Thanks For sharing your faith, SOG.

I frequently enjoy reading your comments here in GAW. They are often in agreement with my own perspectives on things regarding the 5G war.

I think, however, matters of faith are different. As a general comment, so many folks here seem highly intent on stating their belief as if it is fact, rather than seeking to explore the faith related topics together with others. That is understandable; we are created to have conviction in our faith and to move based on those convictions.

However, when all we do is state our beliefs as facts, rejoicing when someone agrees with us, and ignoring when others do not agree, it becomes a dogma-fest (imo), and very little learning proceeds.

Consider "the church" today, the body of the church aka believers who profess faith in Christ, has never, ever been more fractured. How would this be possible? is there one true and perfect church (denomination, congregation, theological standpoint) and all others are mistaken and untrue? It's a laughable proposition, in my opinion.

So where does all this fracturing come from? How is it possible? In my view, the fracturing is possible because no one has the complete understanding. Christian theological thinking itself is fractured, and that is reflected in the reality of believers today. More than ever.

Then, how could Christian theological understanding be fractured? It is because it is incomplete. It's because we are still missing pieces of the puzzle.

Think about it. Even Paul who you reference here very plainly admitted:

"Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

So Paul who expounded on our faith and the nature of God, etc, was coming from a place of admittedly limited understanding, and limited perception of truth.

This obvious fact is very often ignored, and has been historically. Why? Because of the very fact that we (Christians since Paul) have been working with a limited understanding, and knowing the certainty of Christ in faith, faithful have tried to resolve the contradiction in a number of ways:

The first already we have seen: ignoring the fact that the Gospels and the education we receive through them is incomplete, and secondly, adding "its the word of God, so the incompleteness of the authors isn't a factor; God overrides their incompleteness."

You end up with every believer and his dog asserting on one hand, that we do understand and have understood the Gospels to the required extent (i.e. 'completely') and yet, at the same time, a fracturing in the body of Christ that completely contradicts that idea. The two are logically incompatible, and because of that, we have fracturing and instead of humility in searching for truth, a general attitude of appealing to authority to shore up our faith. Whether one assigns that 'authority' to the Pope, to the local Pastor, to the Presbytery, the head office, etc., or even the Bible itself, its the same thing.

Appeal to authority as a means to try to ignore or explain the gap between the reality and the belief.

And, at this juncture, I would normally remind myself and others of Jesus own words:

"I still have much to tell you, but you cannot yet bear to hear it. However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come"

Again, the 'common' accepted interpretation for this is, oh, he's talking about the Holy Spirit. So, when we receive the Holy Spirit then we have access to the whole truth.

But this also doesn't make sense. Why? because if that were the case, if we have been acting and believing based on "All truth", then why the fracturing, the breakdown? Why is the Kingdom not here on Earth already?

Also, I would ask any person, WHAT are the things that Jesus could not share with his disciples and could not speak during his public ministry that you have personally gained through the Holy Spirit? What are those things, that the disciples "could not bear" that were subsequently revealed?

I find it hard to think of anything in common Christian thinking that is so hard to bear that Jesus could not share them, but which we now know.

I personally think an overhaul needs to take place. I consider the following analogy.

A child is born. He grows, from being a toddler, to being a young child, to being an adolescent. He recognizes his mum and dad as a toddler, comes to love them, accept them accept his relationship to them, and even as an adolescent, assuming the relationship is good, he still accepts them. BUT, his understanding of what it means to be a parent is necessarily limited.

This doesn't mean that everything he knows is wrong. It doesn't mean that everything he DOES know is wrong or incorrect. But some ideas he has about 'being a parent' may well be incorrect, while the core ideas are right. Incomplete simply means he doesn't have the whole picture.

It's a common human experience that a son or daughter comes to a very new appreciation of, and understanding of, their parents when they themselves have children. As children, or adolescents, or as single people, they don't know what they don't know.

This is something that all believers in Christ need to reflect on, imo. We don't know what we don't know. Because none of us have the whole picture. And why is this? It's because Jesus left before he could teach everything he had to teach, and after the cross, his disciples, including Paul, were left with a necessarily incomplete understanding, even while having to carry on the work of spreading the word and the kingdom.

