Primitive Christianity Revived, Again
False: Imbued, as the Court of Quaker Opinion is full of it, with the divine imperative for humanity; this is boldness, for God's sake.
True: The son of man is imbued with a human imperative for God that is humble, for the sake of truth.
False: The son of God, as man, knows where his allegiance lies.
True: And so abandons what he is called to embrace for what has always been outside his grasp.
False: Putting yourself on the side of righteousness is pitting yourself against human weakness.
True: The same weakness to which God responds, as parental love.
False: Calling us to service of our fellows, and to an eternal reward.
True: Then what is behind the socio-religious violence directed toward prophets who offer solidarity for human exploitation and oppression?
False: Choose what bed you will lie in.
True: And what bed you will make your humble offering.
False: But choose for human progress!
True: As if God has not already chosen a relationship with us?!
Can we agree, as Henry J. Cadbury in "The Making of Luke-Acts" asserts, that(true)prophecy agrees with fulfillment? Or, for those false prophets who seek to assert their own importance by holding to their own truth( or their own uncertainty, as false humility), that it is a fearsome thing to fall into the hands of God/Truth, as independent of our rationalization.
True prophecy is an approximation of what God intends. It is at least as much about the meaning of events as it is about outcomes, and is heavily influenced by the sympathies, ideas, attitudes & style of the person speaking.
[I suspect, from the examples of 'automatic writing' that I've seen, that the more the author tries to remove 'just me' from the process, the more it comes under control of his sub-conscious influences & ends up as a bad parody of his own hopes.]
Somewhere in Kings you have an encounter between a prophet who supports the new secessionist kingdom of 'Israel' in the north and another who comes up from Jerusalem to denounce it. The local prophet persuades the interloper that he should stay and eat -- although he's been specifically Told not to eat a bite until he's left the territory. A lion then catches the visitor on his way home [leaving his donkey still standing by the body]. When the local prophet hears what has happened, he has his rival's body retrieved (describing him as "my brother") and buried in his own tomb -- where he eventually joins him. We're talking about human beings here -- with the passions of human beings -- but linked to somebody/something higher all the same.
The fullness of God's intention is apt to be always a step beyond what we can realize until we do see the fulfilment -- which is typically far more creative than anything we'd expected.
Well said Forest
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