For those people who are sick and/or in the hospital (including those who are close to us and those who we do not know and are alone tonight) I offer the following from from the "Book of Common Prayer"-The Episcopal Church:
"O God, the strength of the weak and the comfort of sufferers: Mercifully accept our prayers, and grant to your servants the help of your power, that their sickness may be turned into health, and our sorrow into joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen."
--
I also offer the following for the Healers (the doctors, nurses, and all hospital and medical staff) that take care of our loved ones not just tonight, but every day and every night:
"Sanctify, O Lord, those whom you have called to the study and practice of the arts of healing, and to the prevention of disease and pain. Strengthen them by your life-giving Spirit, that by their ministries the health of the community may be promoted and your creation glorified; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen."
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Thursday, September 15, 2011
What "is" the Bible? Part 1
For the last couple of days my mind, my heart, and my very being have been involved in self-reflection, meditation and prayer. Not every second of the day of course (hard to do that when you also have to go to work, school, and attend to other matters) but when I do have the opportunity I use those moments to ask questions, get answers, ask new questions and so on. This is in part to what I discussed in my blog entry
In regards to "same-sex" marriage, why would a Christian quote from Leviticus 20:13? and is also related to the sometimes wonderful, sometimes painful, and always joyful aspects of my still very exciting journey as a Christian, and of course as a human being.
I then started to reflect, when it comes to Christianity, on why some of my fellow Christians have told me (in conversation, online debates, or chats over coffee) that they are Biblical Christians or Bible-believing Christians. I will leave for another day the definitions of these terms and their context in both the Christian Fundamentalist world and the Christian Evangelical world (while both of these share some similarities they have a lot of differences between them) and why that is. For now I go back to when I ask a Christian why he/she refers to himself or herself in this way, it appears that all of the responses come down to one thing: the Bible. That has made me ask myself many times in reference to this and other issues: what "is" the Bible?
We can discuss the way we "see", "read" and "use" the Bible as one way to answer this question but it is not the ONLY way. Some of us say quite simply: it is the word of God. Some of us say it is the inspired word of God. And there many others, but they all point to what it means to us. I believe it is also very important to look at the process in history that lead to the creation of this book that you may have a copy of, not just on your desk or at your church (if you have one) but perhaps next to your hospital bed, in your classroom, etc. In addition, we have truly come a long way since the days of the Gutenberg press, and the Gutenberg Bible. These days we can also find the Bible in electronic form in the web and our mobile devices like the iPhone, the Droid, the tablet, etc; I have a few Bible apps myself. Now, what I am about to say may be familiar to many of you. So, it may sound like I am not saying anything that is new, but perhaps to some of you it may be new, or you may have some disagreements with it.
First, what we know as the Bible was not a created as one/single book like one you could write yourself right now, from the first page to the last page. It was first in oral form (both for the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament) and then later it was written down in a particular language, for example in Koine Greek like in the Septuagint, itself a translation of the Hebrew Bible. Second, these writings circulated around the many parts of the Roman Empire as letters, as fragments, as separate documents and would start to be collected by the Church (for now let us define "Church" simply as the Christians and generations of Christians around the Roman Empire including their Christian leaders) and third, someone made a decision of what "books" would be part of the canon; some books made it, some didn't. This happened over the span of many centuries, including writing, rewriting, editing, and translating of documents and: we have no originals, all we have are copies.
In the second part of this entry we will look at a timeline of the process of the canon of the Judeo-Christian scriptures that we now know as the Bible. We must remember the following: what follows happened over 1,000 years BEFORE the famous 1611 "Authorized King James Bible" in the English language of that time, including the 16th century German language "Luther Bible" translated by Martin Luther.
To be continued...
In regards to "same-sex" marriage, why would a Christian quote from Leviticus 20:13? and is also related to the sometimes wonderful, sometimes painful, and always joyful aspects of my still very exciting journey as a Christian, and of course as a human being.
