Ol' Fuzzy's Cave: April 2017

Friday, April 28, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 14

Let’s finish Chapter 5 of Matthew’s Gospel today.

“43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

There is little hyperbole in this passage. What there is becomes obvious in reflection. It is an exaggeration to say that the “publicans” (literally tax collectors, not bar tenders) all love their neighbors and salute their friends. In fact very few friends would be attracted to the tax collectors of the Roman empire. But the point is to love all without regard to how they treat us. God does not stop loving the sinners who reject Him. He sent Jonah to Ninevah, didn’t He? We are made to be like God. That means we are made to love.

I covered the meaning of the words for love in a prior post on this blog. But the word in this passage, ̓αγαπή, or as we write it agape, is the most intense form of love, that which give of oneself without expectation of return. God loves all of the creation in this way, and we are to emulate Him in that love.

This is the key to all of Jesus’s preaching, to love. The rest of the sermon is centered on it. What came before is the build up, and what follows is more applications of that love. This kind of love is not a feeling, it is an act of will, conscious and intended. We must make up our minds to love, choose to do so every minute of every hour of the day, seven days each week, all year long.

I will write more on the will and its importance in Christian living again in a later post, once I complete the series on the sermons of Jesus. But in this instance the emphasis is on love. Elsewhere Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all your mind, all your heart, and all your soul; and... thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On this rests all the law and the prophets.” In His sermons He merely expands on the concept.

Ol’ Fuzzy is not employable and was denied for disability benefits. The only thing I have is the blogs. But I don’t qualify for ads on the blogs until September. If you like the scribbles I post, please help me keep it going. You can leave me a gratuity by dropping a buck or two in Ol' Fuzzy's Tip Jar. This is a PayPal account I opened on Wednesday, April 5, 2017.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 13

Ol’ Fuzzy has noticed that people don’t want to read an exegesis. I guess it was too dry, and the original language was all Greek to most people. So today Fuzzy is going to change tack and make summaries of the scriptures instead of exegeses.

Matthew 5:38-42: “38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. 42 Give to him that aesthete thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.”

In this passage, Jesus engages in the typical Hebraic idiom of hyperbole. He exaggerates to emphasize the point. The point is that we are to be kind in the face of unkindness, good in the face of evil, and generous in the face of greed. We are the example of what is right in the world. But if we act just like everyone else, no one will notice a difference. To be a visible example of difference we must be different.

So let’s look at the specific examples of hyperbole that Jesus uses. To turn the other cheek is unthinkable in the modern society. Our knee jerk reaction is to lash out at those who try to harm us. Stand your ground is the rally cry of today’s popular culture. But in the way of Christ, standing your ground with kindness is the proper response. It takes far more courage to abstain from responding to violence with violence, and evil with evil.

I have faced some of the most violent and evil men in Texas who wanted to do me harm. Most folks wonder why I didn’t fight. By not fighting I won the encounter. Fighting never proves who is in the right, just who is in the wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I stood ready to fend off any attack, and at times I was required to do so. By reacting with peaceful intent, I usually defused the situation. And on the few occasions when I was attacked, by not responding with maximum violence I proved it was possible to treat even those who will you ill with love in your heart for them.

Generosity is not just voting for government handout programs to redistribute tax money. Nor is it merely giving to charities. When you are liable for damages, make it up to the aggrieved party with interest. And if you are compelled to serve, do so willingly and do more than is expected of you. A modern example is the draft. Some people of my generation avoided it by entering college and getting deferment or escaping to Canada. But the ones who not only served but volunteered for officers’ training or specialty schools are examples of the type of service Jesus expects of His followers.

An attitude of gratitude is expressed in the actions of the grateful. If we say we are thankful to God for the blessings He has given us, and we are stingy with those same blessings toward others around us, our words are empty air and don’t please God. The old saw, “Actions speak louder than words,” is very applicable here. Be the blessing God has been to you.

Friday, April 21, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 12

Today we cover the part of Jesus’s sermon on swearing of oaths. People have a tendency to exaggerate the veracity of their statements by swearing an oath. Let’s see what Jesus says about it:

“33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but perform unto the Lord thine oaths: 34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne: 35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. 36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. 37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”

That is a total condemnation of the practice of swearing. Jesus tells us that it is evil to try to prove your own veracity by an oath. He points out that the need to swear an oath is not evil of itself, but the evil is in the intent to deceive by assuaging the doubt of the listener with an oath that sounds iron-clad. Fact is if what we have to say requires any external proof of veracity, we really ought not bother with saying it.

The Greek word rendered oath, ͑́όρκ͂ος, denotes a limit. And the Greek word rendered swear, ͐ομνύω, denotes the declaration of that limit. These words, used in this context map quite well to the English words with which they are rendered. We use the same concepts in our modern language as the ancients did two thousand years ago.

