I havn't forgotten about YOU!

God bless you real good & your mom!

I have to ponder your words more to try to come up with a presentable suggestion to your question, & wthin ones heart as a believe will test the validity within ones own relationship with God.

Will one trust all promises from God ?Sould one not remember that He said He would pour out His Spirit among ALL flesh.

Can we not through that parallel spiritulal experience that all things be revieled by the same Spirit?

I't 's pretty difficult in a carnal world & with a carnl flesh body, it's a constant dieing to self & lifting up God in full trust in his promises.

The possibiliteis are endless with a creation that will be offered authority on things far greater than any Kingdom on earth before!

One can recieve Godly instruction within ones own relationship to God, this is between them & God.

But the whole obvective of this lesson of a Godly kind would be molded & shaped a creation who holds no barred know, through Godly influence that one will be adopted into a calling that surpasses even a govern of a world of peace if one so prove able through Faith in the one Who ables.

On the other end of the specrum, we have a barrier that displaces of Godly instruction through our establishment in a carnal world & how far we alow this carnal nature to diminish full measure of revelation as even many many religions share this same principle.

Where did principle of law come first?

Where was God's relationship establised first under covenant?

Paganism?

I like to stay away from the "isms"

"Isms"  I always get a bit on edge when that term is used.

How far does one have to break down biblical revelation for it to function it's cause.

Are we to bolster our pride for the inteligence imparted by God no matter who offers credit for credit due?

At least this is how I see it.

I'll add that this relationship is simple & not hard for anyone to experience, walk in the widerness & deny worldy pleasures, which I believe refers to carnal world.

Deny oneself a worldy pleasure & will not God reviel to one his destiny in Christ?

It's all about Spiritual revelations between ourselves & God, but to be a collective one must look a t scripture very seriously for a guide to protect against misrepresentation of spiritual matters.

Lest be honest, spiritual things according to scripture are so out there on a creative standpoint that far ecceeds our world in its vast universal might.

Our planet is but a grain of sand in the sea on a miro level.

Yet God establishes His Kingdom on a micro level to His vastness & AWE- someness.

Is'nt that what the whole of the bible teaches? Isn't that what the full gospel teaches?

Be who you can be.

But once a close & personal relationship in dawn,  will He not carry us in the dusk?

Some may be actually called to serve a purpose that ecceeds ones emagination?

One that is only possible through full bore relationship with Him in order to do that which one is called to do.

Shall we not ask ourselves what can we do for you who shows such great & mighty love to us?

Shall we not say,  I love you, Lord! With all my heart, with all that is capable within the learning proccess of Godly instruction have I to give back to You because You freely give it to me.

This is not only establishment of God's authority, but it estabishes it through perfect Love.

We obey because we love & trust Him always, not because we have to, as we are also convinced of His wisdom through His love & that He will never set us up for failier. ever!

It's not really about getting a reward, this is not what love is either, reward.

I't about how one shows their love regardless of reward.

It's testimony its about relationship & not how its established, through reward.

Is it?

I'ts not about political motive, or show of superiority in any way. Doesn't the teachings of Christ show that most of all?

That must have been what He focus on the most was humility.

I't about appointment, when one shows to be trained & tested,  & shown to be true.

One shall reap what one sows, God will not be mocked.

No different than than in this kingdom, it is just the way it is.

As I see it anyways.

P.S. One doesn't have to be a living breathing bible college to get revelation from God & this applies to all.

But to not look at scripture as our foundational stone in which it's meant to be for the fullest of revelation within the realm of our carnal state, would be a mistake.

Our carnal state has a darkside as all can see it, one who is able to see it as it is.

A brutal lifestyle entertainded by the thought of one who opposes God.

Opposite the last shall be first & the first shall be last.

Where is our heart at?

Bolt

Hi Serenea:

As I just said on Pickle's WWJD thread, I think God had nothing to do with it.

We are responsible and perhaps even accountable for our actions.

Hi Serena,

Does the appearance reveal or conceal how God has been God to those we lable "forgotten"?

Well, we could stop right there and throw our hands up in despair or, like the author of Hebrews we could plug along a ways longer.  How much longer?

No.  Though some will advance that notion.  Heaven is the resting place of God.  It is a gift to the people of God who suffer and the people of God who don't.

No.  Though some will float that also.

Heaven, experiencing the eternal presence of God, is as high as it gets.

Nope.  That kind of thinking is, to use Paul's word, "skubula."  It is also tied into works and as such should be rejected immediately.

God gives God's grace and God's grace is sufficient for all.  If God gives God's grace to both of us neither is short-changed and neither of us deserves God's grace more or even more of God's grace than the other.

Getting your name printed in the Bible is not the same as having your name written in the Lamb's book of life.

The Bible is a primer on the history of God's redemption.  It is not an exhaustive treatment of all who have been redeemed.  Nobody would have time to read that book.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Serena

God forgets absolutely no one - no how - not never - no way!

This whole idea of God testing people seems a bit ludicrous to me.  If God knows all and sees all then He has no need to test.  Since He already knows the outcome there is little point to testing unless of course He does it as a hobby.

Shalom

Mate

Trust the promises of God?  Is the Bible really the promises of God for us or for the people of the time it was written for?

Taken to an extreme though we could say that priests and nuns who have even given up their family would have the best reward.  They have taken vows of celibacy for God, vows of poverty etc.  Yet, are they really blessed?  Or maybe we have all missed the boat.

