I was reading the fourth chapter of Amos this morning and came across some woe prophecies - "The Lord will bring disasters upon you..." The entire chapter was dedicated to outlining what stupid things the Israelites could do - making sacrifices to pagan gods, worshiping the earth/matter, etc. Then at the end it says, "The Lord is the one who shaped the mountains, stirs up the winds, and reveals His thoughts to mankind."
Reading the entire chapter, I came away with the impression that Amos was telling the Israelites that could do whatever stupid thing they wanted, but God was still God - He still controls all things and is still revealing His thoughts to each of us.
Then I took it a step further - to mat'l sense it may appear that we can, and may have already, really messed things up. But to spiritual sense, which tells us what reality it, God is in complete control and we are never outside His care and His heaven. Never!
So, let's ignore mat'l sense - the swirling winds, the cloudy days, the burdensome thoughts - and pay attention to spiritual sense - get a sense of reality as it really is. Matter can have it's false gods and false fears, but we'll stick with reality. Nothing can make us fear!
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Learning Spirit
In order to learn Spirit, like Job did, we must first unlearn what our material senses are telling us. They cannot communicate the Truth of Spirit, so they cannot be trusted. Spirit is the only sense we need - the only knowledge we need for true living.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Shut the door and open thought
Reprinted from the July 2010 issue of The Christian Science Journal.
In the Bible, the smallest details are often the most important and can sometimes lead to life-changing discoveries. This is particularly true in the Old Testament, where entire stories can sometimes be told in just a few verses and details are often scarce.
While studying the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson a few months ago, I stumbled upon a detail from a story about Elisha. The story is told in just seven verses and has very few details, but one of the specific things that it mentions is a door.
The story of Elisha and the vessels of oil is probably familiar to most people who love the Bible. When a poor widow woman finds herself deep in debt, the creditor threatens to take her two sons and force them to work off the debt. The woman seeks help from Elisha, who tells her to gather vessels from her neighbors, go into her house, shut the door, and pour oil from her small pot into the vessels she gathered. Miraculously, the vessels fill with oil. The woman sells the oil and gains enough money to pay off the debt and live on the remaining money.
Doorkeepers were responsible for guarding and restricting access to secure areas.
The instruction to “shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons” got my attention. Since the narrative gave so few details, I began to wonder if only details that were important to the story’s spiritual meaning were included. As I looked more deeply, I discovered that the Hebrew words deleth and pethach, which both translate to mean “door” or “gate,” appear throughout the Old Testament narratives. These terms have both literal and symbolic significance in the Bible. A door usually refers to either the flap at the entrance of a tent, or an object, often made from wood, which would swing open in a doorway. Jews traditionally placed a small box or container with the words of God inside on the door of their homes. The gate at the entrance of a city or village, was often where a judge or some civil authority settled disputes between citizens. It was also a place where business was transacted and where official proclamations were announced. Being a doorkeeper or gatekeeper was an important and dignified position. Doorkeepers were responsible for guarding and restricting access to secure areas. The Levites were appointed doorkeepers for the tabernacle, which housed the ark of the covenant. Interestingly, this was one of the few positions that was open to women.
There are many references to doors in the Old Testament. For example, Lot was sitting at the city doors or gates when two angels visited the city of Sodom; he took the two men to his house and kept them behind a closed door when the inhabitants of Sodom attempted to take them. Later in the Bible, when Moses and the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness, the Holy Spirit often appeared as a cloud at the door of the tabernacle where the ark of the covenant was kept. Doors are mentioned throughout Elisha’s life. When raising a little boy from the dead, Elisha goes into the room where the boy has been laid and closes the door. Elisha even has one of his servants secretly anoint a new king of Israel, Jehu, behind a closed door.
There are also references to doors and gates in the New Testament, especially in the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all wrote about the death of the daughter of a leader of a synagogue, a man named Jairus. When Jesus arrives at the man’s home, he tells the people not to be sad because the girl is asleep, not dead. Matthew says, “But the crowd laughed at him.” Then Jesus tells everyone to leave the house; he puts them all outside of the house and closes the door. It is then that Jesus raises the girl.
