15 August 2023
"But we have the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16). Paul uses the Greek echo, translated into English here as "have". In the context, it might be better to read this as "we have access to the mind of Christ". It's available, but you must exercise the inner workings of your soul to tap into it. Don't assume every idea passing through your head is from Him.
We pursue the mind of Christ. In so doing, a very critical asset is the study of how His people looked upon the world. For some, it's not very obvious that all of the rhetoric of Jesus comes right out of the Old Testament. More to the point, it reflected a far more primitive time before the Exile. He kept calling His nation back to the early days under King David. What was common among the ancient Hebrews of 1000 BC?
The immediate problem we face is our own cultural bias that assumes the primitive Hebrew ways were uneducated and full of bogus superstition. This is so common among church folks that they were thunderstruck at the assertion that the Hebrews knew reality better than we do today. The Hebrew people and their suspicion of new ideas was wholly justified, given their moral wisdom of human sin. It wasn't a blind distrust of the unknown, but a very wary viewpoint arising from disasters they had seen over and over again.
Let me cite a notable example: You've heard of Ted Kaczynski, the so-called "Unabomber"? The propaganda has him all wrong. Some of the details and facts are correct, but the context is false. You need not read his dreary manifesto. I've seen several scholarly reviews of it, and they are all quite consistent about what the man wrote: Western Civilization is deadly. He goes into detail just how a heedless technological advancement can suffocate the best of our instincts.
His solution was all wrong, of course. You cannot stuff the genie back into the bottle. Rather, you must establish a culture that puts the threat into a proper perspective. You should decide what to use and how to use it in ways that do not consume your soul. If I could find and communicate with you folks without computers, I would ditch the whole Internet in a heartbeat. The real issue is to make sure it's you holding and using it, not the other way around.
In cycles the world builds to a crescendo of technology before the Lord has to crush it all and restore things to a primitive bottom line. So far as anyone can tell from surveying the evidence, it has happened regularly. The Flood of Noah was simply the most recent, and it does show up in the research. Otherwise, no generation would ever be in a position to hear Him clearly enough to act on it. As it is, whole generations are lost within each cycle.
This is not what He wanted to see, but it's what the opposition in the divine council have made of His handiwork. Jehovah's opposition is determined to mislead and entrap humanity, until we are totally destroyed. Not that God will let them have their way in everything, but that seems to be their obvious goal. This is how the ancient Hebrew people looked at it.
By contrast, western minds mourn the loss of whatever human technology left us things like the Nazca Lines, the Pyramids, and other massive structures. It's not that God is hiding stuff from us, trying to keep us down. It's that what He does reveal is far more important, the stuff humans invariably ignore in the rush to displace God.
It's not all or nothing. Chasing the depths of reality's mechanics can do only so much good before it's a waste of time and resources. "[W]hat can a person give in exchange for his life?" (Matthew 16:26 NET) This life simply is not that important, except as a path to restore the life we had back in Eden. Dying here is not a tragedy; living here in the first place is the real tragedy. Allowing this existence to consume your soul is just folly.
Let me close with another piece by Fun_and_Prophet, this time a prayer to our God:
Expose the ancient evils,
bring in the blessèd new.
Let schemes and spells now perish
that only serve the few.
We turn from rage and rivalry
to seek Your face alone.
O heal our lands
and seal our hearts,
Your kingdom and Your throne.
This document is public domain (except for the bit of poetry at the end); spread the message.