ON LOVE; PART MDLXXIX
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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31).
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WHAT THEN IS LOVE? In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God.
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PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
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We began the last essay with the intent of finalizing our discussion on the two selected sayings through which we see the entirety of human existance. Although we have NOT phrased it this way before, this IS essentially the reality of these sayings from Peter and Paul which, when read against the Truth of the Master’s message, show us the entirety of our little lives and through this the entirety of human existance. Repeating our subject sayings:
“Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:2-4).
“For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in
hope, Becauseexpectation that the creature itself also shall bedeliveredmade free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:19-23).
We have already discussed these sayings in much detail and while we were intending to close this discussion through the spiritual endpoints of “the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” and becoming “partakers of the divine nature“. We instead wound up in a lengthy discussion of agape and the role that agape plays in accomplishing these endpoints. As we closed the last essay we began our final point which IS to define what agape Truly means. We discussed the failure of its rendering as Love and we discussed the inadequacies of rendering agape as charity, In charity the defining ideas have wandered from benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good 1 to the common ideas attributed to charity today. Both the rendering as Love and as charity, while perhaps virtuous, ONLY apply in this world as carnal ideas. We also discussed the idea of letting agape stand alone which, while a better choice that translating it into Love or charity, has NO spiritual meaning attached to it in the biblical dictionaries or commentaries. With ALL this in mind we set out to define the noun agape and the verb agapao by its usage in the Great Commandment “Thou shalt love agapao thy neighbour as thyself“. To DO this we concluded that we must strip away the idea of Love and replace the idea of neighbor with everyman so that our saying says “agapao thy neighbour everyman as thyself“. This IS the crux of the idea spoken first by God through Moses in Leviticus and then repeated several times by the Master whose Parable of the Sower shows us the neighbor as everyman through the idea of strangers. We noted that stranger is the word used to define the neighbor in another verse from Leviticus and we should understand that in the parable the injured and the Samaritan are strangers and that the Master equates these with neighbors. Everyman can be a stranger if we DO NOT KNOW him and everyman also includes those that we DO KNOW.
In the end we ARE left with the idea that we should “agapao thy neighbour everyman as thyself“. Understanding that this applies to ALL men is a good beginning but we still DO NOT have a single word by which to render agapao. We ended the last essay saying that we ARE now left with finding the Truth of agapao; what does this mean and how do we express it to everyman? To better understand this we cited three additional verses from the New Testament; two from the Master and one from the Apostle James, which can help us to clarify the idea. First we have the two versions of the Golden Rule; Matthew shows Jesus’ saying as “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12) while Luke shows us the idea as “as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31). For us this is agape in action. Second we have James’ saying “If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love agapao thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors” (James 2:8-9). In this we should see the very mechanism of agape as a spiritual expression as well as a way to better understand the first Great Commandment which tells us to “agapao the Lord “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength“,” Let’s begin with the Golden Rule as it relates to the commandment “thou shalt agapao everyman as thyself“
The Golden Rule IS a rule of action in this world but we should understand here that the impetus to follow this rule comes from the Soul. As men “made subject to vanity” we ARE “conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2) as Paul shows us; we ARE so because of our vanity which IS exacerbated by years of nurturing and indoctrination into the ways of the world. It IS from this starting point that we ARE commanded to follow the Golden Rule by ‘DOING to others as we would want others to DO to us‘ as the common phrasing presents the idea. Buried in this IS the reality of the Great Commandment “thou shalt agapao everyman as thyself” but to understand this we must interpret agapao into the idea that we see ALL men as we see ourselves. This takes us back to our discussion a few posts back where we presented the idea as that we should see ALL men as Souls living for a time in a body in this world. However, without understanding the idea of the Soul as the Christ Within, “Christ in you” as Paul shows us IS the “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations” (Colossians 1:27, 26), we CAN NOT logically accomplish this vision of humanity. In more practical terms then we can try to see the commandment strictly in worldly terms and try to see the idea of the Golden Rule through the reality of the idea of One World, One Humanity, One God. While there IS NOT much help for us to understand this reality save for contemplating the words, this IS the worldly basis for the Golden Rule. In this we can see ALL men as we see ourselves but since this has NOT worked for the last 2000 years, it IS unlikely that it will work today. When we look at others we see race, color, culture, nationality, religion and a variety of other separating features and the KEY here IS that while we DO see such differences, they should NOT affect the idea that ALL ARE part of the One Humanity.