What would the Isrealites have done with a whole nation of Moses and Joshuas?  Surely you can't say that Moses and Joshua were the only ones who had any faith?

Appearance reveals.

Then there really is no reason for suffering on earth?  No end plan.  Stuff just happens and God will rescue some and others He will not.  People try to think up a reason for suffering that is their purpose.   For example in this book I am reading it says that God is in control of the virus.  He knows that in went into your ear and made you deaf.  He had a reason for allowing it.  You need to discover it and do it.  So then God actually made you deaf and you should not argue with God's will.  I find this very, very hard to swallow.  Yet, I still want a reason.

Not for all I would wager.   Some people are pretty ticked at God and would likely not want to spend eternity with Him.

Then it is a good thing that I gave up working for my salvation years ago.  

That is true that nobody would have time to read the book.  That still misses my point.  I would say that God forgot Stephen the first Christian martyr.  God forgot Michal David's wife.   (or more precisely he severely punished her and I would be embarrassed if my husband was dancing around in public in his underwear)  My point is that with all the wonderful faithbuilding, miracle stories it gives and innacurate representation of the Christian faith.   Hannah is mentioned begging for children at the temple.  God gives her children.   Louise, Barbara and Joan may also have asked God for children and God gave them children.  Loiuse, Barbara and Joan are not in the Bible.  That is the redundance you are talking about.  I would agree that Louise, Barbara, and Joan were not forgotten by God.  Anna, Stephanie, and Samantha also asked God for children and God did not answer their prayers and they are not in the Bible.   Those are the ones I say are forgotten by God.

The generalization I made in my opening post was that the people who died (God did not rescue) who were not named were not named because God did not rescue them.  The ones who were burned at the stake, imprisoned, etc.  They prayed for deliverance and God ignored them. 

Serena wrote, "The ones not mentioned God has forgotten."

Really, Serena?

Were they below the note of God, or of the storyteller?

Christ's peace - r

GOD hasn't forgotten them. I don't know why some names are given to us and others aren't. In Exodus we have the names of two Hebrew midwives but not once is the Pharoah mentioned by name (historians guess Ramses II but there is some doubt on that). At the end of it all GOD knows all and we just know pieces.

Ahh Richard.  You are not reading my post black and white enough.   The people who God has forgotten are the ones who God abandoned.  If you are going to write a story of faith you will be writing of the great things God did.  If Daniel had been eaten by the lions he would not have made it into the Bible.  If Shadrach, Meeshack, and Abednego fried in the fiery furnace they would not have been in the Bible.  If Sara did not conceive and give birth to Isaac when she was too old to have children she would not have been mentioned and Abraham had other wives and other children.  Only Isaac's birth was a miracle.  What about the other Jews who believed in God who were thrown in the lion's den and devoured?  What about others who were thrown in the furnace and fried?   What about other women who could not have children?  They are the unmentioned ones.  Why is Sara special because she wanted a child?  Why did God show up to help some people and not others?

Consider God as some kind of creature of pure emotion ... not a bit of room (rheum) for thought and something was creates to do this for them we call Love (shades of isolation hue m'n itty thing) ... crazy blind population. Now if they originated in a dimension of ignorance (blinded by love) is there as suggestion that they should have reflected before making a decision to pair up with that brutish character? Ah the space of the demiurge ... a mind that can both care and think in the same dimensions! Is that a divined creature like split persona ... can it be tree'd? Third m'n theme in the means?

If they become a pure beast of thought without care ... will that be like a fire without water of control ... a flame in the desert much the same as Love ... pathological beast? Such an odd image of a mind unbalanced ... like a God without thought or his twinned image a devil without a care.

Go wah wit' Yah ... like travelling with Love ... something has to provide the spark of intelligence ... isle lumen addi ... is just a bent word for Christ! ... IT's light and blows through like a Levantine wind. One should let it kiss yah as the far fringe of an infinite ongoing thing ... like black and white in the tale of chaos ... being tossed between two extremes of the mind cause neither pole wants a medium to carry the hole' thing!

Accept it all as Eris in imaginary numinous ... it goes down like nothing ... as poon full of sucre, sacred sweet things learned in the pas'n winds of time? Vespres, spooks, poeL' terr' geists? Warped space has bothered scientists for years about dirt bending Light ... you know gravid stuff ... fertility Gods ... odd things in deep space .... nuits! The Egyptian term is Nut without the expansive alphabet any commonsense (Josephine sense) becomes a bit weird when dumped in a' ole' space! Read the story of Joseph ... his whole world hated his realm of thought and care. Has anything changed? Did the myth say that the monster put a stone (unchangable space) in the hole of a beauty? ID's only halve of the image ... in an odd Mir I am! That's the unbelievable imaginary mind ... a sole of sorts to stand upon and care for like a Hebrew shoe maqor. Then on has to know the ancient syntax of maqor!

I just don't see it the same way as most I would think.

I believe it's an important rule of God not to interfere with our collective free will.

Since a full biblical account to how one applies the golden rule as people have expressed that is the perfection of Love not only for man From God, But also a measure of it going back to Him, as man 's love for God in return when the law of love is established in ones heart.

The word of God witten on our hearts.

This is the most reasonable of service indeed, & also is a form of worship that is quite substantial. A sweet sweet smell unto the Lord.

We as a collective have formed this world to the state it's in with the promotion of carnal rule in our lives in genral.

Good things happen to bad people, as it would appear, & bad things happen to good people as well.

Do not bad things happen to bad people & good things happen to good people as well? 

