"Give Me This Mountain": Finding Hidden Meaning in Scripture [New Church, Open]

Spirit and Life Bible Study ^ | Wed Nov 21, 2012 | Rev Dr Johnathon Rose

[DaveMSmith]

Many people read the Bible literally and feel very strongly that there's nothing more to it than that, and yet Jesus Himself says the whole Old Testament is about Him. How could that be?!? We ponder this through a bizarre story in which Caleb pleads with Joshua to be given a mountain inhabited by enemy giants in fortified cities (Joshua 14).

Also see: Spirit And Life Bible Study on Facebook

[metmom]

Many people read the Bible literally

Of course people read the Bible literally. I'm sure they are holding an actual, physical book in their hands.

However, whether they interpret it literally, is another matter.

I don't know of anyone or any organization which demands a LITERAL interpretation of every word of Scripture. Most people who are literate are savvy enough to understand that parables are not meant to be taken literally, nor songs (Psalms), poetry, clear allegory or metaphor, visions seen by the prophets, etc.

The charge that Christians take every word of Scripture literally is only a smear tactic to be always used to disparage and discredit them and their message. It's an avoidance technique used by those who do not wish to be accountable to God on HIS terms but rather want to have God on THEIR terms.

It doesn't work.

[metmom]

I’m very up front about my beliefs. You haven’t created a profile page to let me know where you are coming from. Look at the number of threads I have started since I joined - hardly spam.

So are we and it doesn't take a profile page to see that. Just read our posting histories.

Hebrews 9:22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Jesus came to earth to die for our sins to pay for them so that He could give us eternal life as a free gift, without having to work for it.

Jesus Christ is the only one who saves. Following Swedenborg is going to result in you finding yourself damned for eternity when you die.

It's only by committing your life to Christ that you can and will find eternal life.

Turn to HIM, the founder and perfecter of our faith....

Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

[ejonesie22]

You are exactly right. All of these “restoration churches” present a Christ who is not powerful enough to prevail against the evil one, one who basically lies...

[ejonesie22]

You are exactly right. All of these “restoration churches” present a Christ who is not powerful enough to prevail against the evil one, one who basically lies...

[P-Marlowe]

I’m always curious as to why people join non-Christian cults.

Why did you join this one?

[Elsie]

It doesn't work.

They THINK it does; as they walk past the graveyard; whistling...

[Elsie]

2 Timothy 4:3

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

[DaveMSmith]

I believe in spiritual freedom. I certainly would not want to put a gag order by classification of these threads to stifle speech. It's on the poster who is defiling a Bible Study on a forum where posts cannot be edited or deleted. I consider these posts un-Christian and anti-social - not fit for any society.

From Swedenborg's description of the meaning of Psalm 74:
PP 324. Psalm 74 title, 1-9 (H.B. 1-9) The church with all things appertaining to it has been utterly destroyed, and its holy things profaned, they saying in their heart that religion is not anything. 3 2, 10, 11 Prayer to the Lord to bring help. 11 12-15 Before this He has overthrown the hells, 8 16, 17 and before this, being protected, He has established a church; 11 18-21 let there therefore be compassion, that the church perish not 11 22, 23 through the uprising of evil. 3

And a recent inspirational reading:
More on the Dragon & Heavenly Doctrine
SD 5428 - 5429
When the dragons
looked upon those who were in heavenly doctrine,
they fell into fearful agonies,
and were tortured and tormented; inasmuch
as they cannot endure Divine Truth.

Michael, in the Apocalypse,
(Revelation 12:7)
are those who are in heavenly doctrine:
the blood of the Lamb,
(Revelation 12:117)
by which they conquered,
is the Divine Truth of that doctrine.

SD 5451
Those who are in any doctrine,
although not entirely true,
and are nevertheless in the good of life,
are in heaven;
for falsity of doctrine is not falsity
when there is good in it.
All in heaven differ as to truths;
but those who are not in any doctrine
cannot be in heaven.

[trebb]

And that's the problem with most religions - they all "find these hidden meanings in scripture" and end up discounting the plain text meaning that are there for everyone to see. If the Bible and the Word it is intended to convey, required theologians or other "interpreters" for someone to grasp the meanings, we would have no chance of being saved because of all the "hidden meanings" that such "experts" tend to find.

Folks who push this sludge are no different than the propagandists that have ruined Freedom in America by their constant "tweaking" of what the Constitution means and even making actual words in the dictionary verboten because they might be offensive to some mush mind. It's one of the reasons that so many sects of "Christianity" now allow/welcome female "priests/pastors/deacons, and why even open homosexuals achieve high positions such as what the Episcopal church has done.

Your post/ideas do not open new and wondrous doors - it tries to slam the door shut on the Truth of God's Word - God and those who wrote the Bible aren't/weren't Masons who put secret codes in everything - God WANTED the Word of the Gospel and the significance of Jesus' death to be known and understood - He would not allow it to be hidden "between the lines".

[ejonesie22]

Bingo...

[Elsie]

I believe in spiritual freedom.

I certainly would not want to put a gag order by classification of these threads to stifle speech.

It's on the poster who is defiling a Bible Study on a forum where posts cannot be edited or deleted.

I consider these posts un-Christian and anti-social - not fit for any society.

 

 

 

 

   Ignore the following statement !!!

 

 

Titus 1:11
They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach--and that for the sake of dishonest gain.

[Elsie]

- God WANTED the Word of the Gospel and the significance of Jesus' death to be known and understood - He would not allow it to be hidden "between the lines".

2 Corinthians 1:13-14

For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.

[DaveMSmith]

“It [is] impossible for any good to take root in man except in his freedom, for that which does not take root in freedom is dispelled at the first sign of evil and of temptation. ” - Arcana Coelestia 3854 Emanuel Swedenborg

[trebb]

Thank you for an actual passage to make the point - God Bless

[MarkBsnr]

The legal name for our branch is The General Church of The New Jerusalem

How many stars does your branch claim?

Swedenborg rejected Ruth, Job, Chronicles, Nehemiah, Ezra, Esther, Proverbs, in the Old Testament, and all but the four Gospels and Revelation in the New. He did Martin Luther a few instances better. He also recommended following the ways of the flesh in rather vigourous fashion.

One may also enquire as to whether the branch of the New Church to be found in central Africa has actually been located.

However, simply on the act of promoting modalism, one may conclude rather simply that Swedenborg was a heretic and any followers of his theology are Christian heretics as well.

[BlueMoose]

Yah some threads are gone.

[BlueMoose]

16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work freprobate.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Not sure what you mean. Do they use the longer, 73-book Bible used in the first 1,000 years of Christianity, or the more recent, shortened, 66-book Bible?

[Mrs. Don-o]

"The church grew but, with time, it began to fall away from what it was originally intended to be. Once again, the people of earth were prey to spiritual darkness."

Any church that preaches this (or any person that believes this) is calling Jesus Christ a liar.

Now that's interesting. Most Christian churches (with the exception of the Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Syriac, etc.) can't name a single congregation of their church from before the 2nd millennium. Protestants, Baptists, Evangelicals, Non-denoms -- they all believe that the Church fell away or apostatized sometime during the 1st millennium of Christianity. Some say as early as Constantine, some say even earlier that. Or so they've often told me.

[Godzilla]

This is the list of book that they consider to be ‘scripture’ in addition to the writings of Swedenborg -

The five books of Moses, the book of Joshua, the book of Judges, the two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, the Psalms of David, the Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; and in the New Testament the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the Revelation.

34 books in total - they reject the majority of the NT.