In what has become known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs his students on how to pray. He says, “When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private.” The King James Version of the Bible says, “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.” In Jesus’ time, a “closet” was a small storeroom inside the house used for food and other supplies.
But a deeper look at the significance of doors and gates in the Bible suggests rich spiritual and symbolic meanings. In one sense, the door and the doorway represent access to something desired. The Book of Revelation describes the gateway to heaven as an open door that no one can shut. In this sense, the door is symbolic of a welcome, or of being welcomed somewhere.
On the other hand, the door and the doorway can represent denying access to someone or something. During the plagues leading to the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, Moses instructed the Hebrews to place the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of their homes so that the final plague would pass over their homes. When the Sodomites attempted to get to the two young men staying with Lot, he closed the door to keep them out. When Elisha didn’t want a messenger from the king of Israel to reach him, he told the elders to shut the door and keep the messenger from entering.
The door and the doorway in the largest sense represent a passage or transition from one place or thing to another. This can mean entering or exiting a home or building, but it can also refer to the transition from one way of thinking and living to another way. A door can also symbolize secrecy, safety, protection, and privacy. These definitions may show why the detail of a door is so often included in Biblical narratives.
But why did Lot, Elisha, and Jesus find it important to close the door? Based on the last two definitions of door—a transition from one state to another, and safety and protection—readers can assume they were keeping something out. For example, when Elisha instructed the widow to close the door, he also may have been telling her to shut out her fears and doubts, as well as the fears and doubts of others. Perhaps he was inviting her to transform the way she thought about wealth.
Elisha knew that most people thought that the source and substance of this woman’s wealth was limited, much like people today think the source and substance of their wealth is limited to their income, inheritance, or even by their education. But not Elisha. He apparently understood that true substance—the substance of reality, of God—is Spirit. Elisha appears to have recognized the natural harmony of God’s creation, and that in this harmony there’s no room for discord or a lack of agreement. So, when he told the woman to close the door, I feel he was telling her to close or block her consciousness to anything that would prevent harmony from being seen. And when she did, her debt was gone in an instant.
Jesus was doing something very similar when he put all of the people out of Jairus’s house, and when he instructed followers to go somewhere alone when praying. When Jesus arrived at Jairus’s house, the people around him clearly believed the girl was dead and that she couldn’t be revived. By putting the people out of the house and closing the door, Jesus was shutting out their doubts and fears just as Elisha had done with the widow.
These practical examples illustrate how to live the Bible’s teachings each day—how to block out worries and allow the Christ to change us—to transform the way we think and change our lives for the better.
In the Bible, the smallest details are often the most important and can sometimes lead to life-changing discoveries. This is particularly true in the Old Testament, where entire stories can sometimes be told in just a few verses and details are often scarce.
While studying the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson a few months ago, I stumbled upon a detail from a story about Elisha. The story is told in just seven verses and has very few details, but one of the specific things that it mentions is a door.
The story of Elisha and the vessels of oil is probably familiar to most people who love the Bible. When a poor widow woman finds herself deep in debt, the creditor threatens to take her two sons and force them to work off the debt. The woman seeks help from Elisha, who tells her to gather vessels from her neighbors, go into her house, shut the door, and pour oil from her small pot into the vessels she gathered. Miraculously, the vessels fill with oil. The woman sells the oil and gains enough money to pay off the debt and live on the remaining money.
Doorkeepers were responsible for guarding and restricting access to secure areas.
The instruction to “shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons” got my attention. Since the narrative gave so few details, I began to wonder if only details that were important to the story’s spiritual meaning were included. As I looked more deeply, I discovered that the Hebrew words deleth and pethach, which both translate to mean “door” or “gate,” appear throughout the Old Testament narratives. These terms have both literal and symbolic significance in the Bible. A door usually refers to either the flap at the entrance of a tent, or an object, often made from wood, which would swing open in a doorway. Jews traditionally placed a small box or container with the words of God inside on the door of their homes. The gate at the entrance of a city or village, was often where a judge or some civil authority settled disputes between citizens. It was also a place where business was transacted and where official proclamations were announced. Being a doorkeeper or gatekeeper was an important and dignified position. Doorkeepers were responsible for guarding and restricting access to secure areas. The Levites were appointed doorkeepers for the tabernacle, which housed the ark of the covenant. Interestingly, this was one of the few positions that was open to women.