The lines are drawn mostly by the hoarding of wealth & the inclusive nature of the powerful, the elite, that would constitute a carnal promotion on a global scale.

Why?  To gain as much power as globally possible.

Not only to influence those who are unbelievers, but believers as well.

Bolt

How do you know that God either forgot or abandoned?

LB

Abandon all hopes of utopia - there are people involved.    

Clayton Cramer

I'm with bolt. Bad things and good things will happen to all of us. Many of us will probably feel at the end of our lives as though we have experienced more of one than the other. But how does it follow that God has forgotten us if more bad things have happened in our life than good things. Maybe it is just our own perspective.

I do struggle with this though. If anyone has any insights on the Book of Job, I'd appreciate them. Job was a wonderful, good man. Satan dares God (more or less) to take away everything from Job, and God does it. But WHY? What is that story supposed to tell us? My first reaction to this in undergrad was that God was a screwed-up jerk, and I became and atheist for awhile, for that and other reasons. But now I think I just do not understand it.

There is something inherently contradictory about a God who loves and forgives all of us, and holds us all in the palm of his hand, yet seems to allow such terrible suffering to go on in the world. My sense is that WE allow this suffering rather than God, in many cases. But sometimes things seem to just happen, as when young people get cancer in the prime of life.

I don't know. I don't have any answers, but I do have an intuitive sense that we are not forgotten by God. It has next to know logic to back it up. In my experience, logic is not what faith is about.

Amen Kappa

We, petulant mortals, parade ourselves in front of creation saying "what about me".

Do we actually ever look and see what is on offer?  What possibilities are granted each and every day?

God gets all the blame as if our contribution bears no part.  Yet how often does God get credit?   I suspect that many grant the good fortune to themselves in equal proportion to how often they blame another for their failings.

It is no different when one does not believe in God - then the blame just gets shunted onto another human.  "I could have been a rock star if my brother hadn't smashed my drums", "I'd never taken a drink if my wife hadn't run off with the postman", "I woulda, if only he, she, they....

God doesn't abandon us.  We abandon God.  People don't abandon us, we turn our minds from them.  We do so by failing to see the beauty, the joy, the good fortune that is all around us and in each of us.

Life, this planet, is the greatest, grandest gift that could ever have been given.  What we do with that gift - whether it be for 1 minute or a 100 years - says more about us than it defines what created it.

LB - feeling petulant

God is not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can press a button to get things done.     Harry Emerson Fosdick
 

Perseverance and Promise of Faith - Hebrews 11:32-40

The author of the epistle to the Hebrews specifically mentions other individuals whose lives demonstrate the perseverance and promise of faith. Some of these achieved amazing victories, others are referred to as those “of whom the world was not worthy.” This lesson spans generations and gives us insight into the mystery of God’s ways.

.All of these heroes gained God’s approval [Gk dokimazo— to prove or test with a view to approval] through their faith. This word is used in the process of refining metals, in which the ore is placed in a furnace and heated to very high temperatures to remove the dross and impurities, producing purified gold, silver, or other metal. God is the refiner, and trials and circumstances are the means chosen by Him to refine your faith, which is more precious than gold. He keeps His eyes on the timer and His hand on the thermostat, filtering every event in your life through His fingers of love, until He can see His Son’s image reflected clearly in your faith. The proof of your faith will result in praise, glory, and honor at His revelation (1 Peter1:6–7). Faith gains His approval.

Keep your eyes on the Refiner, not the fire! Study to show yourself approved to God!

Hi Kappa,

With regard to the Book of Job, I think LB has answered your question.

My understanding is that, despite experiencing nothing but adversity, Job never lost his faith. God explains to him to consider all the "good" that has been created for him to experience.

In one sense, Job stands for us all. We are caught up in our own small world, and sometimes we forget we are part of a much larger world. The "biggy" of course being Creation itself! Even in our own small world, despite adversity, there is much to be grateful for.

A personal bit here. When my husband died, it was the knowledge of the love we shared for twenty years that helped me cope with grief. I was determined that that love would not be outweighed by grief.  Love is the most precious gift life has to offer us.

Do we ever learn anything without pain? If we didn't suffer pain would we survive in any form? Consider medical cases of children born neurologically insensitive to pain. You can go a long way with this thought if you are one of those cussed thinkers (by the elite).

Now consider an idealism of Love, a blind rage of emotion that leaves one completely out of touch with thought. Hove you ever fallen deeply in love? Do yah get the clue? Would that vast initial Love have needed some thoughts as offspring ... fallout of God? In a numbed state would God be like some holy sparkler ... just an imaginary numinous hyperbole ... convoluted space that glows? How would this appear physically to a mortal ... kind of stretches thinking space ... like myth ... itsnot there but seems Toby a sticky idiom!

"In the beginning a dark folmless void ..." ID kinda makes yoah want to light a candle and see what's there on the sojourn ... inner or outer with the convoluted nature tuit! It is an odd non sense love ... numbs down the manna of m'n! Camp followers have screwed up Roman wars for years .. thus the metaphor in pseudonym form ... whor'? Is ink'n formless creation that gives you that slippy feeling ... backsliding after the climb? What God with a sense of humous ... plasma ... Levantine?

