It’s as simple as being moved by God. The verse has nothing more to offer.
Well you might be right.
Or we could all be gods.
Could go either way.
Hi Jerry,
There is a short essay by Kierkegaard that addresses some of these issues. It’s titled… ummmm, I think its titled “On the Difference Between an Apostle and a Genius” or the other way around. Anyway, a fairly quick read, and it might give some new thoughts while while lounging in the cuddy waiting for the wind to pick up…
Thanks, JT. I’ll check it out. (A little too choppy for comfort today anyway).
But this is no small thing. My thinking is that this is only where the verse begins.
But see, that’s your thinking…not the verse.
What purpose then for verse? Is the Bible merely a history book?
"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain (God’s grace was not given without purpose); but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I but the grace of God which was with me (Even though he laboured it was truly the grace of God that laboured for him). --1 Corinthians 15:10
Hmm. Interesting.
So what is Paul really saying here? Is he giving us permission to accept ourselves with all of our faults? This seems kind of dangerous, doesn’t it? This is one of those versus that seems to me as though it could be easily abused. “Well, I am what I am by the grace of God, so don’t blame me for being a derelict.â€
On the other hand, some of us beat ourselves up constantly. We don’t measure up to certain standards we feel we should measure up to. We’re not where we thought we’d be in life at this point. We’ve suffered failures and lost loves and we blame ourselves and we seriously struggle with confidence and we end up at times feeling a kind of overall contempt for ourselves. And yet are we not manifestations of God as Paul seems to be in some way suggesting?
How is this reconciled? How should this verse be interpreted…?
Do you think he’s trying to hide what he’s really saying or do you think he’s saying what he just said??
Natalie,
I am suggesting that there might be a way to derive meaning from his words, of his experience, with respect to our own lives. It is my thinking that there are many lessons of this sort in the Bible. Rather than a dry book merely recounting the experiences of the characters within, perhaps we can look a little deeper (I have apparently an irritating habit of doing this) and see if there might be some knowledge we can gain from the experiences and words of the characters, knowledge that we might be able to apply to our own lives. This is, according to you, a verse about being moved by God. Being moved by God is a pretty big thing, it seems to me. Paul has been moved here in a specific way and it has had a specific effect on him. What does this say to us? What is Paul saying, not literally, but what is his experience telling us? This is interesting to contemplate and interesting to consider, especially if we can draw parallels between his experiences and our own. Thinking in this way may prove valuable. Or it may prove a waste of time, I don’t know. My thinking in starting the thread was to see just where contemplating the verse in this manner may take us, if anywhere at all. If it’s taking you nowhere, I might refer you to another thread somewhere. Mundane Babble always seems to have some fun things going on.
No, but seriously dude. What more is there than what is said other than your own words?
There could have been your words.
Thanks for stopping by.
I haven’t added anything to the verse. That’s what I’m trying to stop. I’m not trying to bash you either. I just think you’re over analysing a bit.
I’m attempting to relate the words to my own life. That’s what we do here. This is a philosophy board. We look at what Plato has said and Spinoza and Kierkegaard and Nietzche. We look at what Christ has said, and Paul. And Buddha and Mohammed and Lao Tzu. We see if there’s a way to make their words meaningful in our own lives.
Otherwise it’s just reading. I can read Natalie. I don’t need all of you wonderful people here to help me do that.
I don’t want to speak for Chris Farley but I think his/her point is similar to mine. You are trying to read into the text what you would like to be there rather than trying to understand the more limited nature of what the text actually says. Of course anyone is free to do that if they choose, but why stop there, why not just make it all up? Why use the bible at all? Rather than using the bible as a guide in life, this kind of sloppy reading practice allows you to support any kind of behavior you want.
Listen, I’m not trying to be a know-it-all or pick a fight with you on this topic. It sounds like you just want to explore some deep questions in life and are keen to know what the bible means. But I’ve seen this same practice in use by white supremacists for example who believe the bible tells them to hate black people. My point is that if you do not first restrict what the bible says to what it was originally intended to say, and then work from that point, then you can pretty much make it all up as you go along.
