He was telling us we must suffer. Paul embraced that. We are told to die daily.
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for. … If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it . out and throw it away from you .
How can we dismiss or minimize the very scriptures we embrace?
I was not referring to causing others to suffer. I am pointing out that suffering and bloodshed are essential aspects of being a Christian.
Paul is not inflicting the cross on himself. He is taking up the cross Christ told him he must carry.
I don’t think you’re going to be able to make any case that Paul is a masochist who preaches the enjoyment and even pursuit of suffering. I’m pretty sure it’s more of a “expect that suffering will be part of the deal here …” and rejoice in how you can grow spiritually by bearing up under it for Christ’s (and for your neighbor’s) sake. I know, one can always find self-flagelating monks somewhere; but … yeah … no.
I know there are more responses from you to read, Ralphie - and I will. But I do need to break away here eventually as this is turning into more of a marathon for me than it needs to be. I’ve been talking too much around here lately. Perhaps other fresh voices can be heard.
I don’t believe he was masochistic. He desired to be like Christ who despised the shame and yet endured the agony for us. It not just the evil out there somewhere we are combating. It is our own flesh too.
God speed.
Definitely… especially seeing how much of Christian theology has been poisoned by non-Biblical philosophy by such as Augustine to teach that God does not love people (human beings) but only uses them in order to love Himself – choosing a few to join Him in heaven to replace fallen angels, where their characteristics are unimportant since God will simply remake them according to what He needs.
What does Paul actually say taken in context?
Galatians 6:11 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. 12 It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that would compel you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 For even those who receive circumcision do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. 14 But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which[a] the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 16 Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God.
This is about the circumcizers and their legalism to which Paul naturally counters that Jesus on the cross is the greater circumcision – that is faith and grace rather than legalism. It is comparison with a very wrong way of thinking and not the way you have made it out to be at all Cody.
What!!! Are you now trying to measure me against your own emotional experience? Are we next to compare dopamine levels to see whose “love experience” is greater? If not then is this about your ability to employ rhetoric filled with words of love? Is it to see who can write the better love song or love letter to God? My experience is not yours, and guess what, it has absolutely nothing to do with the love of God – your impulse to compare in this way does not come from Him.
I was curious.
I am an excessively intellectual person. My rare experiences of emotion are the miracles I treasure most.
Well they can only turn to Him if He introduces Himself nicely in Persons. All will I’m sure.
The issue of suffering can be perverted into self-flagellation and even leads to such abuses as the selling of indulgences. It even has roots in the sin-confession cycle, and the evangelical “drunk on Saturday night, go to church on Sunday with remorse. Russell Moore had a article on that I read this morning, also relating to the Mars Hill attraction and abuses. I think a key element is something Ralphie said that Jesus suffered for us.. We suffer, but it is not for ourselves or as a poor substitution of Christ for our guilt, but because the world imposes it on us.
Yes Paul is saying that cross is greater than someone trying to be righteous by works. The reason though the cross is greater, is because it brings about the miracle of the New Creation, being Born Again that only the Father could create.
The cross is the cutting off of the world, a spiritual circumcision for those who believe. If the cross is only the murder of Jesus and then God raises Him up, it does nothing to free mankind from his slavery to sin and the God of this age. There is no supernatural separation, circumcision of the spirit and the flesh, no dying in Christ and no actual union in His resurrection. So all that remains is our working to overcome sin. No actual, literal union with Christ =no New Birth by the Spirit of God. A man is still dead in his trespasses and sins.
It takes a miracle of God for us to be, Born Again, a New Creation.
At peace.
I was at peace, even at the first, when this happened, not knowing how imminent my death or pain might be: Nephrectomy, and during this: High Water.* (I can get frazzled sometimes when hurried, though. 
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*(Let me know if that link doesn’t work or if it loads too slowly.)
JPM, to turn away from what my flesh craves for Christ, causes me to suffer. Not punching somebody in the face when I long to, is a form of suffering for me. Not losing my temper, praying for the one who cheated me out of a fair trial, not reminding my wife that I was right (for the first time in 30 years) over some petty issue, these are the kinds of things that can be a real pain to me. If I follow his will things always turn out better and I am closer to God as well. Everyone struggles with a million things in different ways. When I turn my will and my life over to Christ, He’s in charge. I die to the great, “me, me, me, me” which hurts, and He blesses me with himself. There is nothing on earth that compares to his presence–for me.
That is why it is mind bogglingly frustrating when people won’t even give him a real shot to prove how cool He is! He is cool beyond your wildest imaginings.
Of course, we work towards craving only that which honors Christ, and finding joy not suffering in living for Christ.
I am engaged in a war, 24/7. A terrible, life and death battle for my very Life, my essence, my soul.
“Who for the joy set before him, endured the cross…”
I fear the idea of being a Christian is pretty distorted these days. I want to warn everyone with ears to hear that being a true follower of Christ is the most challenging and strenuous and most painful way to live you can find. Not for everyone, not all the time, but for many who really mean business with God, you will become a person with a backbone made of steel forged in the crucible of the hottest flames.
Jesus was a man of sorrows.
It is very grieving to go out each day to work and see how people are slaves to sin. To see so many living their lives as if the Day of Judgment doesn’t exsist. They are controlled by love of money or just trusting in it. Proud of what they own or what they think they have made of themselves. Loving this world and not even knowing they are slaves to their fleshly passions.
And to know that when you sow the seed of the good news of Jesus, the birds can come and take that seed away. To see confessing Christians living their lives as if this is their true home. Seeing them bound by covetousness. To not see the Father and the Son honored is very grieving.
But there are times of joy.
Telling someone what sin is and seeing a light of understanding come on. Then letting them know Jesus can free them from the power of sin by His death and resurrection.
Asking my customer what he knows about Jesus and ending up having a very profitable time of fellowship with a new found brother.
Talking with a customer about lusting after women and how to overcome that, and then seeing his wife nodding her head in agreement with what I was saying. Knowing she was encouraged by what I was saying to her husband.
And thinking what it will be like to see the Father and Jesus and to hear the Father say His own name.
This is not my home. I am looking for the city whose builder and maker is God. In this world believers will be hated by the children of this age but we look to the Father for our reward, to hear Him say “Well done good and faithful servant. Enter into the Kingdom that has been prepared for you”.
Sent you a PM.
I think it is entirely right and proper to “judge God”. STM that we have every right, even a duty, to do so.
As for St Paul’s brow-beating “But who art thou, O man, to answer against God ?”, that is the tack people resort to when they are out of arguments. If God has given man a moral sense, and wishes man to use it, St Paul has no right to complain when people use this moral sense to question, find fault with, and object to, God.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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