Does a blind fury of pure love carry a lick of sense about justice? Could such a shadow carry a hidden sparkler of balance ... a buried thought bedeviling the point of love? Weird the things that come out of a thinking space when set on a role ... Black Ba'aL? It should be observed but most are afraid to go there ... Machiavellian point of terror ... scare the beji sous out of the devil and h'elle dwell forever in a haze ... metaphor of the story of Ahazaiah (see Isaiah 7:11), there are such beautiful hints of signs and symbols of the other side of God ... Janous ... the glowing mind ... it could be a beauty if a mortal socialization could stick IT together ... not a change too much idealism in Love without thoughts ... destructive floods!

Hi Serena,

It might.  It may also conceal.  How big is an iceberg?  How much of it is seen?

Scrub the mould with bleach and it looks clean.  Have you gotten rid of the mould or just the visibly discoloured bits?

There is a reason for that suffering.  Most of it is in response to something that has gone horribly wrong.

There is an end plan.  It might be in sight for some and over the horizon for others.  All roads have an end.

Nothing just happens.  All things have some cause.  Some suffering is intentional and other suffering is not.

God has mercy upon those whom God has mercy.

The search for meaning is commendable.  It doesn't always find what it is looking for.

It is this kind of theistic determinism which folk routinely confuse for predestination which provokes my rage.  At base it is an escape from reason and an avoidance of responsibility.  It permits the faithful to wallow in apathy and inaction while they shrug their shoulders and say, "God wanted it this way."

It is anti-Christian in concept and praxis.

God would not have bartered with Abraham over Sodom if it was God's unchangeable will to destroy it.

Moses could not have saved the Hebrews in the wilderness from the wrath of God time and time again if God's mind was unwilling to bend.

None of the prophets would have been sent as warning to change direction if God intended to crush the audience to which the prophets were sent.

The death and resurrection of Jesus would have been powerless to impact upon a decision set in stone with regard to anyone's sinfulness.

Clearly the theology that thinks otherwise reads more into scripture than they read out of it.  If they even bother to stop to read at all.

Not for all certainly.  I'm no universalist unless we are talking about how all have sinned and all have fallen short.

As to those ticked off by God it happens.  God is no circus animal perfoming on command and doing cutesy stuff.  If I am angry with my neighbour and they pull me from my burning house I'm not so obstinately stupid that I am going to march back into the flames to wait until someone I am not anrgy with comes to get me.  What is most likely is that I will not be any less angry with my neighbour for what they did earlier to make me angry.  I will place that alongside the fact I am still alive to be angry and how grateful I should be for their risk.

Not thanking them would only prove that I am a jerk and not worthy of being saved in the first place.

It is a good thing if you gave it up because you were convinced that God has saved you.  If you have given yourself up for lost and wallow in apathy and bitterness it is not a good thing nor can working for your own salvation spare you from further apathy and bitterness.

As you, apparently, do not yet trust in God to save you I would expect that things will look grim all around.

We have their example and we have their testimony.  In light of their experience, their testimony points to the strength of their faith more than does the miracle of their salvation.

How does the testimony of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego not apply to Joan?

How does the testimony of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego not apply to all who perished in the arena.

No.  They sound hollow to you who are not in those circumstances.  You are not the Christian facing wild animals in the Arena, you are not Joan de Arc facing the stake, you are not the pregnant woman in the pit.  You don't need their faith, you need to find faith of your own.

The words are only hollow if they are not believed.  The integrity of the one speaking them is important.  You either trust or you don't and it is out of that that the words are solid or hollow.

Even solid, they can be hard to hear and too heavy to hold on to.

No Serena it doesn't.

Stephen would disagree with you.  I'll take Stephen's testimony over your impression anyday of the week.

So she is not forgotten at all.  Unless you have changed your point I don't see how Michal applies.

What crap! 

First of all, to expect the Hebrew Scriptures to provide an accurate representation of the Christian faith is to seriously not have a clue about the fact that the Hebrew scriptures are written for the Hebrew faithful not the Christian faithful.

Second of all, God is not a vending machine.  I know I repeat that over and over to you.  I know that you claim to hear it and understand that point.  I never see it acknowledged when you share your complaints though.  Your routine lament is that God is not a vending machine like you want or expect.

Fair enough.  You can continue to repeat that or you can realize that God you believed in, the vending machine God, never existed in the first place.

I don't know anyone who can honestly read scripture and not have their theology of the garden path seriously abused.

They were answered.  They didn't get the answers they wanted.  That is not being forgotten, that is getting told no.

They put their prayer coin in the vending machine God, pushed the selection for baby and the little red light came on saying, product no longer available.  They can push another button then and get their prayer coin back.  If they choose to push the button for the rest of eternity that red light will continue to flash for them.  That would be them constantly requesting and the machine constantly telling them chose something else.

Unless, of course, some body comes around to stock up the vending machine God again.

That is an inference you are making.  It is ironic particularly in the fact that you point to the example of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego all the while ignoring their testimony which is the example they provide.

Peter dies upon an inverted cross.  Paul is beheaded.  All of the Apostles meet a martyr's end save for John who does not die until he sees the Son of God return in Glory or at least a vision of it.

All of them believed in God's ability to save and they went to their deaths believing that God would redeem them even from death if need be.

Were they forgotten?  What is the difference between Paul's beheading and the father shot by his son in a hunting accident?  You know Paul's name is that because he is saved by God and not dead?  You do not know the name of the father is that because he is cursed by God and roasting in torment or oblivion?

Grace and peace to you.

John

Only the tip.  

And I think it makes God a sadistic monster.

So if Abraham would have given up Lot and his daughters would not have been rescued?  Lot's wife was supposed to be saved but chose not to trust her rescuers.

And Jonah was mad at God for not destryoying the Ninevites after they repented.