Ideally we could force ourselves to look past our differences but, again, this has NOT worked for the last 2000 years. The Way, perhaps the ONLY Way to overcome our vanity, nurturing and indoctrination IS to understand that this commandment IS the KEY to True salvation. To understand this however we must first understand that what we thought led us to our salvation in the doctrines of men, and here we speak of much more than Christianity alone, was false and for the doctrinal believer this IS likely a bridge too far. Similarly those who DO NOT participate in doctrinal religion ARE NOT likely to even seek salvation as that idea IS understood and in these ideas we seem to eliminate any possibility of understanding salvation as the KEY. In ALL these ideas we should be able to see the dilemma that the world IS in when it comes to our ability to “agapao everyman as thyself” and this despite the way that the Master teaches the idea. In the story regarding what we call the ‘rich young ruler’ the Master links this commandment with the idea presented in the question “what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16). This IS ONLY True in Matthew’s Gospel however; in Mark and Luke, in the idea of keeping the commandments, the Great Commandment IS left out and perhaps the reason here IS that the Master understood the difficulty in accomplishing this by a man whose view of the law was his doctrinal approach. The idea that IS presented by the Master as “Thou shalt love agapao thy neighbour everyman as thyself” IS however made a part of the Great Commandments as we discussed in the last essay and while this should show us the importance of this, the world has failed to understand the concept.
We should NOT lose hope here however. In our desire to understand agapao and express it to everyman we have already separated ourselves from the masses who see the idea as trite words that have NO meaning. The awakened can understand the concept and try to work it into their daily lives and in this we have perhaps the single greatest tool to teach the world the reality of agape. This the Master shows us saying “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). Our point in ALL of this IS that the average man will NOT understand the idea of agapao apart from its rendering as Love and they CAN NOT “agapao everyman as thyself” using the common understanding of Love as a guide. There IS NO single word that we can use to translate the idea of agape and so we ARE ONLY left with a concept that tells us that spiritually we ARE ALL Souls and should see ALL as such making us One. Carnally we should see the reality of agape through the idea that there IS but One Humanity and each of us IS a part, an equal part if you will. The way to accomplish our understanding of agape was lost centuries ago when the church rendered it as Love without offering a way to distinguish agape from our common understanding of that Love save for the undefined idea that agape IS the God kind of Love. While the Golden Rule embodies the action of agapao, it remains undefined except to the Transformed mind that KNOWS.
As we cited above, we also have James’ words as the mechanism of agape and perhaps we can better understand the concept through the apostle’s words. James repeats the Great Commandment calling it “the royal law” and this IS a point that gets little attention. Thayer’s tell us that the Greek word basilikos means: of or belonging to a king, kingly, royal, regal and then befitting or worthy of a king, royal. Hence, metaphorically, principal, chief 9. Strong’s agrees while changing the metaphorical meaning to preeminent 9a. While these ideas point out the importance of the law, Vincent adds some texture to the idea saying: James here speaks of a single commandment, the proper word for which is ejntolh, while nomov is the body of commandments. It is appropriate here, however, since this special commandment sums up the entire law. It is the royal law; the king of all laws 4. The main point here IS the idea that this special commandment sums up the entire law which we should understand as that ALL laws ARE fulfilled in our expression of agape, our True expression. We should try to understand here that James IS NOT deminishing the first Great Commandment, “thou shalt love agapao the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength“. What James IS DOING is showing us that it by our True expression of agape that we accomplish the first Great Commandment. To best understand this we go again to our trifecta where we see a complimentary idea in the third part; repeating our trifecta:
- “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).
- “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
- “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:21-24).
