Re: Becoming "one".
More stuff like this please
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More stuff like this please
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Becoming "one".
- Thread starter steve
- Start date
I have always loved the study of anatomy. I always found it interesting there is a pocket the semen is held in below the cervix when on her back.
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Re: Becoming "one".
That explains a lot. Thank you.
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That explains a lot. Thank you.
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Steve, I think this only shows that "becoming one" has far more implications than you anticipated, which only strengthens your original point that we shouldn't just think of it as just referring to a single physical act. And I'm finding that thought-provoking.
Eristhophanes
Member
steve said:
I understand what you're saying Steve, but the spiritual joining by God that is the becoming of one flesh in marriage is an area of great contention based on almost zero knowledge. To use just one example of the areas into which this can go, it can take one into a study of covenants to learn about covenant marriage, which is mentioned exactly once in Scripture, in Malachai 2:14. That gets murky quick because a thorough study of Scripture doesn't yield a lot of meat to chew on and it's even worse than it seems because the Bible was written for a high-context society and there isn't a lot of agreement on what some of that context should be. There is a lot of room for eisegesis and history shows that happens all the time for reasons that range from personal belief and desire to political pressure on the church.
I'm reminded of the vicious arguments about communion that formed a part of the Protestant Reformation and can remember from years ago wondering how on earth anybody could get that anal about it. Then I got a taste of it myself WRT covenant marriage, which is a similar situation.
One of the great lies of our time is "it's just sex, just a bodily function, not a big deal at all."
For a long time Christians could only point to Scripture, which made objections to that lie part of a religious belief dating back thousands of years to nomadic tribesmen... yada, yada, yada.
To deal with that, from experience I like to point to the physical aspects of the microbiome and genetics that are involved in becoming one body (sex), which points to the fact that 20 years ago we didn't have this knowledge. 50 years ago, anyone making claims that can easily be proven today would have been called a liar, a quack and worse; but the fact is we're still just scatter-shotting our studies, trying to find patterns. The point of bringing that up is with all we now know about the physical side of things, all it does is point to how much more we don't know. The fact is, we know next to nothing about the spiritual side of marriage and given that we don't have any way of gathering data this can quickly get into an area of speculation in which people get *very* uncomfortable, threatened and angry.
Many years ago I read an extremely challenging book by Charles Kraft called "Christianity With Power." One of the major issues the book took on was that our worldview is shaped by the "scientific" western worldview that came about because of "the enlightenment" in which God was put on a shelf and science enthroned. I can actually lay claim to the title of scientist and I can tell you that a lot of today's so-called "science" is utter BS. In the hard science fields it isn't nearly as bad if the research is actually done correctly, but these days a lot of "science" requires almost as much faith as religion. Anyway, I digress. The point is the people of today don't have the worldview that Jesus had and that's a real problem in trying to understand what the Bible says and means. I'll excerpt a bit from the chapter about "what we know"
One of the fastest ways to get Christians to either run for cover or come out fighting is to discuss power encounters or healing, but anything charismatic causes discomfort and that works both ways. All one needs to see is an argument over speaking in tongues between charismatics and non-charismatics to understand. And really, speaking in tongues is pretty benign, it's the significance placed on it that is the result of the disagreements. "Oh, you're a Christian? Have you received the Holy Spirit, as evidenced by speaking in tongues?" Total polarization.
Look what happens when you take authority in the name of Jesus over spirits of any kind. Even something as simple as perceiving someone is afflicted with a demon of fear and saying "Demon, I command you to leave" can permanently damage friendships and among many Christians it's a sign you just stepped over the line into wacky kookland. And what if your conscience isn't clear? I heard one story in particular of people who got into a power encounter and the demons laughed at them and called them out on their unconfessed sin, describing it in detail. I didn't witness it, but that isn't the kind of story people tell in order to make themselves look good to others. The point is that power encounters tend to blow the minds of modern Christians and we don't know the rules or even if there are any.
But, it gets worse. Speaking in authority and commanding someone be healed offers the chance to have God refuse and one looks like a fool when nothing happens- even though that means nothing, because perhaps your faith wasn't strong enough, perhaps the injured person didn't have faith, or perhaps God did not want it to happen for His reasons. But failure isn't that bad, it's just a matter of throwing your ego on the altar. Perhaps worse than looking like a fool (depending on your perspective) is for God to choose to act and heal that person. I'm not talking about the TV-style "line them up for the cameras" stuff, I'm talking about trauma cases where somebody just got injured and someone else commanded they be healed and they were. On two occasions I have observed people healed on the spot of trauma injuries and in both cases it literally blew the minds of almost all present. And then reports didn't get filed and people shut up and refused to talk about it except with other people who were there and I observed over a period of time as most of them convinced themselves that what they saw with their own eyes didn't happen.