Jesus goes on to give several examples of oaths sworn the people in His day. The reasons He gives for each oath being withheld are applicable to this day. But the most important message is that the entire concept of swearing to the veracity of your words is based on the intention to deceive others, and thus it is evil. When we are truthful in everything we say, without exaggeration or understatement, then people will notice, and their belief in our veracity will be based on their own experience of prior truths.

So when you have something important to say, follow the admonition used in court to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 11

Today’s passage covers divorce and remarriage. Jesus is chiding the people of Judea for being hardhearted in the way they cast off wives like rubbish. Today the Arab culture is still in the habit of easy, no-fault divorce, but only for men. It had become so discriminatory toward women that God had to tell Mohammad to order protections for women in divorce proceedings. Sort of the opposite of American divorce proceedings where women are offered financial security when their husbands decide to dump them.

“31 It hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. 32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”

Boy, that looks harsh, especially by today’s standards of marriage. Let’s take a closer look in the light of the culture and the context. In spite of the fact that God viewed women and men as equal in every spiritual matter except their roles in the family and society, the men of Israel viewed women as chattel, little more than property. A woman on her own was treated as a non-person. She could only draw her identity from her husband. Under the Law of Moses, a woman was to receive protection by the writ of divorce her husband had to give her upon dissolution of the marriage. By the time of Jesus, lawyers had found ways to spin this to the advantage of men over women. It had gotten so bad that women were routinely left destitute and helpless, unable to own property in spite of the writ of divorce, and not allowed to claim ownership of their earnings should they find employment. Often women were reduced to the level of prostitution because the society would not allow them to live any other way.

Enter our Lord who saw the intent of the hearts of these men who twisted the law. He condemns the practice of divorce for financial gain, sexual variety or any other excuse that they came up with. The only thing He allowed was a divorce of a bride found to have been sexually active before marriage. Note that He doesn’t require an engaged man to break it off if his bride was sexually active, He merely allowed it.

It is interesting that one meaning of the Greek word used in this context for divorce, απολύω, is also used to denote a criminal pardon. There was no distinction in law in those days between the bondage of a criminal under punishment and a woman in a marriage. Quite often there was little difference in effect either. Jesus worked to make that change.

The solemnity of an oath is lost today, especially the oath of marriage. But in the case of marriage the dissolution of the oath does not undo the spiritual and psychoid bond between the partners. The destruction of a marriage is the most scarring thing that can be done to a human soul, no matter which partner instigates the divorce. Often this scar becomes an impediment to the spiritual growth of the victims. Therefore, divorce should not be entered into for convenience or financial considerations. Only the betrayal of the marriage vow excuses the dissolution of a marriage.

Monday, April 17, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 10

Today I will of necessity be shorter than usual. I have been out running all day. So I am only doing two verses. These two are sort of a bridge between the admonition on sex and the admonition on divorce and vows.

“29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. 30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

This passage seems at first to be out of place, not a part of the “You have heard...but I say….” formula of the ones before and after it. Yet it fits into the context by the relevance of the message to those other passages. Jesus is telling us to get rid of the things that tempt us to miss the mark of holiness that God has set.

The Greek word rendered offend thee, σκανδαλίζω, is the source of our modern English word scandalize. Its meaning is to cause you to trip, to trip you up. In the context of a journey, a trap that trips you to delay your progress is doing this. The idea is that it is not an accidental trip, but one deliberately caused, and the thing doing the tripping is aware. From this we can assume He is speaking metaphorically when using the eye as His example. Because a mere ocular organ cannot intend to trip you as you journey, it must be something we hold as precious as our sight and as painful to remove by plucking it out as an eye.

The word is used in both verses, reinforcing the connotation of a metaphor. The two body parts mentioned, the eye and the hand, are both important to the daily routine of an individual in the first century Roman Empire. The cultural significance of the right eye and the right hand must also be examined. The Greek word for right is δεξιός, from which the English word dexterous comes. It simply signifies the right side of the human body. But in Middle Eastern culture a person whose right eye was removed was cursed, and someone whose right hand was removed was assumed to be a thief.

The Greek word rendered cast, βάλλω, denotes an aimed and deliberate throw, much like one throws a baseball. This is not just a casual toss, but a vigorous hurling of the object, in this case to ensure one is rid of it.

The Greek word rendered perish, ͗απόλλυμι, means to utterly destroy, erase from existence. The word is not used in the connotation of simply discarding the object, but eradicating it.

The Greek word rendered hell is γέεννα, referring to the Jerusalem city dump in the Wadi Ben Gehinom, or Hinom Valley, on the Southwest side of the hill on which the city is built. In the dump, there was a stench of rotting garbage, smoke form constant fires, and of course lots of refuse. This is another metaphor. for the place of the damned.