I then started to reflect, when it comes to Christianity, on why some of my fellow Christians have told me (in conversation, online debates, or chats over coffee) that they are Biblical Christians or Bible-believing Christians. I will leave for another day the definitions of these terms and their context in both the Christian Fundamentalist world and the Christian Evangelical world (while both of these share some similarities they have a lot of differences between them) and why that is. For now I go back to when I ask a Christian why he/she refers to himself or herself in this way, it appears that all of the responses come down to one thing: the Bible. That has made me ask myself many times in reference to this and other issues: what "is" the Bible?
We can discuss the way we "see", "read" and "use" the Bible as one way to answer this question but it is not the ONLY way. Some of us say quite simply: it is the word of God. Some of us say it is the inspired word of God. And there many others, but they all point to what it means to us. I believe it is also very important to look at the process in history that lead to the creation of this book that you may have a copy of, not just on your desk or at your church (if you have one) but perhaps next to your hospital bed, in your classroom, etc. In addition, we have truly come a long way since the days of the Gutenberg press, and the Gutenberg Bible. These days we can also find the Bible in electronic form in the web and our mobile devices like the iPhone, the Droid, the tablet, etc; I have a few Bible apps myself. Now, what I am about to say may be familiar to many of you. So, it may sound like I am not saying anything that is new, but perhaps to some of you it may be new, or you may have some disagreements with it.
First, what we know as the Bible was not a created as one/single book like one you could write yourself right now, from the first page to the last page. It was first in oral form (both for the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament) and then later it was written down in a particular language, for example in Koine Greek like in the Septuagint, itself a translation of the Hebrew Bible. Second, these writings circulated around the many parts of the Roman Empire as letters, as fragments, as separate documents and would start to be collected by the Church (for now let us define "Church" simply as the Christians and generations of Christians around the Roman Empire including their Christian leaders) and third, someone made a decision of what "books" would be part of the canon; some books made it, some didn't. This happened over the span of many centuries, including writing, rewriting, editing, and translating of documents and: we have no originals, all we have are copies.
In the second part of this entry we will look at a timeline of the process of the canon of the Judeo-Christian scriptures that we now know as the Bible. We must remember the following: what follows happened over 1,000 years BEFORE the famous 1611 "Authorized King James Bible" in the English language of that time, including the 16th century German language "Luther Bible" translated by Martin Luther.
To be continued...
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
In regards to "same-sex" marriage, why would a Christian quote from Leviticus 20:13?
As part of the comment thread for my blog entry The pain of my divorce, and how it shapes my position on "same-sex" marriage, and love I received the following last comments from a Christian who is using the name "Common Sense":
Dear Common Sense,
There are too many ideas that come to my mind and too many feelings and emotions in my heart to post here regarding your last comments.
I have decided, in the spirit of productive dialogue, to respond to your last comments in the form of an "open letter" that I will be posting as a new blog entry.
your brother in Christ,Mario
I ask all of you for your prayers and/or for your positive thoughts as I reflect and meditate on this issue. I shall be posting my reply (as I said, in form of an "open letter") soon.
God's peace to you also sir.
Living in sin, no matter for how long, is still living in sin. Just because it's been for 40 years makes it OK? The word "couple" as you use it doesn't apply and I reject it.
Is it also a civil right if that "couple" is a brother and a sister, a Father and his daughter, a 50 year old and a 5 year old, a woman and her cat? Sin has, and will always be, sin. Today's so-called standards do not change the truth.
You are taking God out of marriage. There can be no true, honest debate when Our Lord is removed from marriage. You are truly scarred indeed, and I pray for you. This secularized thing you keep referring to is NOT marriage. You shouldn't mis-apply terms to make your point.
How does that feel? ...to completely ignore God and his Word when it suits you? It must make a lot of things easier.
Leviticus 20:13
---------------------
After receiving that I replied with the following:
There are too many ideas that come to my mind and too many feelings and emotions in my heart to post here regarding your last comments.
I have decided, in the spirit of productive dialogue, to respond to your last comments in the form of an "open letter" that I will be posting as a new blog entry.
your brother in Christ,Mario
-----------------------
I ask all of you for your prayers and/or for your positive thoughts as I reflect and meditate on this issue. I shall be posting my reply (as I said, in form of an "open letter") soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)