Come, Let Us Reason Together

 

Isaiah 1:18 begins in many translations as “Come let us reason together.” This is God calling to his people. God wants to talk with them and to settle a dispute. He is giving them a chance for repentance.

Many modern people see argument as hurtful, but traditional Jewish culture sees argument as healthy and productive. Come, let us reason together. Argue your points with respect and civility towards one another, examining everything from all possible sides. Argue as friends.

The rabbis speak of arguments for the sake of heaven and arguments not for the sake of heaven. A matter of degrees of importance.

Jews are famous for arguing, often seeming to enjoy it, without becoming hateful or personal with it. Some describe a good argument as something that spices or flavors life. A rabbinic study method is pilpul, which carries the idea of peppers, to spice, to season, and to violently dispute (the idea of getting hot like a pepper). The method examines every possible angle on a dispute until arriving at an agreed upon answer.

https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12153-pilpul

Jews historically prefer reason over violence or force and argument over intimidation. Argument has even been described as a form of scholarship. Come let us reason together.

https://inheritmag.com/articles/the-jewish-way-to-argue-without-losing-friends

Modern Western society has become increasingly argumentative without the underlying brotherhood. Everyone pulls into their own camps and seeks to “cancel” those with whom they disagree. This even happens in our churches.

Maybe we would be wise to listen to Isaiah 1:18. After all, it is in our Bible.

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לכו־נא ונוכחה    Isaiah 1:18 word study: A very loose approximation or paraphrase could be, “Come, let us walk alongside one another and discuss this.”

            Le-ku  לכו (from halak, Strong’s 1980), “Come,” an imperative or a command. It can also mean argue, reason, decide, or walk alongside.

            Na נא (na, Strong’s 4994), meaning now or pray. This is an article of exhortation or entreaty, giving a courteous urgency to the imperative or command. The one being addressed is being given respect as a person. Something like “now I pray you” or “now I request of you.”

            We-niw-wa-ke-hah ונוכחה (from yakach, Strong’s 3198), meaning dispute, argue, reason (together). The wa וְ is not usually translated but can mean something like and.

Book Comment: The Narcissist Next Door

 

I am going to recommend to you a book which, for several reasons, you might never otherwise read. The book is The Narcissist Next Door by Jeffrey Kluger. The reasons that some might object to reading this book include: the book is entirely secular, the concept of narcissism is not widely understood, the author is not a Christian, and the book contains some profanities and shocking statements.

The Narcissist Next Door concerns how the psychological condition known as narcissism is present in every level of civilization, in our governments, in every institution, in every business, and even in our own families. It is a self-centered type of personality and occurs in varying degrees of severity worldwide. Symptoms of the disorder include a feeling of grandiosity, an excessive need for attention and admiration, and an impaired ability to be empathetic. It is considered to be a psychiatric condition known as narcissistic personality disorder. The cause of the condition cannot be definitively stated but there are numerous suggestions: childhood parental neglect, childhood emotional or physical abuse, the person may crave the feeling of control generated by being able to abuse others who are too weak-willed to oppose them, the person may have a combination of narcissism and sociopathy with a total lack of normal emotions, the person also could have been the family’s golden child who never learned how to hear the word no.

You probably don’t think that you know any narcissists, but you do. They are around you every day, on television, singing the songs you hear on your car’s radio, one of your co-workers, they may be your political leaders, they may be a family member (particularly distressing), they may even be in your church. They may even be one of your deacons or your pastor or your priest.

Kluger points out that, in order to deal with narcissism, you first have to understand what is actually is. He explains what the arrogant narcissist is actually feeling, and gives examples of the narcissists living around us, going so far as to name the names of real people who are obvious narcissists.

Some of Kluger’s chapters are The Bastard in the Corner Office, The Peacock in the Oval Office, The Schmuck in the Next Cubicle, The Beast in Your Bed, and Death Row and Hollywood: Where the Narcissists Won.

One particularly awful type is the spiritual narcissist. These people with narcissist tendencies seem to be in almost every church. These are the persons who are sure that they are correct and who want everyone else to know it. They come across as overbearing, judgemental, and power-hungry. They assume that they are holy and spiritually knowledgeable and that everyone else falls short. This is the sin of Self, I am special. Hear the words I AM, one of the names of God.