So the conclusion one draws from this is that we should examine our habits and hobbies, like the free sex so prevalent today, which we hold dear and derive a false pleasure from, to see if it causes us to trip on our spiritual journey toward God’s perfect holiness. If it does, we must rip it out of our lives and violently throw it as for from us as we can manage so it can be eradicated from our lives. Then we will be able to continue to follow the road of Christ toward the glorious end He has promised.

Friday, April 14, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, 9

Today Ol’ Fuzzy will have to be short. Got things to do all afternoon and got online half an hour late. Please accept my apologies.

I am going to work on only two verses today. But they’re very important to our society in these times.

“27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

The Greek word rendered commit adultery, μοιχεύω, denotes sexual relations between people who are not married to each other. That is a broader definition than the English word adultery. Adultery in English is sex between two or more people when one or more of them is married to another not involved. For other forms of μοιχεύω, the English language uses the word fornication. But the Greek word that is often rendered fornication, πορνεία, refers to any sexual deviation from that which is acceptable in the Law.This is the word from which our English word Pornography is derived.

Jesus goes one step further in the discourse. He says just intending to lust after someone we look at is adultery in the heart. This is very heavy because in our current social mores we try to get as many other people to lust after us as we can, and intend to lust after everyone we see. We are all guilty of adultery in the eyes of God.

The principle Jesus establishes here, that the intent is what is important, is reflected again in every teaching He gives on sin. The Pharisees were strict on outward compliance with the letter of the Law while in their hearts they would hold grudges and lust as much as the rest of us. Jesus complimented their righteousness, as far as it went, but as we saw in the previous post, their righteousness will not get them into heaven. We do have to guard our hearts, that our intentions are pure. Then our actions will naturally follow.

I will do more on the subject of sexual immorality, and modern amorality, in a future post after I finish with the sermons of Jesus.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 8

This is another large chunk of scripture to exegete. Beginning with verse 21, Jesus begins a series of comparisons of the letter of the Law and the spiritual intention behind it. These take the form, “Ye have heard it said...But I say unto you….” In these comparisons we see that the external regulations of the Old Testament Law are a window into the internal attitudes that make compliance with it reflexive. Let’s look at the first passage of these comparisons:

“21 Ye have herd that it was said of them of old time, Thou shall not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. 22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remember that thy brother hath ought against thee; 24 leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. 25 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”

Jesus took on the biggie first. A special note that most people who read the Bible only in English seldom know, the word that is often rendered kill is specific to killing in an unlawful manor or circumstance. The taking of a life is always traumantic to the soul of the one doing it. But sometimes it is justified to do so. I won’t go into circumstances in which it would be OK to kill. Instead I will tell of the damage murder does to the people related to the victem. When your loved one is murdered, you have a horrible trauma that can cause psychological damage for the rest of your life. The anger over this can cause some to enter into a cycle of revenge killing that lasts for centuries.

But Jesus goes further than that. He tells us that even an insult is equivalent to murdering the victem. One would think that so long as they still have their life, people can recover from the injury to their souls when they are insulted. I know from experience that this is not so. That kind of hurt is lifelong. The injured party will never be able to treat the perpetrator the same.

The Greek word rendered kill is φονεύω, the same one used in the Septuagent translation of Exodus for the Ten Commandments. In Hebrew, רצת can also mean to dash to pieces. The denotation of murder is in the context as much as the word itself. The Septuagent is a good source of understanding the meaning of the Hebrew as read by the Jewish scribes at the time of Christ. A plug for a good English translation of the Septuagent is the Saint Athanasius Academy Septuagent included in the Ortodox Study Bible published by Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN.

The Greek word rendered in danger, ͗ένοχος, denotes a legal liability. This applies not only to the criminal courts, but to civil courts as well. In ancient Israel the courts were one and the same. So if you were tried for a criminal infraction, you could be given civil penalties as well. Thus the liability in the Greek word covers both civil and criminal penalties.

Jesus tells us that even unwarented anger toward another is the same as murder. The Greek word, ͗οργίζω, comes form the noun that we get our English word orgy from. It means to enrage or provoke to rage. So Jesus said that we are not to become enraged at our brother. The phrase without a cause is added by the translators of the King James Bible. They wanted to have an exuse to be angry. Jesus made no such distinction.

We need to enter into every human interaction with a clear head devoid of anger and avoid name calling or provokation. To do otherwise is just as bad in the eyes of God as murder. That is the primary reason I grieve over today’s political environment. The rage and name calling, usually over something that has little to no effect on the perpetrator, is endangering the souls of the ones who engage in it. Polite discourse, on the other hand, does not perpetuate the cycle of distruction of the souls of those involed.

