Who should have died? God the Father or God the Son?

spiritually discerned confused me.

a pearl that is seldom found?

My own experience, from various forums, is that its a stock phrase thrown at any "non- believer" who questions the declarations of some asserted "Christian Truth". Rather than meet the objection and enter into genuine dialogue and debate, the phrase is used to end debate.

(Much the same in certain Buddhist texts, where those who would dare question any doctrine are called the "untaught ordinary person" )

So on and on and on.......

Perhaps to read the entire chapter (i.e. Ist Corinthians 2) puts the words in greater context. Have a read.....go on.

Seeking to know "the mind of God" and the "wisdom of God" requires - at least to me - sincerity (not to mention the faith that such is to be found) Again, for me, if the search for such leads to some sort of esoteric vocabulary shared only by the chosen few, all that has been found is the stupidity of "man".

Not True at all. 1st Corinth 2:14 is not a "stock phrase". It is the word of God if you choose to believe it. And its certainly not used to end dialogue. If anything, it should promote dialogue.

Paul, was basically stating that unless you have spiritual understanding, you will continue to try and decipher the word of God with your natural mind. This will just lead to frustration, and confusion.

According to Scripture
The only way to truly understand God's word and how God operates if you will, is to:

Acts 2:38 Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin and ye shall receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost.

And the Holy Ghost is that Comforter that will give you the Spirit of Truth. (paraphrased) John 15:26

Unless you commit to Acts 2:38, the bible won't mean much to you other than just being a stupid fairy tale..

I was speaking of a how it HAS been used on various forums I have participated in.

Just as an example of how the phrase WAS used:- in an exchange between myself and a Conservative Christian I said I could not understand how anyone could assert that it was justice for a human being to be tormented forever, eternally, without end, as a result of ANY decision made in this one short sharp life full of inequalities and ambiguities. This Christian just said that he could show me why I was unable to understand this, and proceeded to quote those words. As I have said, no attempt to demonstrate how eternal torment could ever be considered "just", merely an assertion that as a "natural man" I did not "understand", while he, the "spiritual man", could.

Just as a bit of dialogue, I have a high regard for the Catholic monk Thomas Merton. In his Journals and letters I discern what for me is a true person of the spirit speaking. There are some words of his concerning "faith" that are apt here.

Merton is responding to a passage from Irenaeus......(A passage that my own understanding and experience associates with the Pure Land notion of "being made to become so (of itself) without/beyond the calculation of the devotee, where "no working is true working" )

If you are the work of God wait patiently for the hand of your artist who makes all things at an opportune time........Give to Him a pure and supple heart and watch over the form which the artist shapes in you........lest, in hardness, you lose the traces of his fingers......

Merton comments......

"The reification of faith. Real meaning of the phrase we are saved by faith = we are saved by Christ, whom we encounter in faith. But constant disputation about faith has made Christians become obsessed with faith almost as an object, at least as an experience, a "thing" and in concentrating upon it they lose sight of Christ. Whereas faith without the encounter with Christ and without His presence is less than nothing. It is the deadest of dead works, an act elicited in a moral and existential void. To seek to believe that one believes, and arbitrarily to decree that one believes, and then to conclude that this gymnastic has been blessed by Christ - this is pathological Christianity. And a Christianity of works. One has this mental gymnastic in which to trust. One is safe, one possesses the psychic key to salvation......"


For me, natural man or spiritual man - you are free to judge - the "presence of Christ" ( the Eternal Word that lights all who come into the world) can never be determined by any sort of allegiance to any particular theology of salvation. The spirit "blows where it will", not as determined by our stringing together sets of Biblical verses to form some sort of "narrow way" to hop through. Even more so, to imply that any other human being is "natural" (not "spiritual" ) and "unable to see the Bible as anything other than a "stupid fairy tale" unless they have hopped through our own particular hoop, is for me the assertion of a "natural man" who does not comprehend that the "salvation" of the Divine centres upon grace and mercy, which in my faith works in ways beyond my own comprehension.

All the best

okay, i misunderstood. are you saying that so called christians throw that verse at non-believers and basically saying that "you're too stupid to understand so why bother explaining." Is that right??

Well, that's putting it a bit bluntly, but yes, OK, that's about it. Obviously, I would question your use of the words "so called", as you would seem to imply that no "true" Christian would ever do such a thing.

Well, perhaps not.

Myself, when I seriously reflect upon who is a "true" Christian, the whole thing becomes rather messy..............As I sought to demonstrate in my post above.

Anyway, truly, all the best.

Yes, That's exactly what I meant. In my opinion a "true" christian's job is to bring people to Christ not repel them. And I certainly wouldn't use 1st Corinthians 2:14 in a negative sense by basically telling non-believers to #@$!! off if they don't understand. Then I would be wrong.

As I have sought to say, its all well and good to say no "true" Christian would do such a thing, but the guy who said it to me had been "saved" since being a teenager and was then in his sixties! He read the Bible every day, worshipped at a Gospel Hall two days a week....well, you name it, he did it. As far as he was concerned, he was as "true" as could be.

Anyway, I've mentioned Thomas Merton, and here he is speaking of "proselytizing".....

I hate proselytizing. This awful buisness of making others just like oneself so that one is thereby "justified" and under no obligation to change himself. What a terrible thing this can be. The source of how many sicknesses in the world. The true Christian apostolate is nothing of this sort, a fact that Christians themselves have largely forgotten. I think it was......Tauler (or maybe Eckhart) who said in a sermon that even if the church were empty he would preach the sermon to the four walls because he had to. That is the true apostolic spirit, based not on the desire to make others conform, but in the desire to proclaim and announce the good tidings of God's infinite love. In this context the preacher is not a "converter" but merely a herald, a voice, and the Spirit of the Lord is left free to act as He pleases. But this has degenerated into a doctrine and fashion of "convert-makers" in which man exerts pressure and techniques (this awful business of "modern techniques of propaganda" ) upon his fellow man in order to make him, force him, bring him under a kind of charm that compels him to abandon his own integrity and his own freedom and yield to another man or another institution. Little do men realize that in such a situation the Holy Spirit is silent and inactive, or perhaps active against the insolence of man. Hence the multitude of honest and sincere men who "cannot accept" a message that is preached without respect for the Spirit of God or for the spirit of man.

What kind of BS question is this? Clearly anybody asking it has no clue about the interpretation of god by Judeo-Christians.

we find what we seek.
we experience what we think possible?