While it IS difficult to say with accuracy why the Master assembled His words as He DID, we should be able to understand that there IS a purpose. For us the purpose IS simply to make men see past the words on a page and to search their hearts under the Light of the Soul. “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me” IS a statement of Truth through which we should see that to keep the first Great Commandment we must perforce keep His word. And while the Great Commandment dictates the idea that it IS the Father that IS the reference in the saying that “thou shalt love agapao the Lord thy God“, we should remember two things. First that the Master IS speaking to Jews when He enunciates the Great Commandments, the equivalency between the Godhead and the Christ IS NOT yet established. The second idea IS found within the words of the saying from our trifecta where we read that for those that DO keep His words “my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him“. Understanding the way that the deeper ideas of scripture ARE assembled IS very important. We should understand as well that so much of the church ignores this idea, especially regarding the New Testament, and most have chosen to extract specific sayings out of their contexts to align with their doctrines. This was never the intent of the writers and we should understand here that the epistles and commentaries from the apostles serve to clarify and amplify the Master’s words and NOT to create doctrines that dilute and change His words. Unfortunately most ALL doctrine comes from the writings of the apostles with little regard for the words of the Master and this too can be seen in our trifecta where the first and second parts ARE contradicted by the doctrines of men.
We should remember as well that the Master warns us against exactly what the church did from the earliest days. Jesus’ warning IS so ignored that it IS NOT considered to apply to the church in any way. Indeed they fail to see themselves in His words saying: “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:6-7). This IS one of the great failures of Christianity and one that ONLY the church can correct. Returning to our text, the law cited by James, the second of the Great Commandments, should be understood as Vincent frames it saying: this special commandment sums up the entire law. It is the royal law; the king of all laws. This however ONLY sets the table for the next verse in which we should try to see the very mechanism of agapao as the expression of men in this world. Above we found NO True word idea that can explain agapao save for the ideas that we took from Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defining charity as the idea was understood at that time. There we find that the reality of agapao can be understood as: benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good 1. This action flows from the individual understanding of the reality of Life; that ALL ARE Souls living for a time in this world. It IS the man that understands this that can easily act in benevolence and GoodWill toward ALL….to everyman. However there IS still a gap as we try to understand just what IS benevolence and GoodWill.
First, GoodWill has NO adequate meanings attached to it in today’s dictionary and there IS NO entry for GoodWill in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary. Today’s dictionary defines GoodWill as: friendly disposition; benevolence; kindness; cheerful acquiescence or consent* and none of these ideas suffices to show the reality of the idea as a disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good as a defining idea for agapao. Much the same can be said of benevolence where the modern idea IS: desire to do good to others; goodwill; charitableness; an act of kindness; a charitable gift*. We should see a kind of circular reference between these two ideas of GoodWill and benevolence; neither however shows us any True reference to the way we should see agapao. We can however redefine these words to gain a more spiritual tone and the wherewithal to DO this IS found in the next verse from James where the apostle tells us “if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors“. In these simple words IS a great KEY to our understanding of the Great Commandment; “the royal law” and perhaps that one word that we seek to define: agapao.
Before we discuss James’ words however let us look at the basis for the idea of “respect to persons” as it applies to the Godhead and the reality of the Master’s words saying “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Regardless of how the church views the idea of perfection, it should be clear that the admonition IS that we should be as the Father. As with so much of the Master’s words the church has chosen to dilute and diminish the reality of these words as they take the Greek word teleios, which IS rendered as perfect, and teach it in terms of maturity. We say teach here because in most ALL translations teleios IS rendered as perfect while two in our library render the idea as complete on both sides of the saying….of man and of God. Nonetheless, the doctrinal idea has become: a call to spiritual maturity, wholehearted love, and imitation of God’s character rather than an expectation of absolute, sinless perfection in earthly life**. Spiritual maturity is a rather meaningless phrase when offered by those that DO NOT realize that they ARE indeed spiritual beings and the reality remains that the call of the Master IS that we reflect the Godhead in our expression in this world; this IS the way to being “perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect“.
Understanding this admonition brings us to some scriptural ideas regarding the very nature of the Godhead….His perfection if you will. Paul tells us rather clearly that “there is no respect of persons with God“; the context of his words reflect on the way that the Godhead sees and treats ALL according to their ‘nature’. Paul tells us “Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good” (Romans 2:11, 9-10). The idea here should be understood as that karma which flows through Life with “no respect of persons“; Paul also explains it differently saying “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7); again, the idea is clearly that “there is no respect of persons with God“. The same idea is shown to us in Colossians where we read that “he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done: and there is no respect of persons” (Colossians 3:25). Peter offers us the same idea along with another view of the idea of being “perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect“. The apostle tells us “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work” (1 Peter 1:15-17). In these words we should try to see the idea of being holy, rightly defined, in the same way as we should see being perfect. Through all of these sayings we should see the reality that Peter realizes as he says “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34).