God rescued Shadrach. Meshack, and Abednego and not Joan.  The movies paint Joan as a crazy fanatic.  Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego are painted as heroes of faith.

The example they provide is of a miracle.  Miracles do not happen in real life.

It is almost like the book is saying if Job was NOT such a good servant of God God would not have let Satan test him.  God would have said  "No, leave Job alone he is too weak...."  and Job would have been better off.

This is what I am struggling with as well.

"But some there be who have no memorial

They are buried as though they have never been.

But their names liveth forevermore"

Hi Serena,

So then, does the appearance of the tip reveal or conceal the size of that which does not appear in view?

At worst and apathetic at best.  Hence that kind of theology is of no real use to anyone.

Abraham does give up.  He goes only so far and he goes no further.  He doesn't go to four (Lot's immediate family) nor does he extract a promise from God to help Lot's family.  That is something God does of God's own volition.

Jonah's anger is Jonah's problem not God's.

What is their testimony, not what happened.  What do they say to the king before they are tossed into the furnace.  How does that apply to Joan?

Again.  I didn't ask what happened.  I asked for their testimony and how it applies.  I don't speak for most members of the UCCAN who will interpret this passage.  I speak only for myself.  Again, you are making myth synonymous with lie.

I believe it is Stephen's testimony.

Hardly.  Saul gave her to David to cement their relationship.  The brideprice was 1000 Philistine foreskins.  Saul thought to kill David this way, David had other plans.

Even cursed is not forgotten.

Why does God need to be consistent to be God?

The miracle is quite beyond the point.  The point is their testimony.  Go back and look it up.  It shows their faith plainly.

With Christianity at least all over the globe I would think not.

That is the logical outcome of your claim.

Grace and peace to you.

John

The appearance of the tip neither reveals nor conceals the size of that which does not appear in view.  An outside factor (the water) which has nothing to do with the tip conceals the bottom of the iceberg.

 Their testimony is that God is able to deliver them and even if God does not they will still not worship another God.   Joan said something similaar believing in faith that God could rescue her like He did Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego and God did not deliver her.  Some would say that she was a lunatic and did not actually hear God?

Not quite the same way the historical novel I read about David puts it.  This makes it worse that God cursed HER though.   She was used by her own father to help entrap David.  Then God cursed her.   That is even more unfair of God.  She never had a chance.

Had the fire actually touched their skin how do you know they would not have though God had not abandoned them?  We have news cameras at the event.  As with Stephen this story was written down years (decades) later.    Events from decades ago in my life are very sketchy and other family members remember things differently.  Parhaps over time the testimony of great faith was attributed to Shadrach, Meeshak, and Abednego and we really do not know the true story.

That is certainly an exclusive statement.  What about the way of the Buddhist?  Or the way of the Jew?  Or the way of the Muslum?  Or the way of the Wiccan?   Or even your own Calvanist view of Christianity which even says that someone who does not believe in God could be chosen by God so that does not mean that one has to be a Christian to go to Heaven.

hummmn

And doing a fine job here, btw.

Joan of Arc is still alive and well in our memories - quick!  name the king who wanted her burned or the Bishop that labelled her a heretic (no peeking). 

The movies, the books and the legends are all part of the myth that rose by her actions long ago.  Her actions may not have been noble in reality, she may have been mad as a hatter, but to the people who witnessed and recorded Joan's life they were inspirational - inspiring enough to make some of the witnesses change the course of a nation.  Inspiring enough to continue to do so for more than 500 years...

that is the truth of myth.

LB

But the spirit of wickedness had so completely filled her heart that for a long time she rejected our salutary monitions with a hardened heart, refused to submit to any living man, of whatever dignity, or to the holy Council General, and recognized no other judge than God.    

The Trial of Jeanne D'Arc by W.P. Barrett

 thanks

Can't name the king or the bishop.  

It is fascinating how even the two latest movies give different possible sides of her character.   I also like your words "part of the myth"

What is interesting too is that the myth was allowed to grow and change with culture unlike the Bible.

We can also form our own opinions because even though there is much detail there is much unknown.  We can feel for the young girl who lost her mother at an early age.  We can feel the young girl who was used by the king to unite his kingdom and then abandoned and eventually betrayed.  This is real life at its nitty gritty and does not have a happy ending yet hope lives on.  Joan died for a better world and the better world happened after her death and she did help it.  Joan was very human and I think we can see ourself in Joan and that makes her real whether or not she was crazy, misunderstood etc.  I do not believe that God fore ordained her to die as a sacrifice.  That is just cruel and petty for a God to not be able to get things done without the pain and suffering of others.

I think that we have to find a way to separate our ideas of a loving God from the idea of reward or punishment. 

I don't think that being loved and blessed by God has anything to do with earthly possessions.  I cannot agree with the idea that if we have good health,  good family background, intelligence and luck; if we work hard and achieve financial success; if we live in a big house, have healthy children who go to be best schools, and everything seems to be working in our favour - we are blessed by God.

Nor can I believe the other side of the coin - if things go wrong for us, our health is questionable, we fail to graduate, our job doesn't work out, our company goes bankrupt, our child is born handicapped, our spouse has a bread-down - we are cursed or abandoned by God. 

In fact, I think that in both situations God is with us, loving us, supporting us, helping us.  Perhaps God is helping the family that appears blessed to see their responsibilities in the community.  Perhaps God is providing comfort to the family who is suffering.  But in either case it is God's grace - God's love freely given.  Not earned in any way.  The riches are not a reward for the deserving; neither is the suffering.