Think carefully before you speak. No one is worthy of the self-inflicted wounds you gain in your soul by flaming and name calling. Be aware, hate is murder. And hate does more harm to the hater than to the hated. Let go of the anger that pops up in your heart when someone does things you do not like. This is foreign to your spirit in the first place, and should have no permanent place in the heart of a Christian.

Saturday, April 8, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 7

Today I will take on verses 17 – 20. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say to you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men to do so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in heaven. 20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

That’s a pretty big chunk, but it all goes together. So I will knuckle down and get to it. Jesus disabuses us of the idea that the law is done away with, and violating the law still has the same result. But He adds a twist, if you teach others to ignore the Old Testament law you will be the least in the kingdom. Note that He doesn’t say you will go to hell. Jesus saves the final punishment for those who reject God. He goes on to tell us that living up to the law and teaching it will get us a great heavenly reputation. Then He says we must have more righteousness than the scribes, the Hebrew Maserites, and the Pharisees. This statement acknowledges that the Maserites and the Pharisees have righteousness. But we have to have more. Their righteousness is based on fulfilling the entire law. How can ours be exceeding that if we don’t fulfill the entire law? Because Jesus didn’t say we won’t see the kingdom of heaven if we break the law.

The first word I will look at is the word rendered destroy, καταλύω. This word literally refers to the demolition of a building. Jesus is not going to demolish the structure by which righteousness is measured. Demolition erases the structure all the way to the foundation. Jesus tells us this foundation and the structure resting on it is fulfilled in Him, and we must keep it in Him.

The next word is the Greek work rendered law, νόμος. In Attic Greek this word was used for the idea of distributing something, passing it out or passing it down. In the Koine of the New Testament the word is used to refer to the five books of Moses, especially the regulations in those books. Therefore the law Jesus is talking about is the divine Law handed down by Moses and held sacred by Israel ever since.

The word rendered prophets, προφήτης, describes preachers of God’s direct Word to humanity, not fortune tellers. The verb form literally means to speak forth, not to foretell as the modern English connotation. It is used most often in the New Testament to refer to the Prophetic books that we put after the poetry in our Bibles. None of these pronouncements of the preachers in the Old Testament are to be discarded either.

The next word is a key to understanding the entire passage. The Greek word rendered fulfill, πληρόω, means to make complete, finish, fill up or, as rendered, fulfill. Jesus not only lived up to the strictures of the Law of Moses, He completed every requirement for the law to be satisfied, fulfilled every foretelling in the Prophets, and created the way for this to be done in us.

The next word that I want to examine is the Greek word rendered pass away, παρέρχομαι, a compound word form the words meaning near and leave or go away. In this usage the word means to depart form this vicinity. Jesus is telling us that the littlest parts of the law and the prophets will be with us everything is done. And that is the next word I shall look at, the Greek word rendered fulfilled, γίνομαι, which is the word from which the name of the first book of the Bible is taken, Genesis. This word means become, or come into being. So Jesus says nothing that has been will pass away until everything that will be comes into being. Since we’re still living in the same way, it obviously hasn’t happened yet.

Jesus gives a warning about the Law and the Prophets, that if someone breaks one of these and teaches others to do so too, he may still get to Heaven, but he will be least, of lowest repute, in Heaven. The Greek word rendered break, λύω, denotes a shedding of something, such as clothing or regulation. So it isn’t enough of an infraction to shed yourself of the Law and the Prophets, but you must also teach others to do so too, before your Heavenly status is reduced, but not eliminated. In other places, Jesus lets us know that the Law and the Prophets are not enough in themselves to bring salvation to the one keeping them. Here He is telling us that the one who is saved gets greater Heavenly status by keeping them. Jesus didn’t go into the how in His sermons, but He gives hints in these sermons as well as the other teachings and parables He gave us. It was up to the Apostles who wrote the Epistles to explain how we can keep the Law and The Prophets, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

In verse 20, Jesus warns us that we must have a greater righteousness than the Maserites and the Pharisees to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. That is an admission that these people have some form of righteousness in themselves. But it is an insufficient type of righteousness. The explanation of how we can get this righteousness is, like the explanation of how to live up to the Law and Prophets, left up to the Apostles to give. Frankly, until the resurrection and the infilling of the Holy Spirit, even the Apostles could not understand the way we can live up to the Law and the Prophets, or how we can obtain righteousness greater than the Maserites and the Pharisees. But the explanations are there, written after the Day of Pentecost.

The Greek word rendered exceed, πλείον, not only denotes a quality of more, but of far more. We must far exceed the righteousness of the Maserites and Pharisees. This must have seemed impossible to the listeners, because they knew of nothing that exceeded the level of righteousness achieved by people like Gameliel or Nicodemas. What Jesus said was that people who followed Him would do the impossible. And that is what we are called to do today, the impossible. We are called to take on the righteousness of Christ Himself and live it.
Ol’ Fuzzy is not employable and was denied for disability benefits. The only thing I have is the blogs. But I don’t qualify for ads on the blogs until September. If you like the scribbles I post, please help me keep it going.