James takes this idea of having “no respect of persons” and makes it to apply to the lives of men in this world according to the ideas cited above of being “perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” and the admonishment to “Be ye holy; for I am holy“. The conclusion here IS that having “no respect of persons“, “even as your Father which is in heaven” has “no respect of persons“, IS the essential and missing component in our ability to “agapao thy neighbour everyman as thyself“. While there should be no question here regarding James’ words, too often they ARE applied ONLY to the example offered as a comparison between “a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment” (James 2:2). The view that James’ words ARE restricted to the rich and the poor is a grave error by the churches. Too many see James’ words in this relation, perhaps because James DOES offer additional words on the ‘wealth’ state of people, and while his words DO emphasize the idea of treating the poor with respect, that scene vanishes with the invocation of the Great Commandment, “the royal law” as James frames this. In the end the very idea of having “no respect of persons” IS the KEY to the Great Commandment and the Golden Rule that we have been looking for and while it DOES NOT provide a translation for agape in a word, it DOES in the practice of it: respect.
Here too we have a word that CAN NOT be used as it IS commonly understood. There IS a long list of defining ideas attached to respect which we CAN NOT review here but we can review the dictionaries’ article on how it IS used. Our dictionary tells us that: Respect is a way of treating or thinking about something or someone. If you respect your teacher, you admire her and treat her well. People respect others who are impressive for any reason, such as being in authority — like a teacher or cop — or being older — like a grandparent. You show respect by being polite and kind. For a lot of people, taking your hat off is a show of respect. When people are insulted or treated badly, they feel they haven’t been treated with respect. You can respect things as well as people. Saying the Pledge of Allegiance shows respect to your country*.
It IS against this common usage that we offer our own ideas, some of which have been gleaned from dictionary entries. Listed as a third entry in our dictionary IS the idea that respect IS: esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability*. According to James words ALL of this IS sin; we should have NO esteem for anyone over another and this IS the point. Having esteem for one over another is IS contrary to the Truth of the Great Commandment as ALL should be held as equal to the self who may have a lesser sense of the worth or excellence. Surely we can ‘admire’ the accomplishments of other without holding them out above other men who ARE less accomplished. While this IS a difficult concept in this context, the difficulty becomes evermore profound when we consider this idea of “no respect of persons” in relation to men’s prejudices and hatreds. ALL human interactions ARE a part of this idea of having “no respect of persons” and it IS in our ability to understand and practice this that we ARE complying with the deep reality that “Thou shalt love agapao thy neighbour everyman as thyself“. In the end the idea IS that which we have been presenting throughout our blog posts; that we must see everyman the same and, most importantly, treat him so.
Above, and in previous essays, we discussed the idea of the Great Commandments as being the Way, the ONLY Way, to True salvation. As we say above: this special commandment sums up the entire law which we should understand as that ALL laws ARE fulfilled in our expression of agape, our True expression. The other commandments NO longer need to be followed as commandments if our expression of agape IS True; we would NO longer have the wherewithal to kill, steal, lie or commit adultery and, as the Master and His apostles show us, we will have fulfilled the first Great Commandment through our expression of the second. The clearest example IS from the Apostle John who, while framing the idea negatively, DOES affirm that agape for God stems from agape for everyman. John tells us “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21). While this may not clearly state the idea that to “love agapao thy neighbour everyman as thyself” IS the Way to agapao the Lord “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength“, this IS the reality. Similarly, the Master’s words from the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats offer us a similar view, again without stating this reality plainly. In the parable agapao for everyman IS shown to us through the idea that “I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me“. Our performance in this respect IS our expression of agape and in the Master’s words saying “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” we should see our expression of agape to the Lord “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” (Matthew 25:35-36, 40).
We should be able to see in the above analysis that when we can express agape to ALL, to everyman with NO “respect to persons” we ARE at the same time expressing agape “to the Lord “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength“. We should be able to see as well that ALL the commandments of note, ALL the commandments that pertain to the interactions of men in this world ARE also kept whensoever we can express agape to ALL, to everyman with NO “respect to persons“. We should remember here that the Master says of these two commandments that “there is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:31) and that James calls the second of the Great Commandments “the royal law“. In a departure from traditional Christianity from which we ARE prone to depart, these two commandments can actually be seen as one commandment tied together by the idea that to accomplish one IS to accomplish both. From the perspective of the man in this world, it IS surely the second one that can lead to the first as without understanding the fullness of the idea that we must express agape to ALL, to everyman with NO “respect to persons” we ARE prone to see some above others….especially family and those we hold dear.