There are many references to doors in the Old Testament. For example, Lot was sitting at the city doors or gates when two angels visited the city of Sodom; he took the two men to his house and kept them behind a closed door when the inhabitants of Sodom attempted to take them. Later in the Bible, when Moses and the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness, the Holy Spirit often appeared as a cloud at the door of the tabernacle where the ark of the covenant was kept. Doors are mentioned throughout Elisha’s life. When raising a little boy from the dead, Elisha goes into the room where the boy has been laid and closes the door. Elisha even has one of his servants secretly anoint a new king of Israel, Jehu, behind a closed door.
There are also references to doors and gates in the New Testament, especially in the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all wrote about the death of the daughter of a leader of a synagogue, a man named Jairus. When Jesus arrives at the man’s home, he tells the people not to be sad because the girl is asleep, not dead. Matthew says, “But the crowd laughed at him.” Then Jesus tells everyone to leave the house; he puts them all outside of the house and closes the door. It is then that Jesus raises the girl.
In what has become known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs his students on how to pray. He says, “When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private.” The King James Version of the Bible says, “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.” In Jesus’ time, a “closet” was a small storeroom inside the house used for food and other supplies.
But a deeper look at the significance of doors and gates in the Bible suggests rich spiritual and symbolic meanings. In one sense, the door and the doorway represent access to something desired. The Book of Revelation describes the gateway to heaven as an open door that no one can shut. In this sense, the door is symbolic of a welcome, or of being welcomed somewhere.
On the other hand, the door and the doorway can represent denying access to someone or something. During the plagues leading to the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, Moses instructed the Hebrews to place the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of their homes so that the final plague would pass over their homes. When the Sodomites attempted to get to the two young men staying with Lot, he closed the door to keep them out. When Elisha didn’t want a messenger from the king of Israel to reach him, he told the elders to shut the door and keep the messenger from entering.
The door and the doorway in the largest sense represent a passage or transition from one place or thing to another. This can mean entering or exiting a home or building, but it can also refer to the transition from one way of thinking and living to another way. A door can also symbolize secrecy, safety, protection, and privacy. These definitions may show why the detail of a door is so often included in Biblical narratives.
But why did Lot, Elisha, and Jesus find it important to close the door? Based on the last two definitions of door—a transition from one state to another, and safety and protection—readers can assume they were keeping something out. For example, when Elisha instructed the widow to close the door, he also may have been telling her to shut out her fears and doubts, as well as the fears and doubts of others. Perhaps he was inviting her to transform the way she thought about wealth.
Elisha knew that most people thought that the source and substance of this woman’s wealth was limited, much like people today think the source and substance of their wealth is limited to their income, inheritance, or even by their education. But not Elisha. He apparently understood that true substance—the substance of reality, of God—is Spirit. Elisha appears to have recognized the natural harmony of God’s creation, and that in this harmony there’s no room for discord or a lack of agreement. So, when he told the woman to close the door, I feel he was telling her to close or block her consciousness to anything that would prevent harmony from being seen. And when she did, her debt was gone in an instant.
Jesus was doing something very similar when he put all of the people out of Jairus’s house, and when he instructed followers to go somewhere alone when praying. When Jesus arrived at Jairus’s house, the people around him clearly believed the girl was dead and that she couldn’t be revived. By putting the people out of the house and closing the door, Jesus was shutting out their doubts and fears just as Elisha had done with the widow.
These practical examples illustrate how to live the Bible’s teachings each day—how to block out worries and allow the Christ to change us—to transform the way we think and change our lives for the better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)