Ol' Fuzzy is unemployable and doesn't have internet in my apartment. If you like my writing, please help me keep it going. You can leave me a gratuity by dropping a buck or two in Ol' Fuzzy's Tip Jar.

Friday, April 7, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 6

Beginning at verse 13, Jesus changes gears. He begins to explain the need for us to be open about our faith and good works. “13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” Jesus is telling us we add flavor to the lives of the people around us. Salt is not merely a spice, it is an essential nutrient for life and a preservative to keep food from spoiling while it is stored.

The Greek word for salt, άλας, is used figuratively for prudence. There is more to be said about this play on words. The believers in Jesus are to be a voice of reason when the rest of our society becomes imprudent. We have to remind our neighbors to take thought for their futures, to treat each other with kindness, to eat their vegetables (well maybe not that much), etc. Ask yourself, am I living up to the expectations of my Lord?

The Greek word for earth, γής, is literally dirt. But by extension the word also means the solid part of the world and the people on it. As used in this context, Jesus intended the last meaning, the inhabited world. He wants us to be an influence for good all over the planet where people live and work. One can take this to include any human habitation in outer space as well, should we ever get ourselves off the pretty mud-ball we call home.

The Greek word translated “loses its savor,” μωραίνω, has three meanings in the Koine language of the New Testament, to make stupid, to make foolish, and lastly as translated here to make tasteless. The English language is unfortunate in that we lose this play on words Jesus used. If we lose our sense, become stupid or foolish, how will we be made prudent?

“14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

This is a bigger chunk than I have chewed on before, but let’s give it a shot. The key words here are light, φώς, world, κόσμος, shine, λάμπω, men, ανθρώπος, and see, οράω. Let’s take them in order that they appear. The word for light can also denote the fire that gives the light, and this I expect is what Jesus was referring in this passage. We are the light bulbs of the whole creation. The power that causes us to shine is the Holy Spirit and the grace that He brings. Just as a light bulb must be connected to the source of power in the house to shine forth its light, so too must we remain connected to the Holy Spirit in our hearts so our light can shine forth. Another denotation of the word is luminescence. This is often used to refer to wisdom. So our light which we shine on the world around us is the wisdom of God directed through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The second word is used originally for a decoration, but came to refer to the entirety of the known creation as the divine decoration. This is the word from which we get cosmos, cosmic, and cosmonaut from. It can be understood in this context to refer to everything God has made.

The third word is the one we get our English word lamp from. The lamp shines, therefore, we name it for what it does. The literal definition is to radiate brilliancy. Again there is a double connotation in Greek as well as English for the light that is shining. It is literally the energy that allows us to see, as well as the wisdom that gives us understanding.

The Greek word translated men is the generic term for humans. Greek also has a word that means males of the human species, ανδρός, that is often translated husband. But the word used here refers to both men and women. A better rendering for today’s usage would be humans. We are to expose our light so that all humans in the house may see what we know.

The last word in the list denotes a conscious attention to that which is looked upon, to stare or study. We are to be studied by the humans around us so they may understand our wisdom. Thus living as “closet Christians” is a failure to live up to the expectation of Christ. We must be visible so the people around us can see God in us. Along this vein Saint Peter wrote that we are living letters from God to the world, and we may be the only scripture that some people will ever get to read. So heed Jesus in this and let your light so shine that all may see, be the preserving wisdom for the whole world.

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 6

Thursday, April 6, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 5

Jesus concludes His poetic blessings with a combination blessing and warning in verse 11, then encourages us in verse 12: “11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” These two verses go together. Let us take a closer look.

The word translated revile is ονειδίζω, which derives from the Greek όνομα, which means name. Basically the word translated revile denotes a slandering of the name of the object person. We covered the word translated persecute in yesterday’s article, it denotes chasing, running you down as you flee. The word translated “all manner,” πάν, is literally “all and every possible.” The word translated evil in this verse, πονηρον, is from the same base as the word, πονηρός, used in the prayer Jesus teaches to us in the next chapter to describe the evil from which we want to be delivered. This shows that the evil that we shall ask for deliverance from in the prayer is not just a person, but words and acts too. The word translated “falsely,” ψευδόμενοι, literally means “false sayings,” or “lying.” The words ενεκεν εμοϑ, translated “for my sake,” literally mean “on account of me.”

So this blessing applies to us whenever these people, under the influence of dark spirits, act against us because we serve Jesus. In verse 12, Jesus tells us to rejoice, χαίρετε, and be exceeding glad, αγαλλιάσθε, because we have a great, πολυς, Heavenly reward. Jesus then compares us to the prophets of the Old Testament in their persecution. The same spirits of darkness that drove people to harm the prophets of old are driving today’s persecution of the followers of Jesus Christ.

