Monthly Archives: July 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part CLXX

Yesterday’s post was on the final of the three last lines from three segments of the Master’s teaching that we  have been discussing and this last one is one of the more difficult of the Master’s sayings to properly understand and to abide by as it disrupts ALL that men hold dear in Life in form on this Earth. Whether the saying is seen as riches only or as we say, all things worldly, man does choose the things of the world and then creates safe havens for his choice by interpreting the words of the Master to suit his desires. When we looked yesterday at the Master’s words about riches as regards the man who is like the thorny ground into which the seed, the word of the Lord, is sown, we found several ideas that help us to understand the idea of mammon in the context of our main saying which we repeat here from Luke’s Gospel: “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13).

In the Parable of the Sower the Master groups mankind into four distinct groups and He likens each group to a type of ground into which seed is sown. There is no great mystery here except in our lack of understanding that He is speaking about us, ALL of us. We discuss this parable in some detail throughout our posts and much detail can be found by using the name of the parable as the keyword in a search.  In the Words of Jesus parts 100 and 106 reflect our thoughts about His words as concerns the entirety of the parable. We should note that this is a parable that the Master further explains to His disciples as they were apparently confounded by the version given to the people and it is His explanation that we discussed in the last post and here again today. Looking again at the Master’s interpretation of the thorny ground we find three distinct versions which build upon each other to give us a total view of what it is that takes a mans attention away from the Lord. We should note here that He is speaking about those of us who DO HEAR the word of God and we should understand this to be more than just some preacher speaking to us or our own reading. We should understand this also as the man in whom the prompting of the Soul, the Christ Within, has registered, the man who has sensed the duality and the man who to some degree recognizes the illusion and the glamour of Life; he sees the better way but chooses the ways of the world. These can be seen as those same about whom we spoke in our last post, those who find ways to use the words of the Master and His apostles to afford them cover from the conviction of being worldly. This is a common enterprise in many parts of the church today and there are actually entire church segments whose doctrines support this tendency to cover.

The Apostle James puts this clearly for us saying: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4) and in this we should understand the reality of adulterers and adulteresses  as those who have chosen the world over God which, according to the lexicon is metaphorically, one who is faithless toward God, ungodly². This is rather clear and should serve to amplify the words of the Master below from His sayings in the synoptic gospels as regards the seed sown among thorns. We should also be able to find some additional clarity in Jesus’ other saying: “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations” (Luke 16:9). We should see the relationship of all of the sayings that deal with man’s attraction to the things of the world.

• “He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).
• “And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful” (Mark 4:18-19).
• “And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection” (Luke 8:14).

So then as the thorny ground men such as we are hearing the word of God, we are sensing the call of the Soul, the Christ Within, and we are seeing the duality of the two ways of Life that the Master points out for us in this parable. In the combination of these three versions we can see those things, the mammon if you will, that serve to pull a man away from the things of the Lord and into the things of the world; these are:

• the deceitfulness of riches
• the cares of this world
• the lusts of other things
• pleasures of this life

Can we properly see this idea of mammon as we paint it here using the Master’s words? When we contrast this to the man that is called by the Master the good ground we can attain additional enlightenment. In the above we see in each of the gospels the idea that there is no fruit; the man us unfruitful or he has not brought his fruit to perfection. In the next verses below we see the opposite, we see the man who hears the word and receives and understands it and follows it and keeps it and these we already KNOW as disciples of the Lord. It is these of whom the Master speaks when He tells us: “Ye shall know them by their fruits . Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. …… Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:16-17, 20). These verses about the man as good ground are:

• “But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience” (Luke 8:15).
• “And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred” (Mark 4:20).
• “But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit , and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matthew 13:23).

We listed above some of the points from the Master’s words that relate to us the idea of mammon from the preceding verses and here we will list some of the points from His words that relate to the idea of God and of the disciple:

• they which are honest 
• they which are of a good heart
• they which having heard the word, keep it
• they which hear the word, and receive it
• they which heareth the word, and understandeth it
• and finallay they which bring forth fruit with patience; some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty

Can we see that the Master is carefully telling us that there IS a difference between hearing and understanding or KNOWING what His word Truly means; can we see that there is a difference between hearing the word and receiving it which is accepting it as the guiding Light for one’s Life; can we see that there is a difference between hearing the word and keeping it which is doing those things that the Master teaches us? We again go to James for his amplification of this idea; he tells us that we must : “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22) and here again we get a taste of the New Testament understanding of illusion and glamour.

The two versions of our lead saying for these last two days are found in very different settings in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. In Matthew we find this as a part of the Sermon on the Mount which is ever a source of the hows and the whys of righteous living; the Master leads into our saying through one of the two sayings that had headed our essays for many days and which are in regard to the heart of a man and the treasure of that heart. We of course have seen the heart as the consciousness of the man and the treasure as the focus of that consciousness and we spent some extra time discussing the last line of this teaching which is of it self an important part of our understanding of Life; this last line tells us that “For where your treasure is , there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21). We must understand and remember the reference to treasure is not a reference to money or to things but rather a reference here to any thing that takes a man’s attention and focus. When taking one’s focus away from the things of God we can see this treasure as the mammon and as those listed things above that characterize the man as thorny ground. When focus is upon God we can see this treasure as those things listed above that characterize the man as good ground. These thoughts should give us a good understanding of how ALL of the Master’s words work together to make the same few points. Continuing on, the Master goes from this talk of treasure and heart into His words about the Light of the body; three words here serve to confuse and to illustrate the Master’s point, eye, single and evil, and each of them has a meaning that is beyond the scope of the translated English word. If we look at the right understanding of heart and of treasure as we have portrayed them and as they are similarly accepted by much of the church, we can likely see the same type of understanding in these words eye, single and evil. The whole of the saying is: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23).

