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.

______________________________________________________

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.

Film Comment: El Evangelista

You say that you want to see a Christian comedy about a professional drug gang enforcer/assassin?  Well, here it is.

Pablo (J. Salome Martinez) always pauses before killing his victims to allow them the chance to make their peace with God.  Whether or not they do, he then fills them with bullets.  Surprisingly, though the film is extremely violent, there is no cursing.

Pablo and his assistant are bumbling hit men who eventually are able to carry out their assignments.  There is a lot of running around and shooting and killing.

The turning point for Pablo comes when he is assigned by his boss to assassinate a Pentecostal pastor who is interfering with the local drug trade.  Pablo becomes a Christian and turns his life around.  This is where the real problem with El Evangelista (2006) lies.

Pablo moves to another area and begins his happy new life.  What about his probably vengeful former associates?  What about his responsibility for numerous murders?  Did he have a responsibility to self-report to the authorities?  Should he have given his knowledge of the drug trade to the police?  Is repentance without confession really repentance?  Can we escape temporal consequences for our actions?

This is a Spanish language film with English subtitles.

I Am His Favorite

I saw a woman wearing a Tee-shirt emblazoned with the logo, “Jesus Loves You … But I’m His Favorite!”  I had to think about that one and then I realized that it was true.  She is His favorite.  You are His favorite.  I am His favorite.

Would Jesus have endured the Cross to save only the woman? Yes.

Would Jesus have endured the Cross to save only you? Yes.

Would Jesus have endured the Cross to save only me? Yes.

Saint Augustine of Hippo said, "God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us to love."

“Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” Luke 15:10

It Is All About Me

There will be untold millions, possibly billions of saints with the Lord throughout eternity (Hebrews 12:1 says that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses), but Luke 15:10 tells us that “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner” that repents. I believe that means that Jesus died for each one of us individually and would have willingly done so even if we were the only one.

Read the following verses aloud.  I have made one change to several of the verses.

“For I have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” Romans 3:23

“ … the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for ME.” Matthew 20:28

“ … the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for ME.” Mark 10:45

“I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that if I believe in him I will not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.

Ash Wednesday On the Street

Today is Ash Wednesday, observed mainly by the Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran denominations.  A smudged cross of black ashes is drawn on the forehead of the believer as a sign of repentance at the beginning of Lent.

Since 2007, many Episcopalians have participated in a practice begun by Reverend Teresa Danieley in St. Louis, Missouri.   Rev. Danieley decided to offer the ashes to people on the street.  Now over 70 Episcopal parishes in 18 USA states offer ashes to anyone who asks at train stations, street corners, coffee shops, libraries, parks, and other public places.  They say that they view it as an act of evangelism.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the taking of the ashes is a solemn event which should happen within a church, during a religious service with Scripture, prayer, and calls for repentance.  

Bible Printer's Errors: The Unrepentant Ninevites Bible

Not all the errant texts of Bibles occurred in the years 1500 to 1700.  The edition known as the Unrepentant Ninevites Bible was issued in 1989. Luke 11:32 in the God's New Covenant Bible (1989) reads "For when Jonah preached to them, they were not led to repentance." Actually, they were.

Film Comment: Woman In the Dunes

In the black and white 1964 film Woman in the Dunes (Japanese Title: Suna no Onna), an insect collector from Tokyo escapes his boring existence by spending time in the desert region of Japan, collecting bugs, and staying in the homes of local people.  On his current trip, the only place to stay is with a woman who lives at the bottom of a sand pit.  The man happily climbs down the unstable wooden ladder into the pit to spend the night.

The next day the man realizes that the ladder is gone and that the walls of the sand pit are sliding down onto the house.  Then comes the surprise: he is expected to to stay with the woman and help her shovel sand away from the house.  In return, he gets her.

At first the man struggles to leave, but soon, he gives in and wouldn't leave even if he could.

