Thanks. We will all have to live with each other in Heaven, won’t we? Could be an interesting learning process. I remember Lewis saying that perhaps no one would find Heaven entirely to their liking, because we would all have to conform to His.
@Randy, we were speaking of sarcasm in the Bible earlier, and something along these lines clicked for me as I was reading another passage: Luke 16:17
It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter in the law to be dropped.
I had always read that passage as being a devastatingly knock-down endorsement of every jot and tittle given from the law and the prophets in their time. But suddenly it hit me as I read this yesterday that Jesus was almost certainly being sarcastic with that utterance. When the prior verses and context are looked at, it makes it unlikely in the extreme that Jesus as using this opportunity to endorse the law. In fact quite in the contrary - he is chastising the Pharisees for their obsession with the law, he then refers to the law (v. 16) as having a term that has expired, and in that context he goes on to say “Good grief people! - heaven and earth is easier to move than to get you all to let go of one of your precious legion of rules!”
I don’t know why I had never seen that verse in that way before - it is so obvious to me now! It’s probably always been obvious to everyone else and I just have the thicker skull. But I had recently used a similar expression about a situation with my own exasperation: It would take apocalypse itself to sweep over before companies like Apple or Paypal would ever let somebody change or update an old primary email associated with an account. With one hand they pester you to update records, but then they smash you down with a thousand other hands when you actually try. They make a joke of their own policies causing old accounts to simply be abandoned since their own policies prohibit the very thing they claim they want.
I know … that’s a tangent, but my own exasperation with that made me suddenly able to see Jesus’ exasperation there.
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Suppose mankind meets or exceeds expectations and that everyone of your relatives dating back to Adam including every cousin no matter how distant were there to greet you. Unless you/we were very different* than we are now it is hard to imagine that we would be living in close proximity to everyone. Rather it should be more like greater Tokyo, New York and Mexico City all rolled into one. I think I should worry of ever getting a moment’s solitude there. I do enjoy a good party occasionally but I wonder** if it would go on 24/7.
*By different I wonder if we would feel continuous with our earthbound selves. Hopefully we wouldn’t become sanitized Stepford versions of ourselves.
**I’m wondering for a friend as I’m expecting no invite and have made plans to stay in the world as compost. 
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I think it’s safe to say that either all of us have the “invite” or none of us do.
The angst over what our itinerary might look like in eternal bliss is, I think, a decidedly affluent-society worry. (Sorta like the cartoon of a halo’d person standing on a cloud looking bored and commenting, “I wish I’d brought a magazine.”) But for most of people in most of history with its harsh struggles to just survive, there was no doubt that, whatever Heaven is … it isn’t going to be like here (thank God!), and that is their hope. Only with our addictions to creature comforts and devices do we anxiously muse over whether or not we’ll find the hereafter as entertaining as our current fare.
Whatever fleshly indulgences we enjoy now, it will probably all need a bit of composting before we are ready for our new life in the Spirit.
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I’m sure that is right. In almost any other time for the great majority of people, heaven would be where one finally would have enough without worry of more the next day of everything needed for subsistance. Amusement and comfort wouldn’t be on their mind.
Of course what I wrote was with tongue firmly in cheek but I do find life pretty amazing and perfect just as it is even with loss and death at the end. If that tuned out to be God’s actual plan, He won’t hear any complaints from me.
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I feel as if nobody in the West knows much about Orthodox Christianity = ( please consider research into Orthodoxy, and how it lacks the problem of Catholicism. So many protestants I have met do not know about Orthodoxy or why it is so different from Catholicism (which made up new ideas). God bless all of you.
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A minority such as myself would know the difference between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, and I have to tell people its more then “Greeks and Russians who are Catholic but without a pope.” Eastern Orthodox Christianity is unique to the Christian faith and has its own flavor to worship and theology.
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First Schism was between Paul and Barnabas, go figure.
It is my experience that the difference in belief between individuals is quite a bit greater than the difference in belief between denominations and even between religions. All of this goes to show how inherent diversity is in religion. I think this supports my claim for the innate subjectivity of all things spiritual.
That seems right to me. It also inclines me toward universalism and ecumenism across religions and belief states.
Yeah, it’s really subjective who my father is, and my Father.
Yep… from Wikipedia…
sub·jec·tive
/səbˈjektiv/
adjective
- based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.
Who your father is very much depends on personal feelings, beliefs, and choices.
To the Pharisees and Jews in the temple, Jesus said, “You are of your father, the Devil,”
Nah, sorry. Jesus was making an objective statement of fact, not “I feel like you are…” or “It’s my soft and squishy opinion that you are…”
I am, in fact, my father’s child. And my Father’s.
You are going by a different definition of subjective. Mine has nothing to do with uncertainty or squishiness. Something you know with more certaintly than anything else in the world can still be subjective.
Tell me. If you didn’t believe in Jesus and you had no faith at all, would you still be the Father’s child?
If so… then why did Jesus say those Pharisees and Jews in the temple were not?
I am using the same definition you are.
I wouldn’t know, would I. My opinion would be probably not, and I’d probably be right.
Because he knew.
But in that case whether you are the Father’s son depends on your internal state.
And that fits the definition of subjective.
This goes for your father also, because it is not just about your biological genetic relationship. Thus people will say, “just because that guy donated some sperm doesn’t make him my father.” The biological genetic relationship is objective but the relationship is not – its not something you can see with a microscope or measure with a machine.
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I’m sorry, but you’re not getting it. Is whether you are you father’s biological son subjective? The physical reality precedes your understanding of the relationship when you were a baby, and hopefully, your father loved you before you were born. The later relationship cements the fact in your eyes. If you were adopted, does the legality of your adoption depend on subjective feelings on your part? No. Hopefully your adoptive father loved you before you were adopted. Likewise for having been adopted by the Prototype and Ultimate Model. There is nothing subjective about it.
Of course biological fathers can abdicate and fail to love, whereas a stepfather and adoptive father does not. But the loving father’s love still precedes the child’s and the relationship is not subjective. The child can become a delinquent, but that’s another story.
Absolutely.
I once held a poll on another (likeminded) Bible forum, 12 subjects to agree or disagree on, 22 voters and no 100% match. Only two 11/12 and one 10/12 match, no 12/12.
Details here.
Interesting poll. You would get vastly different results here of course, but it would still be interesting to see where people stand on those issues (here would limit the questions to believers only to get meaningful results)
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