Slaying Giants vs. Going with them Two Miles

(From a friend's post on Facebook.)

It's different circumstances.

When God called Israel by Moses, He called them to be a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation", see Exodus 19, especially v. 6. Peter reiterated this to the early Christians, per 1st Peter 2, around v. 9.

But the Israelites in general could not handle it, so the Levites took on the burden of the preparatory priesthood of external ordinances, and were supposed to teach the ways of God to the rest. They were mediators between the people and God.

Israel was supposed to teach the ways of God to the world around them, but the people around them only knew war. So Israel had to go to war.

Israel was supposed to start by suing for peace. In some cases, the countries they visited wouldn't even give them a chance to do so. In the case of the Philistines and Goliath, the Philistines were already causing a scene.

Israel was an example of God making His power easy to see.

Getting us to change our ways, to turn ourselves towards God, is what God wants of us. External displays of power don't really help much to that end.

In Matthew 5: 41, Christians are now somewhat on our own, both before God and before the world. Also, we are no longer to depend on a Levitical priesthood to mediate between us and God. Jesus Himself is our mediator. And we are supposed to teach by example.

It has greater power to convert the soul to serve rather than to fight, and, because of the rules in the world at the time, the soldiers did have the right to demand peasants and Jews carry their equipment for them. By going with them twice the required distance, they had more opportunity to preach the Gospel while avoiding the sort of confrontation that would hasten the coming persecutions.

"Not cause a scene" is not what God said, not what He has in mind.

One of the things that is most difficult in understanding the Sermon on the Mount is that these aren't easy rules like 1000 steps on the Sabbath. These are commandments that require the believer to listen to the Holy Spirit in order to obey. Even now, we sometimes have to slay giants with small stones instead of swords, but the giants we are called to slay first are our own pride and lusts -- again, with small means that actually works, not with big action that seems to satisfy but doesn't.

(Sorry for the sermons, I need them for myself.)

Go to God

Citation of authority is an invitation to stop thinking, among other things.

That's what a FB friend posts in his feed.

One of his friends replies, giving a few examples of necessary "authority" -- medical diagnosis, pharmaceuticals, automotive maintenance and repair:

Who do you go to? How does this work in practice?

To which I snark,

God.

I know that's a snark, and will come off as a snark, and will likely be misinterpreted as just a snark. So I add the following:

And somebody says, "The ultimate Authority!"

Actually, a lot of people say that, but meaning different things by it.

But the problem with jumping to that conclusion is that the only way we can really go to God is to go to our own conscience. 

And the whole problem is that most people have buried their conscience under multiple layers of stuff, expectations, to start with -- expectations from parents', guardians', teachers', babysitters', peers', enemies', friends', lista ad nauseam; and on top of that, layers of one's own desires, of false ideologies, of lazy dependence on authority, of plain old lusts, lista ad nauseam.

Part of the act of going to God is unburying one's conscience.

You cannot go to God without becoming acquainted with your own conscience.

Which really puts a wrench in most interpretations of God as the ultimate authority.

Snarky is not an implicit fallacy.

If God is the ultimate authority, He doesn't behave like human authorities have a habit of behaving. He lets us experiment. He lets us make mistakes. He lets us do stupid things -- fatal things in some cases, and He doesn't just jump in to stop us and save us from doing things we shouldn't for whatever reason. 

(He. I am a dinosaur. I was finishing college by the time people were talking about borrowing the plural for the gender non-specific. And in this context, using the modern gender non-specific is only going to sidetrack me from my thesis. See? I just start to talk about the gender of deity, and I'm already sidetracked. That's a topic for another day. So I'm using the archaic gender non-specific: He.)

He lets us rebel. He lets us misunderstand. He lets us do and be wrong, until we come to our own understanding and start reaching out to correct our course. 

And then He doesn't get in a snit. He watches over us and helps us when we become able to accept help.

Anyway, God, if He exists, is not like mortal human authorities.

This is where the agnostic and the atheist get stuck, by the way. They refuse to see the hand of God. 

I assume that this is the exact reason for them, that God is not like mortal human authorities. God is not like they expect. And if He is not like that, then why bother?

So, instead, they see random chance and the human helping hand.

But these are the tools of God. 

He has us help each other because that's how He can bless us, that's how He can help us grow, which is the best way to help.

And chance. Some people will argue that the devil is in charge of chance. 

Not true, although that is another of the devil's false claims. Not true unless we let him be in charge of chance by making a game of chance. In chance, as in all other things, God is in control unless we give control over to the devil, and then God ultimately still overrules the devil.

No one is beyond God's help. Not even the devil.

But God will almost always refrain from helping us more than we are willing to be helped.

Almost always? Yes, almost always. Sometimes, we are so confused because of the things we have been taught by mortal humans, that we don't know how to ask for help. In those cases, He knows what we will accept when we know the truth, and will actually interfere with the ordinary course of events for us. And we usually don't see it until much time later (until which time we tend to call it random or something).

So go to God. Dig down into yourself. Throw away the false expectations, resign yourself to having to find new meanings in life and everything. 

Yeah, that's the way life is when you go to God, and it doesn't end. It shouldn't end. You shouldn't want it to end, especially not in the few years of this life. 

You should want to be always ready to let God teach you more than you knew before, because what you can learn in the few years or decades or even in centuries of this life is obviously not even beginning to get close to all the good surprises there are in store.

Well sometimes you do need a little rest, but God is faithful and will be ready again when you are.

Go to God.