Portfolio Diversification
Treasures In Heaven
Above and beyond salvation, what does it take to be blessed? If you already have blessings, and what does it take to be perfect?
It's a verse which is supposes to stab right through the heart of the false doctrine of the prosperity gospel.
King Solomon's Proverbs take lots of stabs at the poor and a few at the rich. That way everyone can be unhappy.
If you're a rich follower of Jesus (having received blessings from God) and you then do as Jesus suggests and sell all you have and give it to the poor, and you give with your right hand so that your left hand doesn't find out, then you'll have treasures in heaven.
According to Scripture - Thinking Like Jesus
And according to one verse in the gospel, you'll be perfect.
"One verse? One verse?! That's our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ you're talking about!" No. That's the account of one epistle bearing witness to what he heard the Son of Man say.
We're taking a step back from the teaching itself and looking at it critically. This forces us to engage our own thinking, compare two different accounts, and see the only begotten son through the filter and imperfect recollection of each witness.
Why? Because that's the precise skillset you need to become shrewd and savvy. You're taught to search for the truth of the matter, which is what Jesus obviously wants us to be doing. We're detectives of the word. We're learning to think the way Jesus wants us to think.
Why? Noticing things keeps you alive. You need to be good at it. The gospel, as well as the rest of the Bible, becomes a detective school.
"The first to state his case seems right until another comes forward and examines him." - Proverbs 18:17
The scripture is to be cross examined. As are the doctrines of churches, and even the accusations against them. This would include the "prosperity gospel."
Cross Examining the Man on the Cross
Jesus, whether you believe he's the Son of God or not, is still the greatest genius who ever lived. It shouldn't surprise you that he leaves himself an "out" by not writing down his own teachings. Some think this is a mistake. It's not.
It's ok to have the exact words Jesus said. No problem. But the witness to those words are imperfect people.
Even an imperfect being knows he'll be mistaken for perfect. Celebrities experience this constantly. It's their job to somehow create the false illusion of humanity, even though they're a professional propagandist, showing their best side, and caring about what the world sees.
Even a preacher does this. When he does, he's following St. Paul's instructions to eliminate the appearance of evil.
"Abstain from all appearance of evil." - 1 Thessalonians 5:22
When a perfect being is handing down ten commandments by chiseling them from stone with His own finger, for example, Hebrews will forever disobey the law, misunderstand the law, incorrectly re-copy the law, an fight about interpretations of the law. The law hasn't changed a bit, but the law changes the people to whom it was given.
Some are improved by it. Some are destroyed by it.
But having a single, infallible witness to THE truth carved into stone by His own hand creates problems. Even a granite stone doesn't last forever. You've only got one copy. You need a small army to move it around.
The words themselves are what endure forever. Not the stone copy.
If I were able to memorize the teachings and pass them down, word-for-word accurate down through the generations, the teachings might not change, but the language does. To preserve the meaning, you have to explain what the Bible used to mean.
The 1611 King James translation, even if it's translated and preserved perfectly, is perfectly preserved in a dying or dead version of the English language. Elizabethan. Unless and until you start speaking a lot of Elizabethan English at home, your understanding will drift further and further away from that teaching.
Those who pass on the oral history won't necessarily understand it anymore, and it's significantly harder to remember and pass on a teaching you don't understand. Not impossible.
I'm no expert in ancient languages.
It's possible for me to recopy Egyptian hieroglyphics or Cyrillic or Hebrew. But because those aren't my primary languages, I could easily make an important mistake without realizing it.
We're coming to a point where we don't understand the Greek language the way the Greeks did, not that it's the best choice of languages for the job, we don't understand the teachings of the underlying set of facts that gives rise to them, and we're working from copies and translations and witnesses that disagree with one another.
That's why Jesus is teaching Christians to master the exact skill you need to solve all those problems by having his message spread by multiple witnesses.
You're also hearing it from multiple witnesses.
You'll know from multiple eyewitness accounts, for example that Jude, Jesus and John are much more woke to the JQ than Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Maybe even St. Paul is missing the forest for the trees, even though as a repentant persecutor of Christians who changes his ways and fights for the other side, he fits the model of George Lincoln Rockwell and General Patton perfectly.
Just because you wake up one day and start fighting against political correctness doesn't mean you're woke to the JQ, nor that you understand its ancient nature or origins. I'm not expecting Candace Owens to give a treatise on how the ancient homosexuals were likely banished from tribes instead of being executed millions of years ago, eventually formed a single, anti-Christ tribe of lying, murdering trolls who divide and conquer and get others to do their fighting for them.
Only a few are that woke. Jesus, Fair Use and Moses among them. But that number is growing.
When DNA figures out the best way to make an enzyme, it passes copies of the code forward. If it's right, it's the building block of all successful life. If it's right, it lives. If it's wrong, it dies. Jesus teaches this very thing in the metaphor about the "true vine".
And if you've got two or three witnesses to it, then it's true. Christianity has got to be the only religion where you're taught to distrust even the scriptures themselves in your search for truth, because truth is paramount.
When you do this, it allows you to question whether King Solomon was right. Which, after looking at his life, it's clear he wasn't. Spent a lot of time complaining about fools, turning away from God and he may be in danger of hellfire. (Matthew 5:22)
Just world fallacy is to believe God is right to punish the leper, so you can. A man who has been made ill for the glory of God.
Jesus attacks the just world fallacy while proclaiming only God is good. This is no contradiction. You should help others, even those who the Lord has punished. There's no doubt someone has gotten what they deserve. But when the Lord your God puts someone is in need in front of you, then you should be at least a little concerned about your own salvation instead of theirs.
