At risk of "putting my nose out of joint", can you help me with support for the following?
“It is done, I have separated the people born of my spirit from those who have turned from me. It is time now for us leave this place and take up residence in the Earth, for it is there that we shall find our people. The ones who would forsake heaven in order to embrace the earth. The few who would turn away from eternity itself to serve at the feet of a fragile, broken life that passes from existence in but an instant”.
"And so it was that God and the heavenly host left that place to dwell among those who had rooted themselves upon the earth. Quietly supporting the ones who had forsaken God for the world and thus who bore the mark God. The few who had discovered heaven in the very act of forsaking it."
Geoff Matheson
· 1 year ago
:) Matthew 25:31
31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
But, I'm not backing the theology in Pete's parable 100% - because I'm not 100% sure I get it either. But I don't 100% get the parable I've posted above, and I think that it's vitally important to irritate at the points where I'm not sure. And religion that shelters us and separates us from the suffering of the world is absolutely the religion that Jesus rallied against, rather than supported. So I think we need to hear it.
rick
· 1 year ago
yeah - I thought of that one but I couldn't wrestle these key phrases out of it.
"The ones who would forsake heaven in order to embrace the earth." "The few who would turn away from eternity itself to serve at the feet of a fragile, broken life that passes from existence in but an instant." "The few who had discovered heaven in the very act of forsaking it."
I presume in, "Quietly supporting the ones who had forsaken God for the world and thus who bore the mark God" those that bore the mark of God are those doing the supporting not those that based on the other points even that's not clear.
Net - I don't want to be cynical but it smacks not of universalism.
To your point, if I'm embracing heaven or eternity I'm not embracing religion so that doesn't sync. I'm getting what he's trying to say and I'm bothered by what I'm guessing he is saying.
I was curious because I was in the process of posting about the second coming and one of the key characteristics is judgement. Your Scripture quote supports that while Rollins' seems counter to that.
Geoff Matheson
· 1 year ago
I'd want to highlight the comment Pete made in response to similar concerns raised in the comments on his blog (and I'd have a read of all the comments, because I think that's always where the meat happens on blogs):
"To try and get beyond that problem I made it so that God was only addressing the ‘church’ rather than all people. This itself causes problems, however by doing this I wanted to hint that God was speaking to those who were attempting to live the way of Christ… in the church there were then two types of people, those seeking to escape the world and those embracing it. The other way I attempted to overcome the problem was to make God say “it is there we shall find our people”, rather than simply saying, “the people who remain are our people”, i.e. those who remain on the earth are not all the selfless ones."
I do think that in some places Rollins' language borders on clumsiness, but I think his emphasis hits out against the prevailing extraction-based concept of heaven - and that's the heaven his few are "forsaking" and "turning away from".
Thanks for engaging in this Rick - it would have been much easier to just write it (and me) off as universalist hogwash, but you haven't and that's been really good (for me anyway).
rick
· 1 year ago
Thank - now I understand what he was driving at. I had not read all of the comments ... to your point, that's often where the meat is but I've tended to avoid them because that's also where the sharks hang out also ... I hate that stuff. Sounds like this is one I shouldn't have avoided.
All Comments
“It is done, I have separated the people born of my spirit from those who have turned from me. It is time now for us leave this place and take up residence in the Earth, for it is there that we shall find our people. The ones who would forsake heaven in order to embrace the earth. The few who would turn away from eternity itself to serve at the feet of a fragile, broken life that passes from existence in but an instant”.
"And so it was that God and the heavenly host left that place to dwell among those who had rooted themselves upon the earth. Quietly supporting the ones who had forsaken God for the world and thus who bore the mark God. The few who had discovered heaven in the very act of forsaking it."
Matthew 25:31
But, I'm not backing the theology in Pete's parable 100% - because I'm not 100% sure I get it either. But I don't 100% get the parable I've posted above, and I think that it's vitally important to irritate at the points where I'm not sure. And religion that shelters us and separates us from the suffering of the world is absolutely the religion that Jesus rallied against, rather than supported. So I think we need to hear it.
"The ones who would forsake heaven in order to embrace the earth."
"The few who would turn away from eternity itself to serve at the feet of a fragile, broken life that passes from existence in but an instant."
"The few who had discovered heaven in the very act of forsaking it."
I presume in, "Quietly supporting the ones who had forsaken God for the world and thus who bore the mark God" those that bore the mark of God are those doing the supporting not those that based on the other points even that's not clear.
Net - I don't want to be cynical but it smacks not of universalism.
To your point, if I'm embracing heaven or eternity I'm not embracing religion so that doesn't sync. I'm getting what he's trying to say and I'm bothered by what I'm guessing he is saying.
I was curious because I was in the process of posting about the second coming and one of the key characteristics is judgement. Your Scripture quote supports that while Rollins' seems counter to that.
I do think that in some places Rollins' language borders on clumsiness, but I think his emphasis hits out against the prevailing extraction-based concept of heaven - and that's the heaven his few are "forsaking" and "turning away from".
Thanks for engaging in this Rick - it would have been much easier to just write it (and me) off as universalist hogwash, but you haven't and that's been really good (for me anyway).
peace.