revelations made to him.

He asked God three times to be rid of that “thorn in the flesh”. The Lord, however, did not remove it; He only told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”.

What was that thorn, after all?

Many have already considered the subject. Paul’s thorn has been thought of as his chronic conjunctivitis, or the Judaizers’ persecution, or the need to work in order to support his ministry, or his troublesome, restless way of life, or his being rejected by the Church in Jerusalem, or a lot of other things…

In the USA, in the early 70’s, and later in Brazil, in the 80’s, Paul’s thorn received a different “diagnosis”.

I read and heard people trying to convince the public of the opposite. At the peak of the Prosperity Theology, when its leaders announced an era where the “rhema faith” would heal everything, and if you were not healed it was because you did not believe, Paul’s thorn stopped being linked to any kinds of diseases or any physical or financial difficulties.

Now Paul could no longer get sick, and he was only in want by choice. He liked it! He had become Friedrich Nietzsche’s superman. Even Nietzsche himself would not believe that Paul had become the Christians’ superman, more powerful than Zarathustra’s superman.

The fact was that Paul was not allowed to get sick anymore. That would be lack of faith. After all, how would he be able to heal if he were sick?

In a world where power belongs to humans, only the totally healthy can pass health on. After all, the gift is not given by grace, but a virtue developed by the superman.

Therefore, the thorn in Paul’s flesh stopped being whatever had been previously related to him and became anything but a physical disease — let alone a psychological or emotional one! —, but it was never precisely identified. It was only known that Paul had “a thorn in the flesh”, but probably it was not that important, since God did not want to take it out…

Even the apostle’s statement that the thorn had a therapeutic end was no longer taken into consideration.

“Would Paul become conceited? No way!” — shouted those holier than Paul.

In this way they kept on removing Paul’s thorn for a single reason: Grace is not sufficient for us, and power is not made perfect in weakness!

Such “grace” is only sufficient as icing for the cake made of our own virtues!

This “grace of ours” does not bring about humbleness and dependence on the Lord, but conceitedness and autonomy from God.

This “power” is only made perfect as statuses credited to the success from the obstinate virtues of the “faith” that gets it all because it “determines” so.

Such “power” creates evil individuals, and such “faith” may even give people the position they want, but it does not place them where God wants them to be.

In order to understand what happened to Paul, we do not need to look into what was “wrong” with him on the outside. Instead, we have to know what happened to him on the inside.

And in order that we know what it was all about, we should just look at and into ourselves. Much of the time we spend looking for historical information about Paul’s “historical thorn” robs us of the time we need for our own journey to the inside, where the phenomenon is repeated, even if it is, outwardly, different from Paul’s.

Let’s look at three principles that we need to understood in order to discern what the apostle is talking about.

1. The polarity principle

Every human virtue — if we can refer to it as what is not innate, but God-given — corresponds to an opposite un-virtuous pole.

In this way, it is the increase of sin that makes grace increase all the more. That is, it is because the licentious woman had given herself over to many false lovers — experiencing her own love need — that she was eventually praised by Jesus, who said that “she loved much”.

So much love!

But what was inside her? The fruit of that very same virtue had once looked like lightness, promiscuity and brazenness — in the sight of spectators like the Pharisee, the owner of that home.

Therefore, whenever you see great virtues, be certain that the exact opposite pole exists in the same person.

That is why great “revelations” are always followed by “messengers of Satan” in order to balance the good within us.
We do not even have enough balance to experience the absolute good.

Nothing absolute can be given to a fallen being.

It corrupts him.

It makes him vicious.

It leads him to fall from grace.

The only absolute that is not corrupted in a fallen world is the Absolute of God’s love.

After all, this is the fallen world. And in it, quite often we are catapulted from the abyss to the highest heavens through grace!

2. The principle of the corruptibility of any weakness-free power

In a fallen world, every power corrupts — let alone unlimited power! Not only the political, economical, intellectual and cultural powers corrupt and become tools for control and rule, but so do the very virtues of the ethic power, moral, holiness and even wisdom — let alone revelation!

That is why, in the Bible, all people who manifested the power of God had to live in weakness.