Even worse, on the side of the folks who know it's real, somebody always wants to explain what happened. The problem is that we don't even know *what* happened, we only know what the result was (and with becoming one flesh, we can't even say what that is because we don't know). We can say that what happened was supernatural because it was completely outside normal parameters of life... except that is an assumption too. Remember Clarke's Third Law:
Why can angels appear and disappear at will? Is it because they're supernatural creatures or is it because they are creatures who understand our universe a lot better than we do and have the ability to manipulate it? What if God (that's God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit) is the only one that's supernatural and all of His creation is not, the difference being that some (angels, demons) have a far greater understanding of our universe and the ability to manipulate it? Mankind was made a little lower than angels, so in what way are they a little higher?
The most honest answer is that we don't know the answer to these questions and probably never will. At least not in this life.
Now, when we look at how "divisive" and "contentious" the issue of demons and healing are and the amount of Scripture that deals with that (quite a bit of it) and then compare it to the idea of just covenant marriage and the paucity of Scripture concerning that, we get an idea of how bad this can be and how bad it can get. Because where we have a lack of information someone always wants to step in and claim they have the answer. Especially if there is money to be made. My personal opinion is that as Christians we shouldn't try to explain things when God didn't give us enough information to do so unless we have the capacity to get good data ourselves. I've actually got a great example of that, but it will have to be a post all its own. That's coming.
Paul compared the becoming a member of the body of Christ with the marital becoming one flesh (which is the spiritual joining by God) and said it was a great mystery (textually, he referred to both in describing them as a great mystery but stated he was speaking specifically of becoming a member of the body of Christ). So perhaps one of the things we need to be able to accept is that we may not ever know what the Spiritual issues involved with becoming one flesh actually are. At least not in this lifetime.
What we can do is be obedient to the instruction we have been given. Now, if we could just agree on what that actually is...
I think Steve's point is not so much that there is a mystical spiritual unity that we can actually study (which you are correct that we can know little about), but rather than we should be behaving in spiritual unity. We should set a goal of being one in all matters, most critically spiritually, and work towards that in unity. The unity that the church has is evidenced in the unity between husband and wife.
Having said that, I do agree with you entirely that the more we learn about science, the more it confirms things the Bible has said all along. This is certainly being blown out of the water:
Having said that, I do agree with you entirely that the more we learn about science, the more it confirms things the Bible has said all along. This is certainly being blown out of the water:
And at the same time that much of what is labelled "science" today is nonsense that is given that label simply to make it sound more reputable because someone has something to sell (global warming for instance...). While real science is ignored so people can keep on promoting their pet agendas (e.g. homosexuality). You have to be extremely discerning.
Yes, Samuel.
I think that, for the most part, unity is not valued today.
If we have no real goal of unity, we will not have much of it other than by accident. I want to at least get the point across that unity was stated as a goal by Yahushua. The best way to fail to reach a goal is to not have one in the first place.
I think that, for the most part, unity is not valued today.
If we have no real goal of unity, we will not have much of it other than by accident. I want to at least get the point across that unity was stated as a goal by Yahushua. The best way to fail to reach a goal is to not have one in the first place.
Eristhophanes
Member
FollowingHim said:
How would you define being "one in all matters" in either marriage or the church? That devolves instantly into the issues of authority, obedience to proper authority, spheres of authority and how opinions on things in which (due to lack of knowledge) we don't really know what we're talking about might be handled. I have been in churches in which "unity" meant absolute obedience to the leaders, reasonable questions were viewed as challenges to their authority and the idea of freedom in Christ was interpreted as "freedom to obey me, your leader."
I seriously question whether being "one in all matters" is a good thing and don't think it's the same thing as unity. Even saying "one in all matters important" leaves the question of what is important up in the air as well as the question of how the issue is decided.
Steve said:
The adoption of various creeds was the result of striving for unity of belief in important things while leaving the rest of the "arguable" issues aside, but it is extremely difficult to get a large group of people together with enough maturity to "agree to disagree" on certain points. Case in point, polygyny. That probably encapsulates the way people react emotionally and cling to any objection no matter how ridiculous in order to support their position.
FollowingHim said:
In order to be discerning there has to be a standard, which at times can be murky if one is using the Bible as the standard. I have been rather pleased with the performance of creationists in recent years because it's reached the point that evolutionists simply will not debate them any longer. The problem, in this case, isn't so much one of being discerning but in what we rely upon in being discerning and understanding the context of what we know- which isn't easy. You'll think that I'm about to go off-topic, but hang in there because I'm not.
https://youtu.be/pe6DN1OoxjE This link is to a video titled "Everything You Know Is Wrong" and the subject is human origins, presented by the late Lloyd Pye. It's almost 2 hours of time that's very well spent, especially if you have children. I should note that Lloyd held some beliefs that are (in my opinion) completely crazy, in terms of believing that we were created by an alien race for a purpose, to be slaves. However, if one simply replaces [alien race] with "God" and [to be slaves] with "to worship Him" then we are in complete agreement on human origins.
