Human being has five aspects to their existence that are essential for understanding themselves. You are not exempt.
For you to understand yourself you need to realize these five keys are a part of your everyday life.
By finding fulfillment in these areas of your life you will find true happiness and true riches.
Key No. 1
You are a spiritual being. To deny this is to deny your own existence and the reality of being born.
The reason you are a spiritual being is that you can conceive the existence of the immaterial or spiritual realm.
If you were not a spiritual being you would not be able to conceive that hidden principles of existence enable the earth to have night and day, the moon to have a monthly cycle and the sun to have a yearly cycle. Moreover, you would not wonder why this is so.
Key No. 2
You are a psychological being.
The reason you are a psychological being is that you have a combination of attitudes and emotions that are formed as a consequence of your interaction within the social environment in which you grow up.
Basically there are only a few primary emotions. These manifest in various ways depending on the attitudes you develop as a result of being conditioned by the environment in which you have been raised.
Key No. 3
You are a social being.
The reason you are a social being is you are not a being that simply survives by consuming energy from plant life without the need to interact with other persons.
You need other people to learn from, to communicate with, and for personal development. Only through relationships with other people are you able to discover more about who you are.
You are designed to have relationships with other people. The truest words ever said are “no person is an island”.
Key No. 4
You are a physiological being.
The reason you are a physiological being is you have a metabolism that requires the processing and transforming of physical elements (i.e. food. water, air, sunlight) to survive.
You also need to physically utilize your bodily systems in order for you to be able to function. This is often referred to as “use it or lose it”.
Key No. 5
You are an economically orientated being.
The reason you have an economic orientation has to do with survival. This is because you live within a naturally hostile environment which has extremes of climatic conditions and the fact that you are a social and spiritual being.
An economy begins when two people decide to trade something. As soon as two people trade roles an economy has begun. Hunting and gathering societies are the primordial form of the more complex economies that constitute the twenty-first century.
For you to understand yourself you need to recognize the existence of these facets or areas of your life and then evaluate where you stand in relation to each one.
Once you know exactly where you stand in relation to each of these facets of your life, you are then able to discover and realize true happiness and the true riches of existence.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
God Sanctions Lying
Ask any religious person and they will tell you that lying is wrong. I am not just talking about men lying with other men or a man lying with another man’s wife or a woman lying with a beast or anything like that. I am talking about telling untruths, deceiving people, telling lies.
The book of Proverbs says that telling lies is one of the six things God hates. Jesus said that telling lies defiles a person. Paul the Apostle says that liars cannot enter the kingdom of God. The book of Revelation states liars are to be thrown into the eternal lake of fire, along with the Devil, whom Jesus said was a liar from the beginning.
Yet the prostitute Rahab, who happens to be an ancestor of Jesus Christ mentioned in his family tree in the book of Matthew, chapter one, is sanctioned by James, the brother of Jesus, as a virtuous woman for telling lies. She also is upheld as an example of how to be virtuous in the book of Hebrews.
This contradiction makes it difficult to defend the Bible as a book inspired by God, especially when the ninth commandment of the Decalogue states that to tell lies is a sin.
For instance, Dwight L. Moody, a respected preacher writes concerning the ninth commandment:
The Bible, however, seems to contradict what many people say in and out of the pulpit.
What did Rahab do?
It is quite clear that Rahab lied in order to deceive her countrymen. Yet, according to the writer of Hebrews and the writer of the book of James, in this instance, telling lies was an act of faith.
Hebrews 11:31: By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.
James 2:24-25: You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
Evidently, telling lies to deceive people is okay if it is an act of faith. Besides, the ninth commandment is not “you shall not lie” rather, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”.
Proverbs 6:16 -19 distinguishes between “a lying tongue” and “a false witness who breathes out lies” as two distinct phenomena out of the six things God hates.
There is a significant difference between lying and bearing false witness against somebody.
To bear false witness against someone means telling a lie to unjustly accuse an innocent person.
To tell a lie that prevents people from suffering unnecessarily, however, is not the same as lying to deceive somebody for personal gain.
While the Bible states that God is not a liar and no lies originate from him, the case of Rahab requires some more thought from those who reject the idea that God would never sanction somebody who tells lies. Evidently, it appears that telling lies and being a liar are two different things, which is largely a matter of the heart.
www.tencommandmentstoday.com
The book of Proverbs says that telling lies is one of the six things God hates. Jesus said that telling lies defiles a person. Paul the Apostle says that liars cannot enter the kingdom of God. The book of Revelation states liars are to be thrown into the eternal lake of fire, along with the Devil, whom Jesus said was a liar from the beginning.
Yet the prostitute Rahab, who happens to be an ancestor of Jesus Christ mentioned in his family tree in the book of Matthew, chapter one, is sanctioned by James, the brother of Jesus, as a virtuous woman for telling lies. She also is upheld as an example of how to be virtuous in the book of Hebrews.
This contradiction makes it difficult to defend the Bible as a book inspired by God, especially when the ninth commandment of the Decalogue states that to tell lies is a sin.
For instance, Dwight L. Moody, a respected preacher writes concerning the ninth commandment:
We have got nowadays so that we divide lies into white lies and black lies, society lies, business lies, etc. The Word of God knows no such letting-down of the standard. A lie is a lie, no matter what are the circumstances under which it is uttered, or by whom.
The Bible, however, seems to contradict what many people say in and out of the pulpit.
What did Rahab do?
Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. And it was told to the king of Jericho, “Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land.” Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land.” But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, “True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them.” But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof. So the men pursued after them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords. And the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out (Jos. 2:1-7 ESV).
It is quite clear that Rahab lied in order to deceive her countrymen. Yet, according to the writer of Hebrews and the writer of the book of James, in this instance, telling lies was an act of faith.
Hebrews 11:31: By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.
James 2:24-25: You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
Evidently, telling lies to deceive people is okay if it is an act of faith. Besides, the ninth commandment is not “you shall not lie” rather, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”.
Proverbs 6:16 -19 distinguishes between “a lying tongue” and “a false witness who breathes out lies” as two distinct phenomena out of the six things God hates.
There is a significant difference between lying and bearing false witness against somebody.
To bear false witness against someone means telling a lie to unjustly accuse an innocent person.
To tell a lie that prevents people from suffering unnecessarily, however, is not the same as lying to deceive somebody for personal gain.
While the Bible states that God is not a liar and no lies originate from him, the case of Rahab requires some more thought from those who reject the idea that God would never sanction somebody who tells lies. Evidently, it appears that telling lies and being a liar are two different things, which is largely a matter of the heart.
www.tencommandmentstoday.com
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