Therefore, I don't believe that God 'forgets' God's children - and we are all God's children.  Appearances to the contrary we are not forgotton, abandoned, deserted, on our own.  We are not alone.  God is with us.  Thanks be to God.

Hi Serena,

That isn't exactly true.  You have admitted that there is more to an iceberg than appears above the water.  How much more?  Roughly 90% more.  How does that 90% look?  We don't know.  If the visible part is big then the invisible part is roughly 9 times as big.  We know it exists we just don't know what it looks like.

So, simply seeing the tip reveals that there is more to be seen and more to be dealt with.

Simply seeing the tip is not enough for us to guess the topography of what lies hidden.

Appearance (the visible) reveals and conceals at the same time.

Meaning what?  That just because people are willing to die defending poor theology God is at fault?

Maybe.  It may be that Lot as a resident of Sodom isn't particularly righteous and Abraham knowing that doesn't push that far.

Then God sends the worm to attack the root of the vine and it withers.  God uses Jonah's concern for the vine to teach Jonah about God's concern for the Ninevites.

Exactly.  God is still God whether they are saved or not.

That remains to be seen doesn't it?

Maybe.  Does that prove or disprove your position.  The those not remembered have been forgotten by God. 

I don't think that Stephen had given up.  I think he was dying.  The practice of stoning an individual tended to have that kind of effect.

So it can be any number of possible fabrications it just cannot be an accurate depiction of the event.  Way to stack the deck.

Historical fiction isn't scripture.

She is cursed for what she does not for what Saul did.  Michal cursed David whom God had annointed.  The narrative makes it very clear that to stand against David, except in rare circumstance, is to oppose God.

David dances before God in worship and praise.

Michal despises him for it.  Considers him a fool for worshipping God in that way.  God apparently keeps God's own counsel on what is or isn't acceptable.   

We may not hear of her again.  We heard of her once so she clearly is not forgotten  Her curse, apparently never lifts which indicates that God has not forgotten her either.

Rock is consistent.  Is it more godly?

Trees are consistent.  Are they more godly?

Where is it stated that consistency is next to godliness?

What rule stipulates that God cannot be scary?

You sound like Satan in Job screaming "flesh for flesh" when the test fails.  You are trying to build and argument on what ifs.  Not a very strong way to make a point.  It is something of a double edged sword actually.  Because once you allow arguments from silence you cannot disallow them when they oppose you.  Well, not honestly at any rate.

This is also a double-edged sword because if you admit to not knowing the true story and what it actually is you cannot say, with any certainty or honesty that the narrative that we have recieved is not, in fact, the true story.

What are you arguing now Serena?  That Buddhism, Judaism, Islam and Wicca are proofs that Satan won or that they stand alongside of Christianity as victors over Satan.  Initially you claimed that the deaths of the apostles was proof that Satan won.  I refuted that by referring to Christianity "at least" which I think is fair since neither of the other faith systems you have named recognize the Apostles in the same way that Christianity historically does.

Your attempt to slag Calvinism destroys your point that Satan has won also.  Grace triumphs.

Perhaps.  Of course those of us who ministered to the young man that day and in the days following know his father's name and we will never forget it and neither will he.  We know that God sent two fellow hunters to him on that very remote road so that he was not alone with his father's body and a loaded hunting rifle in the deepest grief he has experienced in his life.

I don't remember their names.  I have no doubt from talking with the young man that they probably saved his life just by showing up.

Again, I'll trust his testimony over your imagination.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Serena you are entitled to your opinion but you sound ridiculous when you deny miracles. They happened in Biblical times and they happen today. Maybe they're rare, maybe we're jaded or inattentive but they happen.

How can God be God if He is not powerful enough to save him?

Joan and those who knew her are long dead.  How can we see?

No God does not forget His grudge.

How can you trust someone who is not consistent?

Except that it is a miracle and miracles are hard to believe.

I was not slagging Calvanism my statement destroys the theory that Satan won while at the same time bolsters many ways to Heaven.

His testimony is just his perception.  If God had the ability to send two hunters to save him than God would have had the ability to save his father.   That is my perception.  The actual facts are that this boy's father died.  Two hunters appeared.  Anything else is perception.  What he read into events.

It is hard to see God with the family who is struggling though because if He was with them shouldn't He help?

Seeler,

After reading what you said, I'm pleased you asked me to be your friend here at the cafe. (Even though at the time I didn't understand - my granddaughter had to explain about cyber friends!)

God is always with us. He rains on the just and unjust alike. I've yet to meet a home that hasn't been visited by sorrow. It's the other side of the coin of love.

It's precisely at these times of sorrow that it's a tremendous comfort to feel God's presence. I speak from my own experience.

Serena,

Perhaps God isn't all powerful? Have you read "Why bad things happen to Good People?" Maybe it's just a carry over from our childhood that "Daddy" has to make it better?

Seeing I'm in the mood for compliments, as an old feminist, I like the way you're prepared to take on the males of the species. (even when I don't agree with your point of view!)

So many themes, so many tangents, I travel this one.

Smiles at Serena.  Few would be able to but many remember Joan because she was lifted up - her story had the greater power to inspire and it did so because she expressed a very profound faith, a faith so deep that it terrified kings, bishops, armies of men and even herself.

For some the bible is allowed to change.  I believe that the bible is the living word.  If we allow those who claim that what is written is the last word - which I propose is not what the bible itself claims - it becomes dead.  It is no longer living because as the natural world, which is part of creation, teaches all living things change and grow.