The point is that he, an atheist, completely destroys the arguments of human evolution with real evidence that's been ignored and actively suppressed. In other words, you won't hear a creationist bringing this stuff up because it's not conventional. It's not conventional because this is an area in which science has failed us and the so-called scientist covered up information that discredited their beliefs in evolution. There is tremendous value in the information presented, but the evidence of how all that information has been suppressed because it did not fit the worldview of those in charge is, in my opinion, the real value. Yes, Virginia, there do be conspiracies.
https://youtu.be/mZKujLakbys This link is to a video titled "Everything You Know About Success In Life Is Wrong" by John Taylor Gatto. He wrote the (must read) book "The Underground History of American Education" and his credentials in the area of education are stellar. If one can ignore the annoying echo for an hour and forty-five minutes to listen to this speech from 2008, it is very worthwhile. I believe Gatto is a Catholic (which doesn't mean he is a Christian) but he certainly isn't an atheist like Pye. I'll refrain from commenting further on the video except to say that I strongly recommend it.
Back when my family got started homeschooling, there were a number of internet sites devoted to homeschooling and one of the early rules adopted was that the Robinson Curriculum could not be mentioned except in a certain segment of the site because of the inevitable flame-wars that occurred over the subject. This piqued my curiosity. Why would a homeschool curriculum cause so much contention?
http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/
The answer is in what it actually is and the philosophy behind it. The story is tragic, the outcome is marvelous and the methodology is contentious to say the least. On the left sidebar of their website is "The Robinson Story" and "The Independent Learner" provides the philosophy. Well worth reading for anyone of any age because the day you quit learning you begin to die, and the philosophy presented is well worth adopting.
Now, why would anyone care how you educate your children? That's a serious question. Arguments can be made about the need for an educated society and such, but in digging to see why there was so much contention over this I came to the conclusion that the real issue had far more to do with morality conflicting with belief. We all want to do what is right by our kids and give them the best possible education. In fact, that's one of the central arguments for homeschooling, that we can give them a far superior education.
Along comes Robinson and essentially says "This is the best way to do it" and makes a very credible argument and backs it up with plenty of hard evidence. However, in order to come to grips with what Robinson is saying, it practically forces one to come to grips with the central thesis of Gatto, that the public education system was set up, by design and intention to dumb down the children and prevent their full development. To make matters worse, Gatto does a workmanlike job making his case and his position as a professional educator gives him the credibility to make it. And because a lot of people cannot accept that ("I was dumbed down? Not me!"), they reject it and fight against it. It's the same thing on a smaller scale that homeschooling is to people who have their kids in public or private schools. The parents who don't homeschool can't handle the idea they are doing their children a disservice so they reject the idea of homeschooling because they can't take the guilt of admitting they either did something wrong or could have done better.
We see the same thing in the church. There are points at which you can point to what the Bible says and it means nothing because that's contrary to what they were always taught. And the reason they were taught something different was because at one point people didn't like what Scripture said and somebody saw an opportunity to creatively interpret Scripture to make them happy and that put money in their pocket. That is the history of religion and a large part of the reason why people believe polygyny is wrong (they were taught it was) and why it bothers them so much (it conflicts with what they want to believe).
So, what happens if the doctrine that was taught didn't agree with Scripture and that's caused problems? The marital standard of permanent but non-exclusive commitment on the part of the man being changed by the church to permanent and exclusive virtually forced large scale divorce on everyone. It was like redesigning a hot water heater with no pressure relief valve and no thermostat control. For a long time the church and then the state were able to contain that pressure, but there came the point it couldn't and *BOOM* we had an explosion of divorce.
That's just one example, I can think of many more. The question we're left with, I think, is how to establish a foundation on which we can agree that something is important. I think that if something is important (can we agree on what is important?) and clearly taught in Scripture it should be adhered to as an article of faith (salvation, for example); and something that isn't important enough to be clearly taught in Scripture is perhaps something we should be able to agree to disagree on.
Getting unity requires that we agree on at least the basics, so perhaps it's not a case of people not wanting unity as much as it's a case of people not wanting to examine some of their beliefs too closely. Because comfort.
Is. 4
1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
I believe that this is an example of some women realizing that their "oneness" with just each other was less than YHWH's plan. In fact, it was a reproach (a shame) upon them to be living this way.
1 And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.
I believe that this is an example of some women realizing that their "oneness" with just each other was less than YHWH's plan. In fact, it was a reproach (a shame) upon them to be living this way.