This film received two Oscar nominations and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.  It is obviously an allegory, lacking any logical story sense, being more a situation than a narrative.  With nudity, vaginal, and phallic symbols abounding it is obvious that the ensnarement is sexual.  The man finds himself trapped in a situation for which he is partially responsible; he was not forced to climb down into the pit and he should have known better than to do so.

The woman is the sugar and the glue, and the pit is the trap.  The man is the fly, but he does not struggle for long, because the sugar is so sweet.  Before he is even aware of it, the man does not want to leave.

People often create their own prisons by the bad choices they make.  Each choice, good or bad, makes it easier to make the next choice in the same direction.  It also makes it less likely that we will turn around and go back the way we came (μετάνοιά/repentance.)  Each bad choice can limit future choices.

Many things (food, sports, career, hobbies, etc) which may on their surface seem to be benign, innocent, or essentially harmless, can, if we make them our entire lives, ensnare us like the Woman in the Dunes. Some situations and activities (gambling, smoking, recreational drug use, pornography, drinking, heavy flirting, promiscuity, etc) must be avoided because of their ability to ensnare us in unexpected ways which can rapidly escalate out of our control and from which it becomes impossible to extricate ourselves.

A Little Fable

I believe that "A Little Fable" is in the public domain.  If I am in error on this I will remove it immediately.

A Little Fable, by Franz Kafka.

""Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day.  At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into." "You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up."

When I was in college, there was a student there, a very free-spirited girl, who had a reputation for never missing a party.  She was friendly, never met a stranger, and everyone liked her.  Then, one day, she disappeared.

Eventually, her body was found and her murder was linked to a serial killer after one of his victims was able to escape.

Everyone was talking about the case.  When the idea was advanced that the girl contributed to her own murder by the situations in which she placed herself, one person became incensed.  "You're saying that she deserved to be raped and murdered!"  Others insisted that no, she did not deserve to be raped and murdered, but she did place herself into dangerous situations which she could have avoided if she had chosen to do so.

We sometimes create our own boxes, our own mazes, our own traps, our own prisons.  There is an old Southern saying (I've "cleaned it up" for this blog), "If you walk in the sewer, you will get sewage on your shoes."

We all make many choices and each choice we make in a particular direction, good or bad, makes it easier to make the next choice in the same direction.  It also makes it less likely that we will turn around and go back the way we came. (Remember our old friend, μετάνοιά/repentance, from the 9 February 2011 post?)

Each bad choice we make can limit our future choices and we can paint ourselves into a corner.  This is an American idiom which calls to mind the image of a man with a can of red paint who begins painting the floor as soon as he enters a room.  When he reaches the far corner of the room, the only way out is to walk back across the wet red paint.

The foolish mouse in "A Little Fable" made poor choices, increasingly boxing itself into one particular direction.  When it finally realized its error, it turned around, and there was the cat.

Metanoia/Repentance

Metanoia (μετάνοιά, Acts 2:38, Romans 2:4) is a Greek compound word built from the preposition μετά (after, with) and the verb νοἐιν (to think, to observe, to perceive), "to think after," "to change one's mind."  In Christian theology the word is usually translated as "repent," carrying the idea of turning around and going the other way, in other words, a reorientation of outlook, a spiritual conversion.


The other biblical Greek word translated as "repentance" is metamelomai, which means a change of soul, a sorrow that  leads to turning away from a life of sin (Matthew 27:3, 2 Corinthians 7:9-10)

Why Jesus Came

"Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works." –Robert Farrar Capon

"But when Jesus heard [that], he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
 But go ye and learn what [that] meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
" Matthew 9: 12-13

Fools and Vomit

"As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." Proverbs 26:11

Jimmy Swaggert, who had "fool" problems of his own, once told of a sinner who repented of his former "slop" of a life but couldn't quite let go of it. He put it into a slop bucket and put the bucket in the closet. Every so often, he would go into the closet with a spoon and take a little sip. Swaggert called this "slop bucket repentence."