And this is also the power of myth.  Unlike the bible, one can read the transcript of Joan's trial, the actual words recorded at the time.  Yet, even then each of us will take away the parts that have meaning to ourselves.  We do so because we will hear in those words something specific to our own experience and we will shape Joan's story to our experiences which have become our truths.  Our truths and Joan's truths merge to form a new truth - not a reality, not fact - but truth just the same.

The myths of the bible can be imprisoned to the truths of the people who wrote them thousands of years ago or each of us can free them and let the inherent truths live with us and be shaped anew by the sunrise of each day.

LB

Each time, storytellers clothed the naked body of the myth in their own traditions, so that listeners could relate more easily to its deeper meaning.     Joan D. Vinge

LB & Rev. John,

Thank you for inserting those portions about what we put into the story and what we take out of it. So many do not see this as the essence of the infinite ... the ability to stop outside this body of will we call loosely man, or m'n in Hebrew which is a non sctual being. What! The Hebrew syntax is about essences instead of real stuff?

Imagine a story, myth having depth .... subliminally?

Well isn't that A'd'm in the whole space of thought and passion ... counterpoints in the realm of mind ... two halve's of the infinite divided by a mean medium of isolation? Ides a difficult ... hard point to get across in impenetrable, ironic  space! It give the deuce the giggles and Snurfs ...

Could a Mir human ponder and care for such extreme concepts or ask the mind (moeses) to put God over the horizon (Exodus 20:19) so reality could do what they want without a thought. That'll bedevil the pool. Did this infinite thing beyond the reach of mortal leave a clue ... they said they'd leave a sign for Ahazaiah (Isaiah 7:11); do we deny the signs of the infinite presence ... just an ethereal thought stretched to the limits ... but real folk don't understand the concept of unbound limits ... full integration. They cannot step outside the bounds of thy's elf ... satanic fallout without a thought? Is Deire pyre in d' aches? 

You have to escape religion and take on fluid nature to comprehend a quick fish in the pool ... or even the monster fishing to retrieve lost brea'n fue'd ... it a pseudominic metaphor! We cannot comprehend something that loves and comprehends everything (cos moe politan logic, cosmological?) ... why we are mortal morons (Joseph Smith) and the unknown is infinite idealism ... sort of like a God that mortals cannot grasp ... caress the fringe folk, ID helps ... but a far cry (shiyr, edge in Heb) from the whole non-thing, a bit of nonsense to a mortal in chaos? First you must get your additions in order to understand them ... got a stick to probe that dirt? Is a'm'n that is addressed by the infinite considered a bit crazy by the smaller population of castoff from heaven? The old saying is they don't want to go there even though the heavens are laden with unseen light material ... is that odd reciprocation of aspect into depth perspective?

Serena - you ask why a loving God doesn't help.  I guess this question depends upon an individual's perception of God.  If we believe that God is all knowing and all powerful and able and willing to interfer in human situations, then an all loving God would certainly eliminate suffering - all suffering. 

But there is a different view of God.  This view is difficult for me to articulate - I am not a theologian - but here is how I see it:

God is aware of what is happening in our lives - but God does not interfer.  It's like this:  God sees somebody climbing a tree.  The person feels strong, healthy, at one with the tree, the air around him, nature.  God shares his joy.  He also feels a bit nervous when he looks down and sees the ground 15 feet below.  God reminds him that he is vulnerable.  He pushes things a little and begins crawling out on a limb.  Again the joy of being surrounded by greenery high above his sister on the ground unaware of him directly above her.  He decides to crawl out further.  He feels apprehensive but he continues.  Suddenly the branch begins to crack.  He freezes in his place.  The branch is swaying now, bending.  He can't back up.  He begins to pray.  'God help me."   Does God reach down from the heavens and strengthen that branch?

I don't think so.  I think that for years that tree grew strong in the sun and rain.  For years that branch has born the weight of leaves, birds, cats, boys, snow and rain.  For years it has dipped and swayed in the wind.  Perhaps in the last storm it was twisted until almost breaking point.  Now it is being asked to bear an extra 100 pounds or so.  It can't do it much longer.  But perhaps the boy on the branch feels the love of God surrounding him.  Perhaps he remembers the love of his parents - how upset they will be if he is injured or killed.  His little sister is there below him - will he injure her if he falls on her.  Perhaps he calms himself enough to slowly back up, just a little at first, then a bit more until he is past the weak point in the branch.  Or perhaps he spots a branch just above and is able to carefully reach up and grab it and redistribute some of his weight to the branch above while he shouts for help.  His uncle just happens to be out on the patio at that moment.  He shouts encouragement, runs for the ladder, rescues the boy who murmers "Thank God."

Or perhaps the branch breaks.

The point is that God neither got the boy into trouble nor miraclously rescued him, but that God was with him sharing his joy and sorrow, his fear, his pain.  The love of God never abandoned him.  

But the boy was responsible for his own predicament, wasn't he?   What about his sister who has done nothing but wonder out into a beautiful field of wild flowers and is now standing under a tree admiring the view?  If that heavy branch comes down on her head, she might be injured worse than the boy riding it down.  And God is with her as well.

Rain falls on the just and the unjust.

Hi Serena,

Since when are willingness to save and powerful enough to save the same thing?

Since when is "salvation" one size fits all?

Well, Joan has been dead a good long time and here we are talking about her.  Not quite forgotten is she?

Fair enough.

