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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/26/2010 10:34 AM (GMT -6) |   | 1 The Mighty One, God, the LORD,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets.
2 From Zion, perfect in beauty,
God shines forth.
3 Our God comes and will not be silent;
a fire devours before him,
and around him a tempest rages.
4 He summons the heavens above,
and the earth, that he may judge his people:
5 "Gather to me my consecrated ones,
who made a covenant with me by sacrifice."
6 And the heavens proclaim his righteousness,
for God himself is judge.
Selah
7 "Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
O Israel, and I will testify against you:
I am God, your God.
8 I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices
or your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.
9 I have no need of a bull from your stall
or of goats from your pens,
10 for every animal of the forest is mine,
and the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know every bird in the mountains,
and the creatures of the field are mine.
12 If I were hungry I would not tell you,
for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
14 Sacrifice thank offerings to God,
fulfill your vows to the Most High,
15 and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you will honor me."
16 But to the wicked, God says:
"What right have you to recite my laws
or take my covenant on your lips?
17 You hate my instruction
and cast my words behind you.
18 When you see a thief, you join with him;
you throw in your lot with adulterers.
19 You use your mouth for evil
and harness your tongue to deceit.
20 You speak continually against your brother
and slander your own mother's son.
21 These things you have done and I kept silent;
you thought I was altogether like you.
But I will rebuke you
and accuse you to your face.
22 "Consider this, you who forget God,
or I will tear you to pieces, with none to rescue:
23 He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me,
and he prepares the way
so that I may show him the salvation of God."
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What are y'all's thoughts on this Psalm. Somehow my mind ties it to this...
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
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My thought: Someone who is baptized and take the Eucharist regularly is partaking in the Body and Blood unworthily...if they are not attempting to live the Lord's Prayer...meaning reconciling and forgiving themselves and their fellow humans....
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. And anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.
"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to that person; then come and offer your gift.
This would include the "sacrifice" of the Eucharist! It ain't really a good look to take the Eucharist in a spirit of egocentricity (instead of theocentricity). There are consequences...like Tom said...
So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.
Interestingly enough, I talked to my wife, Aki, about all this...and this was EXACTLY her perspective. Her parents straight up taught her that unless you could intend for reconciliation and forgiveness for all people (including reconciliation with yourself) BEFORE partaking, you couldn't partake. She has a reverence for the Eucharist, the depths of which I truly hadn't known. All this came up because I'd asked her what she felt about taking more Communion together as a Christian home. She was quite excited to say the least. Wow. Note to self: You never know EVERYTHING about a spouse...no matter how much you THINK you know. 
Post Edited (One Love) : 1/26/2010 9:38:55 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/26/2010 10:48 AM (GMT -6) | | Nother thought spawned from Tom's stuff.
"Is that power any different than the power that sustains the universe outside the elements of communion? No. Greg’s right to a point, but his point is beside the point. Though the ‘presence’ of God is one and same universally—whether sustaining the existence of Satan or the elements of communion—but God is doing something in one he’s not doing in the other, something special in/for the whole Body when that Body decides (via the table) to live NOW in the light and power of what happened THEN. "
...
I added: The presence the same presence here as anywhere else. But the CHURCH as a BODY cannot just anywhere and in any way it likes symbolize and contemplate its corporate identity grounded in the Cross. WE (not I) can ONLY do that in Communion.
Ah, bear witness to the Sacrament of Marriage, the potentially perfect context for continual "Communion" with God, self, and "the neighbor." The context where the Great Commandments can always be carried out...AND the way of self-denial. (Another link)
The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman, '
for she was taken out of man."
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
...
...But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
Does marriage always work out like this? Nope. But the ideal possibility is still there. God knew what he was doing when he set this up.
"Within the family, the spiritual life of love should be sought and lived as fully as possible. This means that every member of the family should live for the good of the other in all circumstances, "bearing one another's burdens" and in this way fulfilling "the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2) There should be the constant presence of mercy and forgiveness and mutual upbuilding. There should be every expression of true love as is generally found in those who are holy.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (I Corinthians 13:4-7)
Such love is the basis of enduring family life, lived and expressed joyfully and cheerfully, without reluctance or compulsion. (cf. 2 Corinthians 9:6-12) For marriage is not "holy deadlock" as one cynical writer has put it, but, in the words of Saint John Chrysostom, a 'small church' in the home where the grace and freedom of God abounds for man's salvation and life."
Post Edited (One Love) : 1/26/2010 11:31:34 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 1/26/2010 5:30 PM (GMT -6) | | It is ironic. For all the concern about Old Testament Law, one doesn't have to look too hard to find psalms, like Psalm 50, and statements in general elsewhere in the Old Testament, about how God really could have done without the sacrifices; that is, God desired much more that those Old Testament saints come to Him with the right heart rather than with the right sacrifice. This did not mean that the sacrifices were to be left undone. Rather, it meant that in concomitance, both heart and sacrifice were to be offered together.
But today when we come to the Lord's Table, we will not hear God tell us, "Oh, I can do without you taking the Cup and Bread, if this is what it's going to mean to you" (think of the mishandling of Communion inside the Corinthian church), nor will we hear Him tell us to bring "the sacrifice" with our hearts. Rather, He asks that one takes the emblems of His Son's sacrifice in view of the intimacy that is now found available with God and with each other. One is to come to the Table of the Lord having first realized that rest for the soul, peace for the mind, and love in the heart, both toward God and toward man, are already in process.
The intimacy of relationship between God and man in the Old Testament was never found in or through the sacrifices (David's psalms alone point out that something else is more intimate with God than sacrificing). Those sacrifices were GOD'S statement of desire for intimacy with us, signifying that such intimacy was waning. But in the New Testament, the sacrifice of Christ, brought to the forefront by way of Communion, is a statement of intimacy between God and man already established and able, therefore, to wax strong. In the Old Testament one "presented" that which was clean before God, and in the New Testament one is presented before God as being clean.
As a matter of fact, so encompassing is the intimacy of Communion and the "cleanness" found in all things, that all the world's essence of what it means to love and be loved can be found in the one act of taking the Cup and the Bread: marriage is seen for what it truly is; a pouring out of relationship into each other, expressing that which God pours out into His bride. One-one-one relationships are viewed for what they truly are; the expression of love toward others in view of God's expression of love toward us—there are not two events going on here, but only one: the reflection of love among each other, the light of such love coming down from heaven above. Forgiveness toward others expressed as a state of being, because He has forgiven us with one stroke of the cross.
All these aspects of love and relationship are seen vividly a at the Table of the Lord. And only as one draws closer in intimacy with God can one appreciate more, and to much deeper levels, what it really means to partake of Christ. The Cup and Bread of which we partake speaks beyond words, for it talks the language of love, which is to be experienced in and lived through Christ.
Starkman | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/28/2010 11:22 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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