Are you a mystic?

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Typo: It's Essene

I just have to live with that….I typed it the right way 3 times and the IPad kept trying to correct it….not accepting it as a word….I gave up knowing that someone would have joy in correcting me…..:)

Matthew 13:11…..”He answered and said unto them, Because it is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.”

Or…..and never the twain shall meet….

Mystics remain separated from others and will always be so. The secrets of God can only be given…they cannot be taken. The ‘secrets’ can be in plain view but remain safe from understanding by the multitude.

[FallingLeaves]

personally, i don't see god's knowledge as being exclusive to an 'elite' group of people... it is just they needed comfort in SOMETHING to continue so they got exclusivity, and it wasn't yet time to share things with the multitudes...

i think a lot of stuff in the bible points to that not being the way things really are with the kingdom of god... not in the end...

on this specific topic we have this:

Luke 8:17 For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.

and we also have jesus statement which I always took to be to the multitudes

'you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free'.

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

Luke 8:17 For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.

'.

FallingLeaves,

You must consider the context…..the following verse Luke 8:18…..”Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him.”

To cherry pick one verse is misleading. The Bible is an open book….nothing hidden…nothing concealed. But what is there must be digested….the ‘careful listening’ means much rumination…much chewing. We need to be enlightened and any form of enlightening demands interior work. Literal understanding is one thing whereas spiritual understanding is a different realm. That which is taken away is eventually the faith in literal scripture. This is the plight of the modern church…..many are abandoning it because their understanding has been limited to literal understanding.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Molearner

FallingLeaves,

You must consider the context…..the following verse Luke 8:18…..”Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him.”

Matthew 13:12. KJB
"For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath."

How can you take away what someone doesn’t have.... ?

Originally Posted by sky

Matthew 13:12. KJB
"For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath."

How can you take away what someone doesn’t have.... ?

Very simple…..the first ‘hath’ refers to spiritual knowledge….the very last ‘hath’ refers to only literal understanding…….

[Redchic12]

Molearner……..” very simple…..the first ‘hath’ refers to spiritual knowledge….the very last ‘hath’ refers to only literal understanding……

I don’t get that. So are you saying the first person has spiritual knowledge so he will be given more but the poor ol guy who only has “literal understanding” gets none?

If that’s the case, then why not? And also, if that be the case then nobody is going to grow or evolve in this life.

Is this correct?

[FallingLeaves]

molearner

first thing, there is nothing to say that bringing things out into the open doesn't involve enticing people to thing for themselves. Personally I think the contrary is true, nothing can be brought out into the open and just given the way people try to force knowledge on each other, people have to learn whatever it is they are gonna learn for themselves. That is the whole point of this place in my view, that people get the opportunity to learn that their own perceptions and their own thoughts matter just as much as whatever they think they hear the world saying to them. That is why jesus did what he did, and that is why what was given is what was given.

What I am saying is, in my view this situation is set up to give people the opportunity to do just that. In my view it is not set up so that an 'elite' gets everything and the rest of us get nada, that is just the desires elites are always trying to manifest for themselves at the expense of the rest of us. In some sense I think that such thoughts are part of why god made the comment that he found the wise people were just full of foolishness.

To say that the multitudes will never have the opportunity to 'ruminate' the way you so value is just sacrilege in my mind...

just because something isn't happening now doesn't mean it cannot happen.

Unless of course you want to oppose it and make that situation so.

Personally though I'm not sure that if I were to do that I'd be in a good place with god...
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Second, cherry picking is a indded problem, but I find that if I cherry pick my own meanings to something to say that cherry picking is the big problem, and then cherry pick away statements of fact that are just sitting there staring at me on the basis of my own preconceptions of what the phrase' cherry picking' seems to mean in my own understanding of what I have gathered happened in the past, I get into even more trouble

but that is just me.

[FallingLeaves]

a part of why i said that is this quote from jesus:

'i come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly'.

But there are a lot of quotes in the bible, that when merged together to not look at them as conflicting as people say they are, paint an entirely different picture to me than the one you are painting.

I think I will stick with what I hear god saying until I understand why I am wrong.

Originally Posted by Redchic12

I don’t get that. So are you saying the first person has spiritual knowledge so he will be given more but the poor ol guy who only has “literal understanding” gets none?

If that’s the case, then why not? And also, if that be the case then nobody is going to grow or evolve in this life.

Is this correct?

Redchic12,

Suggestion: Think the Pharisee and the tax collector….the Pharisee whose modern day counterpoint is the fundamentalist….proud of his knowledge of the law, his status and his actions. The tax collector humble in confessing his shortcomings. We are told that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”. To have spiritual knowledge or spiritual connection with God can only come by the grace of God.

Proverbs 3:5….”Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding.” ‘Your own understanding’ is a product of your ego and has no connection to God. To be born again is to become spiritual….this means dying to self and checking your ego at the door. The fundamentalists….the literalists…are working from the ego. In essence they have failed to repent….repent coming from the Greek ‘metanoia’……meaning to transform the mind. To transform the mind means to be open minded. If one is stuck in the literal that is where he will remain.

If you return to the parable of the sower in Matthew 13 an explanation of it is given in verses 18-23. The seed that fell on ‘good soil’ produced a good crop…this was the soil that understood the Scripture, through diligence and being open minded.

As a footnote to this parable one notices not only that the seed on good soil produced a good crop….but that the yield varied from 30 to 60 to 100. This alone encourages more contemplation. IMO this depends on the particular man who sowed it. I would suggest this represents a progression from initiate to adept to master…..indicating that progress is always possible on the spiritual path…..100 being a number that is figurative…..meaning without limit……