Someone once said that the main problem with those of us who read the bible is that we are very busy trying to master it. When in reality it was written in order to master us. There is an element of submission to the text that is lost when we just pick verses out of context and push them down roads they were never intended to go. End of long tedious ramble…
Okay look, forget about the damn verse already. Forget I even brought it up. I’m sorry I opened up my Bible.
BIG PICTURE:
This is a thread about loving or hating oneself. It’s a subject that I would like to explore from a theological frame of reference. I am interested in this subject and how it relates to God and spirituality.
I say this because it occurs to me that love of oneself is where love might begin. Can I love God if I do not love myself? Indeed, can I love at all? There is much at stake here it seems to me and if we can, just for the moment, move past the argument as to how to consider versus from the bible, maybe there might be an interesting discussion here someplace.
All right, I’ll shut up about that verse.
I’m not sure what to think of self love/hate. I agree that having a bad relationship to yourself could color every other relationship, including with God. Didn’t whitney Houston have a sappy song about learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all? “I believe the children are the future…”.
I think a positive self image is best explored by exploring a relationship with God. I think that we are all so mentally screwed up that when we try to sort out the problems in our heads, we may end up making progress in one area only to find another area out of balance. Isn’t that why so many people end up on medication?
I have to be honest and say that an inability to love myself has never been my problem, quite the reverse in fact, so I’m really talking out my ass on this subject. But I do think that getting in touch with God is more likely to sort out our insecurities than looking inside ourselves to get in touch with our feelings.
The bible talks a lot about wisdom. I think wisdom is more than just knowing all the right answers in life, it is more about having an internal balance that takes the right perspective in relation to our finances, relationships and purpose in life, whether we know what to do or not. And I think that kind of wisdom comes from getting closer to God. Not that I have achieved it personally, but I have seen it evidenced in the life of others…
Thanks for the welcome Jerry. My name is Dan by the way.
Of God choosing one of his creation over another, I know it sounds bad, but I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t have this option or be willing to exercise it. Maybe you could convince me otherwise. You have my ear.
Of the ‘lesser burden’ I’m thinking of something general. You said in your first post in this thread that: “We don’t measure up to certain standards we feel we should measure up to. We’ve suffered failures and lost loves and we blame ourselves and we seriously struggle with confidence and we end up at times feeling a kind of overall contempt for ourselves.†This is part of what struck me when I was thinking of the ‘lesser burden’. I was figuring that maybe our standards that we measure ourselves against were somehow the wrong standards. Maybe we’re trying to lift too much or not enough. Maybe if we knew exactly what our part was in lifting our burdens we would be able to do it better and be better off because of it, in some real way.
But this is all vague so let me propose one concrete example so as to examine it: The burden of ignorance. We may be wrong in some of our most cherished beliefs and this because of our extreme ignorance about the world we find ourselves in, the shortness of our stay in it and other like things. But still in order to function we have to have these basic beliefs and, what is more, make decisions every day based on them.
How is the above example ameliorated by God, i.e. If I make an egregious mistake based on real beliefs I had at the time but which I am corrected of later, how does God reconcile the former confidence I had with the subsequent despondency I would feel? And the greater the mistake the deeper the drop, it would seem.
I guess the example isn’t concrete, but it is a narrower one! 
(Actually, Ned, I think all of Whitney Houston’s songs are sappy).
I agree with this Ned. Very good. Yes, I posted this under religion because in my estimation, concerns about self-image seem spiritual to me. Now, you and I might disagree on just how they are spiritual. You might think we need to get close to God to wash away our inherent evilness whereas I might think we need to get close to God to find our inherent goodness.
Either way, gaining wisdom is not a bad way to go about things, and getting closer to God seems like the right way to accomplish this.