Well, that is what the word-faith movement would want you to think.  It is just another variant of the same old works righteousness garbage.

Ironically you struggle because even when examining the idea of God being in control of everything you still ultimately want to control God so that you get the outcomes you want rather than the outcomes God offers.  You are still stuck in the vending machine God mode.

It would only support your theory if God was forced to act in certain ways because of God's love.  Prove that and your theory gets stronger.  You have yet to prove that though.  I get that you want things to be that way.  Things aren't that way though.

Works righteousness extreme!  Because Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego put prayer coin in vending machine A and pushed button B they purhased solution B.  Ergo, if I put prayer coin in vending machine A and push button B I will get the same product.

How could I not?  Maybe there is a problem with the currency employed.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego let God be God and do what God wills.  Most others put the prayer coin into the machine to make demands of God.  As if God is a trick pony or something.

So Michal is justified in attacking David, the Lord's anointed because she is mad at her dad?

Not to mention the anachronism of applying today's standards back then.

At either rate God treats her according to what she has done.  If he had forgotten about her that likely wouldn't have happened.

Nor his promises.

You trust them by their character.  If they keep their promises you can trust them to keep their promises.  If they promise to be always with you that is different from promising no more hardship, ever.

If anything the covenants make God much scarier.  Read the covenantal blessings and curses.  They are very revealing.

God not only should not God has not.

What rules has God given and then broken.  Do we, you and I stand alongside of God as equals or not?

They are indeed hard to believe which is why they are not ultimately important and probably why Jesus told folk not to talk about them.  Jesus doesn't need the miracles.  Why do you?

And you are arguing that on a Church sponsored internet web page accessible all over the world some 2000 years after the Apostles died.  And this is hardly even the high-water mark of the Church they mid-wifed into being.  Open your eyes a little.

Nor do they say that it is, they were all Jews for crying out loud!  It was the Church that later decided to oust the Israelites from the covenants by proclaiming that the new covenant upends all others.  If they had the ability to read and had bothered to read Paul in Romans they would see that their proclamaition was skubula and kept their mouths shut.

Even after dispensationalism is proclaimed a heresy we still have certain Christians attempting to push it.

Oh, and by the way.  If Satan didn't win then the Apostles did not die in vain.

There is only one way into Heaven.  It is by appointment only.  God invites those whom God desires to invite and God is not limited, by the faith position of the adherent to invite or not invite.

Christians do not get into heaven because they are Christians.  They get into heaven because God has invited them into heaven.  Jews do not get into heaven because they are Jews.  They get into heaven because God has invited them into heaven.  The same holds true for any other theological/philosophical position you care to name.

The good news was all about that invitation and how it is extended by grace not earned by works of anykind.

Tragically, it is.

"Just" his perception?  Way to diminish somebody else's experience. 

True.  God did have the ability to save his father but chose not to.  Is that because God hated one or the other of them?  Is it because God had forgotten one or the other of them?  And why stop there?  Perhaps it was the wife/mother's fault or the sister/daughter's fault or the other son/brother's fault.  Maybe if any of them had really believed enough they could have got the vending machine to work.

Read into or read out of.  At any rate he was there and he knows what went through his mind.  True, the rest of us assign meaning to it in an attempt to make sense of the world around us.  Notice what isn't happening though.  No one is blaming anybody else. 

Not that the son didn't try to blame himself.

None of the rest of us think the father wanted his son to kill him.

It was a joy of the moment thing and it got ugly very, very fast.  It is a hunting thing apparently.  knew in town had near miss stories that are eeriely similar.

People make mistakes.  Sometimes those mistakes have grave consequences.  God is not responsible for us choosing poorly.

Grace and peace to you.

John

RevJohn I LOVE what you say about prayer being currency in a vending machine. GOD is so much bigger and more complex that what we think. As scared mortals we think death is always bad. That if GOD doesn't save a life that HE failed. While rescuing someone from mortal peril is one way GOD can act it is not the only way. I remember hearing about a contemporary Christian singer who died and dozens of people accepted JESUS at his funeral. A tragedy was used for GOD's glory. I know an example closer to home. Several years ago my wife's mom died, younger than what we are inclined to accept (60ish). A few weeks ago my grandmother died at 96. My mom said that my wife was so helpful and comforting to her. Because she had lost her mom she related and was able help so much.

Serena right now we "see through a glass dimly". You and I don't have all the facts and we never will. Think of life like a corn maze. We can see where we are and the immediate choices, at least a little ways ahead, until the next curve be it near or far. We know where we've been but probably not with perfect recollection. GOD however can see the whole thing. Sometimes what might feel like a wrong turn is in fact right and what you feel certain is the right path will just dead end. GOD knows it all. I don't doubt this is frustrating but no human being has all the answers. If that's what you're looking for you will always be disappointed. Learn what you can know and take the rest of faith. What more can any of us do?

God is an initiator ... like motive in a cord of thought that will carry on learning from mistakes past! Well then there is the dimesnion of m'n-kind isolated in the sapce of thinking he doesn't want to look at the other side of things. Remeber the old Roman militant adage ... don't trust eM m'n ... they're thinkers ... and the book on intelligece and wisdom was severly burnt. Thus the expression give Light (Christ a clear cup of water) such rein clears the Ayres and gives Eire to breath as balanced thought with prudence ... another name for the love of Sophie, justice, Philosophy? One has to work the ID into an IT ... "i" transferrance or transcendance ... whatever! Ides an imaginary numinous character that moves with change O'Sean can you see?