We will be hated by people who are deceived by those same spirits, we will suffer persecution, slander, lies, and worse. But Jesus lets us know the end result is in our favor. As long as we keep our eyes on the prize, we won’t be overcome by the pressure to conform. It may end our Earthly sojourn, but it won’t hinder our ultimate journey. Stay the course.

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Wednesday, April 5, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 4

Today’s post is a bit bigger than my usual because Ol’ Fuzzy is making up for the lack of a post yesterday. Bear with me and I shall be back on schedule by the end of this week.

The sixth blessing Jesus gives in the sermon in Matthew’s Gospel is to those whose hearts have been cleansed. “Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.” The rendering of the King James Version is unfortunate but understandable in the context of the Church of England in 1604 when they started the work. The best rendering would have been “cleansed of heart.” the Greek word is καθαρός, an adjective which means something that has been cleansed, washed.

In early Seventeenth Century England, the Calvinist doctrines that are taught with the acronym TULIP were ascendant, and adherents to these doctrines felt themselves superior to the regular people because they were pure. It is from this group the American Puritans came to emigrate to the New World. The arrogance this belief nurtured was the primary reason their neighbors rejected them personally and they felt the need to flee to the other side of the ocean, where they wouldn’t be dirtied by sinners.

This is terribly foreign to the teaching of Jesus. The word pure gives a connotation of self-perfection that just isn’t there in the Greek. Picture a child that has been playing in mud and clay where livestock graze. Now take that child into the bathroom, run the tub full, and bathe the kid. Once the bath is done, the child is καθαρός. The condition of filth is a necessary predicate to the cleansing. That gives those of us with an honest assessment of our own personal condition hope for redemption.

Jesus is telling us that we are blessed if we let God give our hearts a bath because we shall see God. It doesn’t matter how filthy we were before we came to God. Once he washes us off, purges us of the soil of sin, we are appointed for a face-to-face meeting with the Father in Heaven. But the process of καθαρσις(literally: catharsis) is not a quick, one-time thing. The child needs a bath daily.

The seventh blessing Jesus gives is to the peacemakers, and this rendering was well done. “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” The Greek word rendered here as peacemakers is ειρηνοποιός, a compound word made from the combination of ειρήνη (peace) and ποιέω (I make). Jesus is explicitly declaring that those who make peace, between themselves and between third parties, shall be called the children of God. It is not enough to recite some formula at the altar and go about your life as usual. If you want to be called a child of God by Jesus, you must make peace with your neighbors, the people you have wronged, and the people who are in strife around you.

You are not responsible for the reactions of those whom you placate. If they continue to strive, you are absolved of culpability so long as you attempted to make peace.

If all of the people who claim to follow Jesus would be peacemakers, the world would be a far more tranquil place for humans to live. It is sad that so many wars are fought in the Name of Jesus that He would have us avoid for the sake of peace. I am not saying I am a pacifist. There are times in this world when it is imperative that we go to war, a fight it well. The greatest two examples of “just war” in modern times are the destruction of Fascism/National Socialism in the 1940s and the current fight against the Islamic State. In such a case, the route to peacemaking necessarily leads through war.

The eighth blessing from Jesus is in verse ten. “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” There are two key words in this verse to look at, so we can understand the meaning of what Jesus said. The first one is διώκω, rendered “persecuted.” In the Koine of the New Testament, this word has a denotation of chasing, pursuing, kind of persecution. The idiomatic American phrase “go after” has the same meaning, as in, “I’m gonna go after that pesky do-gooder.” So Jesus is blessing people whom others are going after.

But the why matters as much as the what in this verse. Jesus only blesses those who are gone after for the sake of righteousness’ sake. The Greek word for righteousness here is δικαιοσύνη, a very broad word that denotes all that is right and just in a person. Right standing, justice, mercy and every other virtuous attribute a person could have. The fact that Jesus narrowed the blessing to those who are persecuted for the tribute of righteousness is telling. That means He expected people who display any righteousness will be persecuted. There are spirits of darkness at work in the world that so hate righteousness that they want to eradicate all righteous people in the most painful way. Jesus is reassuring us that this persecution is not the end of it all. There will be a blessing for the persecuted in the end. Righteousness is beneficial to the soul. Jesus guarantees that the righteous will be rewarded by possession of the Kingdom of Heaven.

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Monday, April 3, 2017

Funding Through Gratuities

Ol’ Fuzzy is in a quandary. I am absolutely destitute, but I don’t want to beg. The strain on my sister’s retirement account incurred by paying my rent and power bill is driving us apart. And I still don’t have internet in my apartment after six months. There is simply no job in Macon County, North Carolina that I can do and is willing to hire me. All I have is my blogs, but I don’t qualify for ads until September. What to do?