The lexicon tells us that the Greek word ophthalmos that is translated as eye means the eye; metaph. the eyes of the mind, the faculty of knowing² and it is in the metaphoric understanding the is needed to see this word. Strong’s tells us that this word means eye, the organ of sight; by extension: the faculty of mental perception and understanding³ and this, as the lexicon, is defining this from the perspective of the man in form and we ourselves have attributed the idea of eye to the mind and the understanding. While this is true, we have more recently taken our understanding deeper so as to see the idea of consciousness, that attribute of the Soul in which the mind and the understanding operate. Thus, we can now look at the idea of the eye in the same light as that of the heart and differentiate only in the ideas that the Master is putting forth. Of heart the Master is pointing out what it is that a man focuses on, that treasure that becomes for him the objective of Life and which, while ever changing for some, is either on the things of God or the things of the world. Of eye, the Master is speaking more of ones outward expression as it is the Light that is on display to the world; we could say that the ideas encompassed by the idea of eye are the actual use of those things that are one’s treasure. In this saying we can see also the transition from the heart and the treasure to the idea of that choice of God and mammon insofar as the ideas of single and evil are concerned. Of single and full of Light we can see the idea of the focus of the man on the things of God and the accomplishment of the Master’s earlier saying that we should “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Of evil, which we KNOW means more the focus of one’s Life on the things of the world than actual evil as it is commonly understood, we should see the Master’s message of darkness and our realization of what He Truly means when He says “Ye are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14) referring to the man who IS living the Life of the Christ Within, as well as His saying of Himself that “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John  8:12) and here we KNOW that to follow Him is to keep His words.

All these things precede our saying that “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24) and should serve to give us a greater understanding of the True meaning of His words; let us now look at what follows in Matthew’s Gospel. The Master begins with this profound statement that explains for us why we need not serve mammon, why we need not focus on and attend to the things of the world. He tells us why we need not value the things of the Earth above the things of God; He tells us a Truth that, like so many other Truths, is washed away by man’s own wranglings to cover his ways of Life and his desire for comfort in doctrine and to there find his safe haven in this illusory world of Life in form. The Master tells us these things in a way that should make us see the natural role of True faith Life in that day and to give us some idea of His reality yet today; He says:

“Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew 6:25-34).

We covered this saying in some detail in In the Words of Jesus part 358 and in prior essays as well and here today we will summarize this in a way that relates it to our theme of God and mammon.  It is immediately after our theme saying that the Master begins the dialogue above and the key words here should be seen in the idea of “Take no  thought“; the common understanding of this is to be anxious or to be worried and this does of course apply to these words. However, like so many other sayings of the Master there is more depth here for those that desire to discover it, those who do not seek find cover in the words that will allow for a man to conduct his Earthly Life as he pleases away from the conviction of being worldly. We noted in a previous post that Vincent discerns this idea of “Take no thought” differently. He tells us that the former understanding was explained accordingly as a dividing care, distracting the heart from the true object of life⁴ and for us this is the Truth of the matter. By thinking about the things of the world, even the mundane things like eating and drinking and wearing, one is focused upon those things and the heart, the consciousness, is distracted from the True object which is the Christ Within, the Soul. Vincent tells us that this idea of the meaning of “Take no thought” has been abandoned, however, and the word is placed in a group which carries the common notion of earnest thoughtfulness. It may include the ideas of worry and anxiety, and may emphasize these, but not necessarily⁴. Again, from our perspective there is much Truth in Vincent’s words here and this revelation is not just his own but it is derived from other uses of the Greek word which are given in the above reference to past essays.

Can we see the progression of the Master’s thoughts here, how he takes us from the heart and the treasure which is the consciousness of the man and what is important to him, what is his focus, to the eye and its being single which we see as the outward expression of the man who is focused upon the Soul, or, its being evil and focused upon the world thereby revealing either the Light of the Soul or the darkness of the illusion and the glamour of the world….the vanity as the Apostle Paul tells us. He then tell us that these things, the treasure of the heart and the condition of the eye can be seen in who or what it is that the man in form is serving; he is serving the things of the world or the things of God depending upon his focus and this conditions the eye as well, his expression to the world. He then tells us plainly the theme of this essay saying “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” as a statement of fact and goes on to discuss the way to the True Life which is in the idea of “Take no thought” about the things of the world but rather “seek ye first the kingdom of God“.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day

This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.

We leave this again as our Quote of the Day with the intention of discussing it in some detail in one of our next few posts.

We have left this saying for several days now and want to here say that within this reflection is the reality of a True Son of God, a disciple if you will, and it is by accomplishing these things that a men can be seen as disciples and, for those who try to achieve, those who strive, as aspirants.

Evening Reflection

May the Power of the One True God flow through His group of all true servers;

May the Love of the Christ characterize the lives of all who seek to aid in His work;

May I fulfill my part in the one work through self-forgetfulness, harmlessness and right speech

(Evening Reflection)

• ²New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ³Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888