You should not just ignore these spiritual narcissists, because they can poison a church. You should also not just attack or lecture them but you should handle the situation in the spirit of Christ. Never become defensive or hostile towards them, because that can interfere with your good judgement. An excellent approach is not to become part of the power struggle by gossiping and buzzing about the problem but, instead, to bring up the subject with trusted church leaders. Protect yourself by putting on the spiritual armor which the Holy Spirit has provided to you, the whole armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. 

1 Corinthians 7:15, 15:33; Luke 17:3-4; 1 Peter 4:8; Ephesians 3:14-19, 6:10-18.

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As with most books such as this, what you get from the book depends on what you bring with you. You may not agree with everything the author says. Luke (see below) advises you to think for yourself. Read your Bible and to listen to what it says. Do not believe anything just because someone else told to believe it; let the Holy Spirit guide you to the truth.

A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Information you will need to search for this book:

Kluger, Jeffrey, The Narcissist Next Door. Understanding the Monster in Your Family, in Your Office, in Your Bed – In Your World (New York: Riverhead Books, 2014)

Update to the Statement of faith

 I am from a doctrinally orthodox, Baptist, Trinitarian background. I reject the Prosperity Gospel, Christian Nationalism, and any idea that the answer involves any kind of  political solution.   

    I periodically will make additions to and/or updates to this blog's Statement of Faith. Updates were made today (19 January 2026) to items 1, 5, and 15.  

    To view this page, scroll down until you see the white window labelled as Pages. Click on Statement of Faith. 

Charity at the Grocery Store

        Recently at the grocery store the cashier rang up my purchases and then asked if I wished to add a donation to one of the store's several charities. When I said no, the cashier looked at me as if my ears were covered in green fuzz. So, I responded.

        What I said was that I donate to my local church, a dog rescue group, and to a well-known major national Christian charity which provides disaster relief, food supplies, farm implements and animals, Bibles and Christian educational materials, occupational training, sewing machines, washing machines, medical procedures and supplies, construction supplies, etc.  

        The cashier perhaps felt a little blasted by this but I was not angry and was not addressing the comments directly at him. I hoped that everyone in line was hearing what I was saying. I made several points: Most people give nothing to charity except for an occasional grudging dollar or two at the grocery store. Charity means absolutely nothing unless it is done willingly and gladly. If everyone would choose just one charity and regularly give to that one charity, all the charities would be adequately funded. Christians can preach with their actions.

        Perhaps the grocery store checkout line was an unusual pulpit, but sometimes things just need to be said as the Holy Spirit leads. There is no hard historical documentation that Francis of Assisi actually said this, but it is a true statement anyway, "preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words."

Science in Antiquity: Part 6

 Many modern people have a very limited view of history. They can only see or think about five or ten years into the past. They see history as boring and they think of the ancients as ignorant and backward. This was actually not true. What the ancients lacked was the modern accumulation of facts. An ancient Israelite would have been very puzzled and culture-shocked to have been dumped into the modern world, but he or she could have eventually learned to drive a car or to cook on a stove or to use a cellphone.

The ancients were just as intelligent as we are but the accumulation of scientific facts had not yet reached a critical point. Human knowledge took centuries to double, fact by fact. As knowledge accumulated, the rate of accumulation began to speed up. Every answer exposes a new question. Buckminster Fuller spoke of the Knowledge Doubling Curve which was relatively flat for centuries, then began a slow climb, and then went into an explosive upward thrust.

By the end of the 19^th Century, knowledge was doubling once per century. By about 1945, the rate of doubling was about every 25 years. By 1982, the rate was about every 12-13 months. By 2020, the doubling was occurring about every 12 hours. With at least 50,000,000,000 devices now operating and with the rise of artificial intelligence, the rate may now be in minutes.

 

Ca 290 BC/BCE: Aristarchus of Samos says that the Earth orbits the sun.

3^rd cent BC (300-201): The Greek physician and anatomist, Erasistratus, specialized in the study of the human circulatory and nervous systems. He differentiated between sensory and motor nerves, distinguished between the cerebrum and the cerebellum, and traced arteries and veins back to the heart. He was invented a type of catheter.

Ca 300 BC: The Mayans develop advanced mathematics and an accurate Calendar.

Ca 300 BC: Euclid, a Greek mathematician, expounds his geometrical theories of plane geometry, solid geometry, optics, optical perspective, and proportion.

Ca 340 BC/BCE: The Macedonians utilize catapults as weapons.