I considered all the funding options I can find and nothing else seems to work except ask for gratuities to keep the blogs going. My needs are small. So I am researching a way to allow you, my readers, to send me a gratuity when you read my blogs to help me keep them going. I will call it, “Ol’ Fuzzy’s Tip Jar.”

Please don’t remain silent on this issue. Ol’ Fuzzy needs feedback, opinions and suggestions. Leave comments for me on my blogs as well as on Facebook.

My three blogs are:

Ol’ Fuzzy’s Cave, for spiritual articles (olfuzzyscave.blogspot.com);

Ol’ Fuzzy’s Soapbox, for political commentary from a neutral point of view (olfuzzyssoapbox.blogspot.com); and

Ol’ Fuzzy’s Hearth, for random musings and observations about life and science, etc. (olfuzzyshearth.blogspot.com).

Thank you for reading my blogs.

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 3

The fourth blessing Jesus gives in the sermon in Matthew is in verse six. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” These are very strong verbs. By definition, to hunger is to enter into the biological processes of starvation. Later usage waters it down quite a bit, but that is the original meaning of this word. This English word is used to render the Greek word πεινάω, which has a range of meanings from “I am dying of hunger, starving,” to “I crave my favorite food.” In the context of this passage, the meaning is closer to the earlier definition, starvation. The average human can go seven to ten days without eating before any lasting damage to internal organs. Jesus is saying those who need righteousness as an essential nutrient, and can’t get it, will be filled.

The next verb, thirst, is even stronger. Water is not merely a nutrient. The longest period of time a human could go without water before his body begins to die is twenty-four to seventy-two hours. The Greek word is διψάω, which the lexicon in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance maps the meaning of this word exactly to the English word thirst. Originally the English word thirst denotes the process from dying of lack of fluids. As Jesus uses the word, the meaning is clear that the thirsty one is close to death. To thirst for righteousness is to realize that your eternal life depends upon your right standing before God. The blessed one in this verse is one who recognizes his unrighteousness and seeks it from God.

Jesus reassures us that this condition will be satisfied by God. He uses the word χορτάζω, which means “to fill with abundance, satiate fully.” We are not only promised to receive righteousness, we’re promised to receive total righteousness. Only God can make us totally righteous once we have stained our own souls with sin. The condition of sin is separating us from God. God wants to make us one with Him. Therefore He has to remove the condition of sin so we can become one with Him. We are blessed by His righteousness through grace because we cannot be righteous on our own. This is truly a blessing.

The fifth blessing is in verse seven. “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” Jesus has tied our receiving forgiveness or our forgiving others in many places in the New Testament, the Lord’s Prayer in the next chapter is the most famous, and we will cover it soon. In this verse He ties receipt of mercy to being merciful. The Greek word is ελεέω, which translates quite closely with the English “be merciful, have mercy.” In the languages of the Eastern Mediterranean, the concept of mercy is tied closely with the concept of justice. It is only the Latin and other Romance languages that separate the two concepts into different realms. The Latin speaking Church has trouble reconciling the justice of God with the mercy of God. An example of this is the confusion over the mercy of Saint Joseph in 1:19 is coupled to his description as a just man. To the Latin mindset mercy is unjust. But thanks be to God, in the mind of God the two are inseparable. That is why the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is both an act of mercy and justice at the same time.

Mercy is one of the attributes of love. Love is the quality that God freely gives us as nourishment for our souls and spirits. Therefore, the people who receive God’s love are merciful. They are twice blessed. We are twice blessed. We receive God’s soul-nourishing love, a blessing in itself, and react in love with mercy toward others. God then blesses us with mercy for our own shortcomings, and that too is a blessing. We are forgiven because we are forgiving.

Does that mean it’s allowed to sin and get away with it? Oh, of course not! If I told you I would not punish you for cutting off your own foot, does that mean it’s alright to cut off your own foot? People who go around arrogantly harming others while relying on the formulaic prayer they recited once in church one night. The Pharisees worked hard to earn a degree of personal righteousness. Even Jesus recognizes their personal righteousness, saying we need to exceed their righteousness. But the modern day analog of the Pharisees, the self-righteous church people, are not even living up to the standard of righteousness upheld by the Pharisees. Beware the leaven of the Pharisees. Let your righteousness come from God and manifest in your mercy toward others.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 2

The second blessing Jesus pronounced in His most famous sermon is in verse 4 of the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” This verse is very reassuring. I can attest to the veracity of this pronouncement from personal experience. But there is more to this than just the simple definition on its face. We mourn more than the loved ones who pass on. We also mourn for things, conditions and countries.