Without weakness, the power of God creates a devil in the being. It turns the “Guardian Cherubim” into the “Accuser of our Brothers”.

For the good of our own soul, we have to know without being able to carry out all that we have known; discern without being able to reach all that we have discerned; achieve without being able to say that we got there by ourselves.

In a fallen world, this is how it has to be!

3. The principle of the grace that only operates as productive grace in weakness

If grace is not manifested in weakness, it is no grace and there is no grace. Instead, in this case the human virtue and the glory belong to the one who thinks he did it on his own.

In order that grace increases in us, there can never be any doubt about at least two things: First, “this is not from ourselves”; second, “it is not from ourselves so that no one can boast”.
Someone may ask, “Why?”

“Well”, I answer, “because I am as I am and you are as you are!”

Could you imagine yourself as an almighty being and, even so, essentially good?

As soon as a few little achievements start to rise on the most banal horizon — whether they are promotions or revelations —, the person begins to instantly change.

Things get to the point where the person refers to himself as a “third person”, an entity apart of himself — like if I only talked about my likings saying, “Pastor Caio likes this and that” —, and this “third person” starts being treated as the saint of his own “saint”.

That is when I am the saint of myself!

So, power in human hands needs to be exerted along with a thorn in the flesh.
And grace in human life needs to be experienced in weakness.

Otherwise, the self will turn into a devil.

In this way, we learn that we are better off receiving revelations that are accompanied by a messenger of Satan that torments us than only having the possibility of human power and human wisdom without any thorn in the flesh.

And even worse: without having the delight of hearing Jesus say, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

You do not have to find the thorn; it finds you!

You do not have to look for weakness; it exists inside of you!

You do not even have to talk about the subject; it has its own voice!

The key, here, is to accept the fact and never stop seeking to know all the floors of the heaven of heavens, knowing that what lifts you up so high is not your own virtue, but the grace that used your weakness to reveal so much to whom already knows he/she has nothing to boast about in the first place.

Knowing what Paul’s thorn was does not really matter. What matters is to know that it just had to be there.

Caio

(Written on AUG/6/03)

______________________

From the original: “O SEGREDO NÃO CONFESSADO DE PAULO”

Translation: F. R. Castelo Branco | December 2007

www.caiofabio.com

Paul´s unconfessed secret publicado por: Site cristao

Paul speaks to the christians on the internet

Roberto — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:01:20 +0000

If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. But you, man of God, flee from all this.

The existential commandment above is a piece of advice from Paul to Timothy, his son in the faith.

In the 1^st century, around the year 60, many religious fanatics appeared. There were those who would go from town to town looking for Christian heretics, as Paul was seen — in fact, he was “the worst”! —, in order to accuse and disturb them, turning their lives into hell.

There was also a horde of “preachers” who were esoteric, syncretistic witchdoctors and magicians. Some mixed Jesus with the worship of Mitra; others tried to show Jesus as the result of alchemies like those fashioned by the New Era today. They all tried to blend Him with whatever was tasty to the “widest-open senses”. Not to mention the host that came as a wave of “Christian” charlatans who offered to trade the “Gospel” and healing for money.

In the 1^st century, Jesus had become a profitable business for many people already!

Therefore, Paul tells Timothy that they were surrounded by people who taught what they had not understood and used Jesus’ Word as a wrapping for the greedy ideas they themselves thought up. For this reason they were unable to relate the Gospel to godliness. This led them to become conceited, proud people, because their knowledge was only good for selling their performances. But in fact they knew nothing, for those who actually know only know according to truth and love, and, in this way, they know that they do not know. That is why the minds of the ones whose knowledge is not in the heart end up as slaves to fantasy processes. This causes their emotions to be obsessed and delirious, as they dedicate themselves to things linked to fights for superiority. So they are always struggling for an alleged truth found in phrases and words or in a man-made kit of foolish wisdom.

And such a mindset, separated from the truth according to godliness and love, is the wellspring of all envy, fights over power and totally blasphemous arguments over the “truth”. This leads such people to develop malice, hatred and mind corruption, because everyone who has a commitment to superiority in disputes or persuasions no longer has any commitment to the truth. For this reason, their minds, used to treating the Gospel as if it were a “product”, can no longer think about anything related to the “faith” that does not give them some kind of advantage. That can be money, human authority, the ability to influence others, or the power that derives from their fame or their magic or simply their manipulative control.