Again, to DO these things IS a difficult task; to DO these things we must ‘forget’ ALL that we have been nurtured and indoctrinated into, ALL that has made us “conformed to this world“. We must, in a word, lose our vanity. When Paul admonishes us to “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2), this IS exactly what he IS telling us to DO. Over the centuries the church has failed to teach these Truths because of the perceived difficulty, because if their message was so ‘strict’ there would be few that would willingly follow in the Path to Truth. And while this may be True, we should see that the alternative path that the churches chose has led to centuries of wars, prejudices and hatreds and the creation of so numerous a list of denominations and sects that it IS difficult to see Truth in any. The church has NOT brought any to the Truth of the Great Commandments and has NOT taught the reality agape with NO “respect to persons“….nor do many even understand the deep Truths expressed by the Master’s words. The churches have instead taught doctrines and continue to DO so today in oblivescence of the Master’s words which most ALL believers believe DO NOT apply to them. As we cite above the idea that the Master puts forth saying “in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” applies to ALL that ARE “ teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” and of this ALL of the church IS guilty.
How then DO we accommodate the difficulty of keeping the Master’s words that ARE the Great Commandments? Simply by striving to DO so and taking on measure by measure the attitude of an aspirant to discipleship. Throughout the New Testament clues are laid out to help us to conform with the Master’s words and here we should try to understand the real meaning of the idea that the gospels and most of the epistles ARE written with the inspiration of the Godhead. This inspiration expressed in words by the writers comes from their own Souls and their own individual measure of discipleship and, through the combined effort of ALL, we ARE left with the necessary clues by which we ourselves can advance. One of these clues IS found in Luke’s Gospel where we read “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24). This differs from Matthew’s approach which ONLY shows us the difficulty while Luke tells us to strive. This word, along with the progress of measure ARE two important parts of our understanding of how that we can enter onto the Path to discipleship and here we should understand that it IS discipleship that IS ever our goal as Soul’s living in this Earth for a time. While we have long promoted these two ideas, striving and measure, let us close out this discussion with a review of these ideas.
Strive IS rendered from the Greek word agonizomai which IS defined by Strong’s as: to struggle, literally (to compete for a prize), figuratively (to contend with an adversary), or genitive case (to endeavor to accomplish something). We ARE then to struggle to enter and it is entering that IS the prize that IS won as we defeat our adversary, the carnal mind living in vanity. In common language we get the same idea in more understandable terms; our dictionary defines striving as: to exert oneself vigorously; try hard; to make strenuous efforts toward any goal. Simply put: if we Truly try we can succeed. Understanding this should take much of the edge off of the difficulty of keeping His words as we ARE here instructed to try hard to first understand the Truth and then to accomplish it. And we must understand the concept of measure, another clue that is left for us in such sayings as “with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again” (Luke 6:38). This idea IS muddied by its inclusion with specific ideas such as giving, judgment and hearing but, as we have previously discussed, these words also stand alone. Measure IS rendered from the Greek metron and it means measure; Strong’s qualifies the idea for us saying that it IS: by implication, a limited portion (degree). There ARE many uses for the idea of measure but here we should just look at it as an allotment that IS both given and gained. Then, combining these ideas we should see that with the proportion of effort by which we strive will be the proportion of results that we gain….the greater our striving, the greater our gain and this IS True in most ALL individual efforts and efforts over time.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect | Potency | Aspect of Man | In Relation to the Great Invocation | In relation to the Christ |
| GOD, The Father | Will or Power | Spirit or Life | Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN | Life |
| Son, The Christ | Love and Wisdom | Soul or Christ Within | Heart of God | Truth |
| Holy Spirit | Light or Activity | Life Within | Mind of God | Way |
- 1 Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913 from https://1828.mshaffer.com/
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition
- 9 Thayer’s Greek Lexicon on blueletterbible.org
- 9a The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible on blueletterbible.org
- * Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2020
- ** Google AI on: Matthew 5:48
those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road
Voltaire, Writer and Philosopher