Above and beyond salvation, what does it take to be blessed? If you already have blessings, and what does it take to be perfect?
 |
| Your greatest possession is your people. |
It's a verse which is supposes to stab right through the heart of the false doctrine of the prosperity gospel.
King Solomon's Proverbs take lots of stabs at the poor and a few at the rich. That way everyone can be unhappy.
If you're a rich follower of Jesus (having received blessings from God) and you then do as Jesus suggests and sell all you have and give it to the poor, and you give with your right hand so that your left hand doesn't find out, then you'll have treasures in heaven.
According to Scripture - Thinking Like Jesus
And according to one verse in the gospel, you'll be perfect.
"One verse? One verse?! That's our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ you're talking about!" No. That's the account of one epistle bearing witness to what he heard the Son of Man say.
We're taking a step back from the teaching itself and looking at it critically. This forces us to engage our own thinking, compare two different accounts, and see the only begotten son through the filter and imperfect recollection of each witness.
Why? Because that's the precise skillset you need to become shrewd and savvy. You're taught to search for the truth of the matter, which is what Jesus obviously wants us to be doing. We're detectives of the word. We're learning to think the way Jesus wants us to think.
Why? Noticing things keeps you alive. You need to be good at it. The gospel, as well as the rest of the Bible, becomes a detective school.
"The first to state his case seems right until another comes forward and examines him." - Proverbs 18:17
The scripture is to be cross examined. As are the doctrines of churches, and even the accusations against them. This would include the "prosperity gospel."
Cross Examining the Man on the Cross
Jesus, whether you believe he's the Son of God or not, is still the greatest genius who ever lived. It shouldn't surprise you that he leaves himself an "out" by not writing down his own teachings. Some think this is a mistake. It's not.
It's ok to have the exact words Jesus said. No problem. But the witness to those words are imperfect people.
Even an imperfect being knows he'll be mistaken for perfect. Celebrities experience this constantly. It's their job to somehow create the false illusion of humanity, even though they're a professional propagandist, showing their best side, and caring about what the world sees.
Even a preacher does this. When he does, he's following St. Paul's instructions to eliminate the appearance of evil.
"Abstain from all appearance of evil." - 1 Thessalonians 5:22
When a perfect being is handing down ten commandments by chiseling them from stone with His own finger, for example, Hebrews will forever disobey the law, misunderstand the law, incorrectly re-copy the law, an fight about interpretations of the law. The law hasn't changed a bit, but the law changes the people to whom it was given.
Some are improved by it. Some are destroyed by it.
But having a single, infallible witness to THE truth carved into stone by His own hand creates problems. Even a granite stone doesn't last forever. You've only got one copy. You need a small army to move it around.
The words themselves are what endure forever. Not the stone copy.
If I were able to memorize the teachings and pass them down, word-for-word accurate down through the generations, the teachings might not change, but the language does. To preserve the meaning, you have to explain what the Bible used to mean.
The 1611 King James translation, even if it's translated and preserved perfectly, is perfectly preserved in a dying or dead version of the English language. Elizabethan. Unless and until you start speaking a lot of Elizabethan English at home, your understanding will drift further and further away from that teaching.
Those who pass on the oral history won't necessarily understand it anymore, and it's significantly harder to remember and pass on a teaching you don't understand. Not impossible.
I'm no expert in ancient languages.
It's possible for me to recopy Egyptian hieroglyphics or Cyrillic or Hebrew. But because those aren't my primary languages, I could easily make an important mistake without realizing it.
We're coming to a point where we don't understand the Greek language the way the Greeks did, not that it's the best choice of languages for the job, we don't understand the teachings of the underlying set of facts that gives rise to them, and we're working from copies and translations and witnesses that disagree with one another.
That's why Jesus is teaching Christians to master the exact skill you need to solve all those problems by having his message spread by multiple witnesses.
You're also hearing it from multiple witnesses.
You'll know from multiple eyewitness accounts, for example that Jude, Jesus and John are much more woke to the JQ than Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Maybe even St. Paul is missing the forest for the trees, even though as a repentant persecutor of Christians who changes his ways and fights for the other side, he fits the model of George Lincoln Rockwell and General Patton perfectly.
Just because you wake up one day and start fighting against political correctness doesn't mean you're woke to the JQ, nor that you understand its ancient nature or origins. I'm not expecting Candace Owens to give a treatise on how the ancient homosexuals were likely banished from tribes instead of being executed millions of years ago, eventually formed a single, anti-Christ tribe of lying, murdering trolls who divide and conquer and get others to do their fighting for them.
Only a few are that woke. Jesus, Fair Use and Moses among them. But that number is growing.
When DNA figures out the best way to make an enzyme, it passes copies of the code forward. If it's right, it's the building block of all successful life. If it's right, it lives. If it's wrong, it dies. Jesus teaches this very thing in the metaphor about the "true vine".
And if you've got two or three witnesses to it, then it's true. Christianity has got to be the only religion where you're taught to distrust even the scriptures themselves in your search for truth, because truth is paramount.
When you do this, it allows you to question whether King Solomon was right. Which, after looking at his life, it's clear he wasn't. Spent a lot of time complaining about fools, turning away from God and he may be in danger of hellfire. (Matthew 5:22)
Just world fallacy is to believe God is right to punish the leper, so you can. A man who has been made ill for the glory of God.
Jesus attacks the just world fallacy while proclaiming only God is good. This is no contradiction. You should help others, even those who the Lord has punished. There's no doubt someone has gotten what they deserve. But when the Lord your God puts someone is in need in front of you, then you should be at least a little concerned about your own salvation instead of theirs.
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