In Reply to: Re: It's always easy to blame the wicked and powerful posted by Thinker on December 18, 2009 at 08:45:41:
your subject-title tells me, you're in (some??) disagreement with me?
I said 2 times, that I am part of the problem...greetings to all of us from Romans again...all have sinned.Paul didn't care about listing everybodies sins in detail (although he does list the bigger sins at several places), but they are known to God and in many cases to us, plus this is OT-version too, not just Paul.If you subscribe to the Christian faith, then that is known to you & me in great detail or rather you accept all that.Therefor I don't need to confess in detail now, where I sinned against "mother earth"...to use a different lingo...I don't own a car anymore only had some, when the children were smaller...but that doesn't make me as good as let's say some people living in the wildernis or jungle, who live super frugally of the earth...if you know what I mean.
In that sense I...Farmer, live more anthropocentric then I should...I assume...for as I tried to say...though not directly...(so I am glad you brought it up again, anthropocentrism that is )..big fat emphasis here...real Christianity happens to be Christcentered...anything else is not the real thing (if you/we read Ephesians 1, it goes on and on about "in HIM" [similarities to John 15]..I often concluded a letter with "in HIM"...I know a website-master of a Christian website in Switzerland..all his many posts he concludes with "in HIM"...Eve was taken/formed fom Adam, from within...Paul likened that to Christ and HIS bride, the church Eph. 5.31,32; to me the picture can't get anymore beautiful than that)...Berg e.g. substituted or enlarged Christ's words with his and that's where false prophecy becomes so evil, giving a twist to the original meaning...so his religion was more Berg-centered, I conclude.
Does that mean, you're not also blaming the wicked and powerful for a big portion of the calamities of the world???
I repeat myself, it doesn't let me off the hook, regarding waste...being spoiled and pampered...liking still some advantages of the material world...plus my usual unkindness towards God (especially, sad to say) and fellowman, when being in the wrong "mood"...
But people oftn fail to address the real big sinners nowadays, being "too PCish"...take the economic crisis...one commentator said, that we have failed yet to see one very colourful person in this whole agenda;it seems it just overcame us : (...which I never thought.
I believe, people behind the scenes knew exactly what they were doing, to shift great wealth from one part of the earth to another or one account to another.In the domino-effect, someone/group pushed the initial stone and had before placed the stones in such a position, that many stones would fall and not just a few...that's the beauty of the dominoeffect in great shows...big labour in positioning everything.Lehman-brothers was just the initial/visible big stone...
Frankly, I didn't understand, why you shouldn't have sold your house with a profit?St.Francis didn't want to own anything, from what I remember, so he was indignated at any personal estate-offers at least one instance I remember, if I remember right.
The sin of Ananias and Saphire was not to own a house, but to have pretended to have sold it for such and such amount, lieing to the Holy Spirit...reading that is awesome
Means, discipleship is not a little teaparty
The core of Matthew 4 is not only that Christ got tempted for real by the devil, but that we are likewise tempted...he offers what he has for now, the material kingdoms, if people worship him...people worshipping the goods of the earth in conclusion perform more or less directly/indirectly devilworship...that ties in with the scripture in Timothy and many others.
but I would agree, that all our "little" greeds/sins do add up, the question is, who wishes to profit from it real big???
Perry has this "ridiculous" "memo" on his website
"God beware of"..intended ambigousness I suppose
I say: evildoers be sure, that there is a wrath of God for you.
and for us lukewarm Christians the judgementseat of Christ, which is no fun, to be ashamed there.