LimitedNegatives?

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willowtree
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Re: LimitedNegatives?

Post by willowtree » Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:49 pm

mattrose wrote:I am going to be teaching this lesson again in a few days. I thought I'd share my votes (IN BOLD) on these 'potential' limited negatives

12 Potential ‘Limited Negative’ Passages for our Consideration


Matthew 6:13
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
I think this is a limited negative. The prayer is asking God not to ONLY bring us into testing, but to deliver us through it
I have long been under the impression that temptation was the pressure we felt to do wrong, whereas testing was the pressure we felt to do right. Accordingly, this request is to help us sort out what we are facing, as God would never lead us into temptation (wrong).

Comments?
If you find yourself between a rock and a hard place, always head for the rock. Ps 62..

dizerner

Re: LimitedNegatives?

Post by dizerner » Wed Mar 11, 2015 6:05 pm

Paidion wrote:"For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices."But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’ (Jeremiah 7:22,23)
To say God didn't command concerning sacrifices is to say the Torah is just a big mistake. They were said to be the very words of God, not some interpretation by Moses. The point was all the commands were to introduce a relationship to the Holy Spirit and the idea of grace (God providing something that "fixes" us).
Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me. (Heb 10:5)
In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. (Heb 10:6)
Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.(Psalm 40:6)
These are messianic prophecies that show he is the fulfillment of the Tanach. The body God prepared for Jesus was so that he could be the ultimate Old Covenant ending sacrifice himself, so obviously God desired "sacrifice and offering" of Jesus, just much deeper than an animal. The writer in Hebrews equates "a bored ear" (meaning hear and obey as a servant who desired to be one) to Christ's incarnation, taking up a body and sacrificing it both in life and death. This is why when Christ said "I came to do the will of Him who sent me," is exactly parallel to Hebrews 10:7 the very next verse:

Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.’ ”

First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.


This is not saying "whoopsie, the Law was all a big mistake and now Christ fixes our silly idea about it all." This is saying, Christ replaces the Law because Christ fulfilled the Law we all broke, and introduces to a living reality that the shadow reality testified to. Christ is all those offerings in one offering, and God was pleased with those old sacrifices because they stood for the coming one. As Isaiah said, "But Yahweh was pleased to crush him" (Isa 53:10). This is why Paul says "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." We might say, but Abraham was commanded to do it; so what does this verse mean? It means true obedience is from the heart, not just technically doing what the command says. We can only keep the commandments of God in our heart, not our actions, and we never do that, so God sent someone who could really say "I have come to do your will, my God," as a fulfillment of the broken Old Covenant, which God knew we could never keep the jot and tittle of. So the sacrifices were a reminder of the need for a Messiah and personal sin, that's their entire purpose. Whenever Scripture says "You did not desire sacrifice" it is either directly addressing the Messiah (who came to bring a new covenant) or people that perfunctorily did the sacrifices but their hearts were far from God.

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mattrose
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Re: LimitedNegatives?

Post by mattrose » Wed Mar 11, 2015 9:17 pm

willowtree wrote:
mattrose wrote:I am going to be teaching this lesson again in a few days. I thought I'd share my votes (IN BOLD) on these 'potential' limited negatives

12 Potential ‘Limited Negative’ Passages for our Consideration


Matthew 6:13
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
I think this is a limited negative. The prayer is asking God not to ONLY bring us into testing, but to deliver us through it
I have long been under the impression that temptation was the pressure we felt to do wrong, whereas testing was the pressure we felt to do right. Accordingly, this request is to help us sort out what we are facing, as God would never lead us into temptation (wrong).

Comments?
It seems to me that the differentiation b/w testing and tempting is, in large part, a creation of translators and theologians. A lot of times it's the same Greek word. Our job is not to figure out if a given situation is a test (From God) or a temptation (from the Devil), but to assume that every situation can be a stepping stone or a stumbling block. I believe this line in the Lord's prayer is a request that God help all situations turn into stepping stones.

So it's not that God ever pressures us to do wrong... but it is that God sometimes puts us in pressure-situations... because God knows that those are the situations where we can best be strengthened. Those situations do, however come with a risk, from which we need deliverance.

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mattrose
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Re: LimitedNegatives?

Post by mattrose » Tue Oct 18, 2016 12:09 pm

Thinking about another potential limited negative today. Not sure it was directly discussed in this thread.

Ephesians 6:12
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Could it be that we struggle not ONLY against flesh and blood, but ALSO against...
We struggle NOT PRIMARILY against flesh and blood, but PRIMARILY against...

I come from a non-violent orientation, but admittedly we do struggle against physical institutions and structures and people. Perhaps the passage is telling us to make sure we realize that its the inner-realities of these things wherein the real opposition lies.

What say you?

steve7150
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Re: LimitedNegatives?

Post by steve7150 » Wed Oct 19, 2016 1:08 pm

We struggle NOT PRIMARILY against flesh and blood, but PRIMARILY against...









Yes this is how i took it since we obviously struggle against flesh and blood so Paul is making a contrast that the bigger struggle is against the Spiritual darkness.

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Homer
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Re: LimitedNegatives?

Post by Homer » Wed Oct 19, 2016 11:10 pm

Couldn't it also be "not merely"?

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steve
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Re: LimitedNegatives?

Post by steve » Thu Oct 20, 2016 5:13 pm

Couldn't it also be "not merely"?
I would think so, though "primarily" might be implied as well.

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dwight92070
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Re: LimitedNegatives?

Post by dwight92070 » Fri Oct 21, 2016 6:43 am

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. That is, do not ONLY lead us into a place where we will be tempted and tested, but deliver us from the evil of the sin that that temptation represents.

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steve
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Re: LimitedNegatives?

Post by steve » Fri Oct 21, 2016 8:49 pm

Yes, that is a good example.

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mattrose
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Re: LimitedNegatives?

Post by mattrose » Sat Oct 22, 2016 9:48 am

Interestingly, I was just reading Walter Wink's "Engaging the Powers" (this very minute) and he writes:

"We are not contending against MERE (emphasis mine) human beings, but against suprahuman systems and forces, against the spirituality of the evil Powers in the invisible order."

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