What's the point I am seeking to make here? It is simply this: The reason why the body of Christ is so fractured, and in being fractured, so vulnerable to the satanic attacks of atheistic Marxist thought (manifesting today through neo-Marxism and 'wokeness') and moral corruption, is because our understanding of Christ is very incomplete, by its nature, and acting as if the understanding IS complete, we become unable to learn from either God or each other. We become indoctrinated in our own minds to what we believe, and this separates us as believers.

The only way to overcome this is to share, listen and learn. If none of us has the whole picture, then perhaps through learning from each other, the picture we have can be improved, built up and raised, to the extent humanly possible.

If we apply the principle that "when two or more are gathered in my name" there is a foundation for Christ to be present in the MIDST of that gathering, then the same should be true of how we improve or develop our understanding, and on that basis, improve our faith.

We won't get there by being cocksure of our own understanding and simply telling others what is right and correct. That's not gathering in his name.

In closing, I will say this: I think the scripture is very much like the Q board. The scripture contains deep truths, but our understanding of it is limited. And, I mean this not simply in an individualistic way, but collectively, historically. My own faith is that the Old Testament was a teaching for the Israelite to follow so that they could make the correct offering that would lay the foundation for God to send Christ at the designated time to a people prepared. Their offering was to keep the law, not only in practice, but in spirit. Paying attention to the heart of the law, and through that, building a relationship with God the creator. To prepare for the coming of his son.

But, the Israelites failed. The preparation was incomplete. They did not recognize Christ - their awaited Messiah - when he came. And this caused Jesus great sorrow.

To atone for their failure, Jesus made himself the sacrifice, the offering, by undergoing the crucifixion. They never made the correct offering of unity and faith in him, so he was compelled to become the offering in their place. Doing so, Christ won the victory over death, and made spiritual salvation possible to all who believe in him.

But, the necessity to make that offering meant that Jesus own life was cut short. Just as Moses fasted for 40 days to lay a foundation for the Israelites to receive the law, Christ, resurrected and victorious over death, gathered the disciples on earth for 40 days to lay a foundation for Christianity. The purpose of Christianity? Only one thing: For the gospels to be a teaching that would allow faithful Christians to make the correct offering so that when Christ returns, he can teach the final installment that illuminates and resolves all the fractures, the limited understanding and bring the whole salvation process to completion, in both spirit AND flesh.

That's my personal understanding. That the whole purpose of the gospels was to allow the development of a worldwide foundation of faith and civilization that Christ can then build his kingdom on earth on.

In that sense, I don't believe in the rapture or in a mystical supernatural 'magic' wand when Christ returns. Rather, the prophecies and understanding of the return of Christ were symbolic and in language understandable by men and women of 2000 years ago. But they do not paint the real picture. They are an image. Symbolic. Like so many things in the gospel. For example, fire symbolizing truth in numerous sayings by Christ.

Not literal fire. Truth. So the world "judged by fire" as expressed by the authors of the gospels (i.e. Peter), means a world judged by truth.

To put the pieces of the puzzle together, we MUST listen to each other, learn and grow together, and by offering humble unity accepting our limitations, devoted to Christ, we build the foundation he needs to return and complete the whole process of salvation, spiritual AND physical.

There are many,many contradictions in Christian theology that need to be resolved. Historically, faithful have attempted to resolve them by ignoring certain contradictions, focusing only on specific parts of the scripture as if those parts justify ignoring other parts. But the contradictions are there simply because we do not, and have not, seen the whole picture. We are working with an incomplete vantage point, and so we have not been able to correctly interpret the meaning or truth BEHIND the scriptures.

But that's MY understanding and faith. I'm not claiming that is "the Truth". I'm only sharing it because of my conviction that my own faith might shed some light, possibly light that others can see even if I cannot.

For some crazy reason, I've written all this because I think the points you raise in your comment would benefit from some extensive discussion, but I suspect that without some agreed on points, discussion might be fruitless.

Either way, I thank you for sharing your faith and your understanding.

Praise God.