A form of godliness

[Slumberfreeze]

But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good, traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!

These verses have given me some pause with the inclusion of the italicized part. Paul describes men who are devoid of every good impulse and virtue, and describes them as having a form of godliness. On the one hand I suppose a garden variety of Pharisee might fit the bill quite nicely, but on the other hand Pharisees and religious hypocrites have been with us from the beginning, so last days doesn't seem descriptive of them for me.

My thought is that there are a small number of things that approach godliness, by virtue of being things a godly man might do when motivated by Christian charity. Christian love demands that women be given honor as weaker vessels as heirs together of the gift of life. While the law does not condemn slavery, a Christian man must treat his slaves well, may even release them, particularly if his slave happens to become a christian. A christian man should be charitable to the poor and to the alien. A christian man must give no preference to a rich man over a poor brother, and must suspend judgment of others in many cases until the Judgment seat of Christ.

In these days which I hold to be the last:

The high notion of Creator endowed Equality has given complete way to Equality without need for a Creator. Slavery is a crime! You don't treat your wife well out of 'Agape' but as a co-equal citizen. The poor are to be helped, but at the expense of the rich through taxation and social programs, not out of one's own wealth or one's own volition. The alien isn't an alien, he is a citizen of the world, to be given the same rights to aid that the poor are entitled to. Judgment isn't suspended in the hopes that a man may change his bad behavior, but because one is prohibited from calling any behavior bad in the first place.

A modern man can seem to be the greatest proponent of tolerance, that a first century Christian might call 'enlightened' precisely because of his total lack of values, standards, or biblical worldview.

But the idea of healing a lame man in the name of Christ Jesus to him is both impossible and odious.

 

[aineo]

Wow, Slumberfreeze, I think you have just spurred on my study for the week.

 

[Shibboleth]

There's a lot of good here to digest, and a lot that parallels my own thinking of late.

The high notion of Creator endowed Equality has given complete way to Equality without need for a Creator.

I'd like to add a slightly reworded example of this: The high notion of Savior-provided Freedom has given complete way to "Freedom!" without need for a Savior.


I believe man, due to having God's image, is driven to seek Godly attributes, but is incapable of finding them on his own, which Satan then uses to mock those attributes. Consider the following view of the history of the west:

During the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, man sought Truth, through the institutes of Religion and Philosophy. But instead of honeing in on a single actual Truth, we splintered into chaotic mess of various competing religions and philosophies. The end result of which was to denounce Religion, and the very concept of Truth, ultimately leading to Moral Relativism, and Post-Modernism.

Slightly afterwards, man sought Peace, through the institute of the State and Military. But instead of creating a beneficent system that protects people, we balkanized into a mess of competing militarized states, frequently at war. The end result was to denounce States (and by proxy, temporal Peace), through doctrines such as Globalism, the rejection of Nationalism, the U.N., perpetual Cold Wars and proxy states, Mutually Assured Destruction, wimpy Pacifism, and open-border policies.

More recently, man has been seeking Justice, through the institutes of the Law and Economic Policy. But instead of creating a just system, we have once again split up into disagreeing factions, arguing over what laws are just, and creating the opposing economic systems of Capitalism and Communism, that are both corrupt. We're now starting to see the result of this, which is a rejection of the institute of Law, in favor of mobs of social "justice" warriors, and groups like antifa promoting anarchy, online censorship that oversteps legal boundaries, online campaigns designed to shame people or groups who disagree with the masses, or even defenders of liberty and free speech pushing back, just to see how far they can go. This anarchy is currently on the rise across society, and the ultimate end will be the revealing of the Man of Lawlessness, which all the world will worship.

I actually noticed this pattern one day while meditating on the "four horsemen" of Revelation, and wondering whether they might have been riding throughout history. In this case you'd interpret the white, red, and black horses as being successive global zeitgeists -- conquering/colonizing the world in the name of truth, bringing war to the earth (WWI/WWII), and creating/manipulating the global economy leading (soon) to a crash. That would be followed, of course, with the fourth horseman, being the antichrist's global system. I wouldn't say that I hold this historical-perspective view to be the correct interpretation of that passage, but I like playing around with alternative ideas, especially in eschatology, and it was an interesting thought experiment. However, on further reflection, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I cribbed these points straight out of 1984 (Ignorance is Strength, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery).

 

[Jim an Apostle]

I once said that "Goodness is evil." More precisely, 'Goodness without God' and 'Godliness' is evil because it lulls one into thinking that God is not necessary, and that 'Goodness' is enough. People become deceived into thinking that having 'good kids' is the goal. WRONG! We are called to raise Godly kids. We are called to be Godly people, not just 'Good' people.

 

[IshChayil]

But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good, traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!
.

This made me think of New Age types (hippies)