Struggling with the lesser of
two evils voters don’t seem to want Trump or Clinton as their President. I see
something similar in the Parable of the Ten Minas. A man of noble birth went to
a distant country and had himself appointed king, “But his subjects hated him
and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’” However, he was made king and when he returned he demanded an
accounting of how his money was invested. We don't yet know who will reside in
the oval office, but Jesus’ parable tells me that established rulers, whether
Clinton or Trump, have a long memory, “But those enemies of mine who did not
want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.’” (Luke
19:14, 27 NIV).
3 comments:
Gail;
-----I think it is quite revealing that the most used Hebrew term for “congregation” is derived from a Hebrew root meaning to witness something and to bear that witness. I love the Jewish people because God chose to entrust His oracles to them. And as being born again into the Lord by faith we are children of Abraham, we also are born into witnessing and bearing witness. From His first communications to Adam, Eve, (and yes, to Cain,) Enoch, and Noah, an important part of God’s message to us all has been the reality of truth culminating in the conclusion of all things that God is true. He made a physical realm in which our physical senses fail to detect Him, His angels, or Satan and his demons directly. But by sensing the effects of these spiritual entities’ interactions with the minds of men and things of the physical world, and noting the patterns the interactions form, we can discover at least some rudimentary basics about the spiritual. This is why it is important to pay attention to the things which happen in this world, to not forget what has happened, and to watch for interrelationships amongst them. For one of the rudimentary basics about truth is that things are what they are. Discovering basic truths about things, history, and ideas grows flesh upon the conceptual bones of truth God gave us through His Word. To witness things around you and ponder their interrelationships with each other all the way through to their interrelationships with the Word of God is to think things through in search of the truth from a desire to reflect the truth. To do your stuff and think and feel things according to what you’ve discovered and to go talk about what you’ve discovered, even though we yet see dimly as in a mirror, is to reflect and bear witness to the truth.
-----The Scottish Moralists fleshed out what became the fundamental basic of general psychology, and especially of social psychology. Adam Smith (yes, the great economist whose ideas formed the basis of free market systems) coined the term “looking glass” for the part of us which observes people’s reactions to the things we do. By what can be seen in this looking-glass we tend to modify our behavior when seeing bad reactions, or practice and polish behaviors which draw approving reactions. Beliefs, ideas, and even offerings of facts and information are also behaviors, as are emotional expressions. We all pay at least some awareness to the reactions of others in our presence to what we do, feel, and think.
-----The looking glass is a challenge to the witness. Secular culture operates almost entirely according to the looking glass. It even prods the process along when leaders gain control over ways to punish and impugn for behaviors, such as governments have done overtly and churches have done covertly. Hitler is a past testimonial, PC fascism is a current one. Refuse to bake that gay wedding cake and you’ll eat the toe of the boot you refused to lick!
(continued…)
(…continued)
-----God’s giving power to leaders is not the same thing as His approving of what those leaders do with their power. And Democratic action does not contravene the fact that God gives the power. Democracies are merely the extension of responsibility unto the voters for what leaders do with the power God gives. God is true although all men are false. Together, all men shape themselves by the collective effects of their looking glasses. Culture emerges out of how people respond to each other over many years. Cultural institutions grow and shift and change over generations as people strive to collectively recognize some common truth. They mostly focus their looking glasses on each other for verification of their behaviors instead of upon the Word of God. Consequently, we have a cascade of garble available for each and every mind to ponder in its search for the truth by which to decide who to vote for and other matters.
-----”Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuter. 6:4-9) America was not dedicated to secularism. George Washington dedicated America to the purposes of God as his first Presidential action immediately after having been sworn into office. And until the 1960’s, the cascade of information passed around in most social places contained at least some recognition of the true God.
-----But legislation and what I call benchislation (unprecedented Supreme Court rulings, you know the ones I mean) began stripping the life from the cascade of information forming the “proper” social responses to behaviors. By the power of high-tech communications -radio, TV, the Big Screen, and the internet- combined with the “witness” of people in important places -actors, professors, politicians, etc- “proper” social responses are mocked into a rather false image of what really is in the aggregate thinking and sentiments of the population as a whole. Owning this mockery is extremely valuable come election time.
-----By it, we are all shown for our looking glasses that we are not to approve of Donald Trump. He’s too this. He’s too that. But for me, I don’t give a damned about the mockery. I don’t care what people actually think or what they are supposed to think. I will deal with the simple truths I learn from the Bible and pondering history in its light. Trump is what all the rest of us are: false. Therefore, I do not cancel out his good points against his bad points as the “availability cascade” requires me to do. His good points are his good points. And he has a whole lot more of them than does Hillary, who is also like the rest of us: false. And worse than that, I will actually speak into the public ear as much of my witness of Our Lord and His Word as I can.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
(…continued)
-----God’s giving power to leaders is not the same thing as His approving of what those leaders do with their power. And Democratic action does not contravene the fact that God gives the power. Democracies are merely the extension of responsibility unto the voters for what leaders do with the power God gives. God is true although all men are false. Together, all men shape themselves by the collective effects of their looking glasses. Culture emerges out of how people respond to each other over many years. Cultural institutions grow and shift and change over generations as people strive to collectively recognize some common truth. They mostly focus their looking glasses on each other for verification of their behaviors instead of upon the Word of God. Consequently, we have a cascade of garble available for each and every mind to ponder in its search for the truth by which to decide who to vote for and other matters.
-----”Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuter. 6:4-9) America was not dedicated to secularism. George Washington dedicated America to the purposes of God as his first Presidential action immediately after having been sworn into office. And until the 1960’s, the cascade of information passed around in most social places contained at least some recognition of the true God.
-----But legislation and what I call benchislation (unprecedented Supreme Court rulings, you know the ones I mean) began stripping the life from the cascade of information forming the “proper” social responses to behaviors. By the power of high-tech communications -radio, TV, the Big Screen, and the internet- combined with the “witness” of people in important places -actors, professors, politicians, etc- “proper” social responses are mocked into a rather false image of what really is in the aggregate thinking and sentiments of the population as a whole. Owning this mockery is extremely valuable come election time.
-----By it, we are all shown for our looking glasses that we are not to approve of Donald Trump. He’s too this. He’s too that. But for me, I don’t give a damned about the mockery. I don’t care what people actually think or what they are supposed to think. I will deal with the simple truths I learn from the Bible and pondering history in its light. Trump is what all the rest of us are: false. Therefore, I do not cancel out his good points against his bad points as the “availability cascade” requires me to do. His good points are his good points. And he has a whole lot more of them than does Hillary, who is also like the rest of us: false. And worse than that, I will actually speak into the public ear as much of my witness of Our Lord and His Word as I can.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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