That was how slanderous campaigns ran rampant against everything and everyone, according to interests, with or without grounds. Besides, Paul’s letters, for instance, as they were deemed true although polemical — according to Peter —, all kinds of people scrutinized them: Some sought truth; others, a “basis for their madness”; others, “recorded heresies” on which they could ground their hatred and campaigns against the apostle and his disciples.

Well, from then on things grew in such proportions that even Paul could never have imagined.

For example, if he accessed the Internet and watched how Christians treat one another, and saw the crowd (a real Legion) of unclean spirits that travel across the web filled with all those things Paul himself had said would happen to those who behaved as he described above, even so he would be taken aback, as things are becoming unimaginably filled with what is anti-Gospel. Worse, they are becoming filled with the diabolical spirit of hatred. And it is not about non-Christians hating Christians, but “Christians” hating Christians.

As for the person who develops the spiritual disease of faith as a way to personal gain, Paul says: He is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

Day after day I have seen a Legion of unclean spirits overflowing with hatred and blasphemy fill the Internet with their talks that are no good at all for the human soul and give no glory at all to the name of Jesus. They only use their emotion and their psychological, emotional and spiritual fixations as a pretext to become increasingly loveless and shameless regarding the Gospel and their neighbor.

Be careful with “email groups” and “chats”. Many people with the bad spirit described by Paul are there. Today this spirit has found the ideal way to express itself with no shyness, because in the “virtual world” the most cowardly become the most daring.

The result, however, is tragic to the soul of those who learn from such spirits!

Day by day I feel the spirits who travel here, in this “environment”. And I have noticed that they get worse with each passing day. I can see, especially among the “Christians”, an increasing spirit of hatred, revenge, persecution and delighting in other people’s misfortunes. Nowadays, the Christians’ worst enemies are Christians.

I read many things — articles, opinions, reflections, studies, etc — and wonder, “Lord, what can this help anyone with? Which profit do they want? Who gains? Who is built up? Who starts loving God more deeply after reading this? What kind of spirit are they of if they love visualizing fire coming down from heaven on other people?”

And the brag? And the bravados? And the canine persecutions? And the almost sexual fixations in the hatred of some? And the dedication of some to living solely for hating you? And the increasing dishonesty of people with themselves that the “virtual life” allows? And the bytes and email prophets? And the snails that disguise themselves as anacondas?

There are too many lies! There are too many devils! There is too much corruption of the heart! There is an ever-increasing Legion!

If you are wise, take care of your own soul, mind and spirit, and do not be corrupted by the spirit of spiritual corruption that has been growing faster than the greenhouse effect.

Take care of your mind. Flee from the minds that are corrupted by lies and the spirit of hatred and greed. Love what is simple as the simplicity of the truth in Jesus.

As practical help, let me offer you a suggestion: set apart at least 1/3 of the time you spend obsessively talking to others on the Internet and start reading the Word; read the New Testament and the Psalms. And pray too. Yes: dedicate this time to discerning God’s voice in the Gospel. In this way, when you access the web again, it will be you yourself, not a character, a fake, a fantasy, a bragger, a neurotic “super-godly” person, a bomb-man, a virtual murderer or an erotically narcotized soul in the tormented religion environments.

The Internet has been a gift of God’s grace for me, and I believe that, in the Lord, I have used it in the best way I can, according to the evolution of my conscience in God and in relation to the times that we have experienced together on the Earth.

However, I would not be honest if I did not warn you about the outbreaks of diseases that the Word had diagnosed in advance, and that spread out as a spiritual plague of irreverence, lack of love, resentment, numbness, cynicism, meanness, vengeance and a lot of ill feelings and hatred.

Think about it. And flee from all this!

In Him,

Caio

OCT/26/07

Manaus, Amazonas

___________________

From the original “PAULO FALA AOS CRISTÃOS NA INTERNET”
Translation: F. R. Castelo Branco | November 2007

www.caiofabio.com

Paul speaks to the christians on the internet publicado por: Site cristao