Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evolving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, and theological views are normally the object of great passion. As it should be. After all, how we understand the creator and ourselves is at the core of our identity for people of faith.
But I've been looking at this issue for most of my life, and I've found so much confirmation in scripture and in practice that this perspective is what the Bible is really trying to tell us.
The bible (OT and NT) are like the Q drops. Future proves past. There were things that the Israelites couldn't really fathom based only on what Moses shared with them. Likewise, the disciples and believers also could not understand a lot of what Jesus was trying to teach them. Even Paul acknowledged that he only understood in part, and foresaw a time in the future when all would "see face to face" and know just as Christ knows.
At some point, we need to unravel the "G-drops" that God has put into the scripture, a certain amount of it "in code" i.e. in symbolism, but also the underlying principles. It's navigating the symbolic and metaphorical with the actual and literal that is the trickiest aspect. Jesus so often used parable and metaphor, and explained quoting Isaiah:
“The mystery of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those on the outside everything is expressed in parables, so that "‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding"
With regards to an underlying principle, consider the constant stories of the dynamic between elder brother and younger brother, where the elder has to humble himself to serve the younger. When you consider all of providential history as the history of unwinding or reversing what happened in the Garden, the scripture is illuminated in a completely different way.
Example. Mary. Mary was unwed when she conceived Jesus. How does this make sense? By Jewish law, she should have been stoned to death for adultery. So when Mary says "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word" she was actually putting her life on the line. She risked her life to unite with God and believe in his word to her. This is the opposite of Eve, who risked her life to unite with Lucifer, and disbelieve God.
The purification of the womb leading up to Mary is an amazing aspect of OT history. (Jacob and Esau wrestled in the womb. Why? The fight between elder (cain) and younger (abel) had to go back and back finally into the womb, where the fallen lineage took root, to reverse the origins. There are other stories in the OT that indicate this reversal of the fall (Lucifer - elder - Adam - younger) in the lineage of Jesus.
Jesus' birth was not just a magical miracle without reason or foundation. It was a miracle that God created over millenia, in the history of Israel, until finally he could send Christ in a purified womb that Lucifer had no claim over.
I know some of the ideas come out of the blue for many believers, but if scripture was plain and straight forward and easy to grasp, there would not be so much division amidst the Christian community. Denominations, and hundreds of theological divisions exist because the "G-drops" have not yet made themselves apparent.
But as evil crumbles and the Great Awakening proceeds, I believe that Christianity will be revived to a much more alive state and we'll begin to realize that for millenia, we've been waiting for this time.