This present life is fraught with loss. The nature of war is such that carnage is its primary characteristic. Jesus promised we would have strife in this world before we attain the next. Yet Jesus promises us comfort in our journey to attainment of the Kingdom of God. He even promises later to send the Holy Spirit for just that purpose. Love is accompanied with feelings of loss when the loved person, place or thing is subject to the depredations of the enemy of our souls.

We would think that mourning is an unnecessary pain when God can will the world to be perfect. Yet perfection of the world is the will of God. However, God respects the choices of His children as they travel along the path of their own choosing.

The hallmark of human growth is that a certain amount of stress is necessary for proper development. Our muscles atrophy if they are not stressed regularly. The same is true of our souls. The spiritual war being fought between the fallen angels and dead Nephalim on the one side and God and His planned world on the other is used by God to give us that stress. It is natural, a part of love, for us to mourn the loss of the casualties of this war. God delights in comforting His children who mourn. Grace, the unmerited favor of God, is many-faceted. Receiving grace is always a blessing. So whenever we mourn, for whatever reason, we are truly blessed.

The third blessing is often misunderstood, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Earth.” the primary misunderstanding comes from the word meek. Most people can’t distinguish between that which is meek and that which is weak. But the difference is profound. Meekness is strength under discipline. Chuck Norris is meek. No one ever calls him weak. (The joke: At least not more than once. But were that so he wouldn’t be meek. He wouldn’t be under control.) To be truly meek is to subject one’s strength to discipline, to control it in love.

Meekness is an attribute of love. Arrogance and egoism are antonymic of meekness. Think of the old television series ‘Doctari’ of the 1970s. The cross-eyed lion, Clarence, was meek. A powerful cat, weighing hundreds of pounds, he lived in harmony with the humans who nurtured him and protected them as his pride. The lion is a symbol of strength in all human societies. That is why a lion was chosen for the show.

The lion is also a symbol for the Anointed of God, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. No human being has ever been as powerful, nor as disciplined, as Jesus of Nazareth. The one time he displayed His might before the resurrection, the cleansing of the Temple, so frightened the temple guards and leaders of the Sanhedrin that they did nothing to restrain Him. The fact that He was correct in His accusations gave them pause, even though they stood to lose a very large revenue stream.

So we can rest in the grace of God whenever the world’s wrongness makes us mourn. We are blessed. And when we reign in our strength under discipline of God, we are also blessed, because we shall inherit the Earth.

Saturday, April 1, 2017

The Sermons of Jesus, Part 1

The Bible says many times that Jesus preached to his followers, but only two of His sermons are recorded in the Gospels. In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapters 5-7, is the iconic Sermon on the Mount. We get sermons from it on many Sundays and it is quoted more than any other words of Jesus recorded in the Bible. The Sermon on the Mount is also the longest discourse of Jesus recorded in the Bible. Reading the Gospel of Mark one would conclude that Jesus was taciturn and the Gospel of John has Him speaking only one-on-one with people he meets along the way, except to teach His disciples.

The Gospel of Luke has the lesser known Sermon on the Plain, Chapter 6:17-49. The message in this second sermon is essentially the same as that in the sermon in Matthew. The wording is different enough to show that it is not likely a record of the same event that Matthew wrote of. So it goes to show that preachers today are no worse than two thousand years ago. They all repeat their favorite sermons.

I would like to expose the message of our Lord when He gave these two similar sermons. In the next few articles, I shall do just that. First, the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus looked out and saw the multitudes of people filled with spiritual hunger, and decides to feed their souls. So He climbs a hill and, in a sort of natural amphitheater, He preaches to them. The words He gives to them are the very most necessary for their immediate spiritual need. This is what He began with, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

What does Jesus mean by His phrase, “poor in spirit?” The analogy is one seen nowhere else in literature. Think about what it means to be poor. One who is poor has to live “from hand to mouth.” A poor person makes no ostentatious displays of wealth and importance. The poor are more willing to receive what is offered for their well being. The poor in spirit, therefore, would be more receptive to the gifts of God.

Another quality of poverty is humility. Someone who “has it all” is not willing to give deference to the “little people” who “don’t matter” as much in their mind as they do. Look at our society and you’ll see an example in the attitude that a person’s net worth is the balance of his assets. We tend to value a person with more money in his bank account than one who has no bank account. He who is wealthy in spirit has no need for God’s providence, and gives no deference to someone with less.

So we can see that the analogy of poor in spirit fits a receptive and humble person. Did Jesus give us any examples of this? Remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector? What about the parable of the rich man and Lazarus? There are many examples in the parables of our Lord of one who is poor in spirit. And there are examples of those who are the opposite. The rich man whose harvest was a bumper crop and built bigger barns to store it all for himself is an example of someone who lacks the quality Jesus spoke of. Egoistic, greedy and uncaring people do not have the quality of poor in spirit.

I must always examine myself to ensure that I don’t develop the opposite quality. I highly recommend that you do so too.