Homer wrote:We are off on a goat trail here.
Good. I love goats.
You want to discuss whether "self" means "soulish" instead of "natural man".
No, I don’t want to discuss that. My only intention was to correct your assertion that “ψυχικος” means “natural” instead of “soulish”. I think I have shown that that is the case. I just wanted to know whether you had any rationale for your assertion, other than the fact that the King James Version and the translations based upon it, translate the word as “natural” .
You have interjected the phrase "die to self", which is not in the bible...
…
Into what have I interjected it?
…and want to argue about what "self" means in the scriptures as though this will settle the issue.
No, I don’t want to argue about what “self” means. We all know what “self” means. Once again, my only intention was to correct your assertion that “ψυχικος” means “natural” instead of “soulish”.
It is irrelevant to the issue we began with.
Maybe so. But I couldn’t let you get away with this false assertion.
You, by a rhetorical question, have indicated that your "die to self" and Jesus' "forsaking all that one has" are equivalent:
Yes.
Your question: Anyway, does "dying to self" differ from "forsaking all that one has"?
So let us stick to Jesus' words and see if we can understand what He meant.
I love sticking to Jesus’s words.
I suggest a few possibilities:
1. Jesus meant we must live as He lived during His ministry. No job other than ministry, no home to lay our head in, leave our family and all possessions behind.
He certainly meant that His disciples, those who wished to follow Him, had to do that.
Luke 9:59-62 And He said to another, "Follow Me." But he said, "Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father." But He said to him, "Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God."
Another also said, "I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home." But Jesus said to him, "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
Note the latter example in particular. People who wanted to follow Jesus had to drop everything and do so. He didn’t even permit this potential follower to say bid his folks farewell.
2. Have only the barest minimum of necessities and live an ascetic lifestyle.
Following Jesus certainly entailed a minimum of necessities. Call that “asceticism” if you will.
Luke 9: 57,58 As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, "I will follow You wherever You go."And Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
3. Forsaking all we have in the sense of viewing it as belonging to God with our role as that of a steward.
A pretty good cop-out. I used to use it myself, and I still do. If Matthew had seen it this way, he would not have left his fishing occupation, but would have continued in it as a good steward of the kingdom. It reminds me of Saul, who wanted to sacrifice to God the best of the animals he had saved. It seemed like a sensible thought. Why waste all those good animals by wiping them out as God commanded?
4. Jesus meant the abandonment as total but only in reference to those who followed Him during his itinerant ministry. For us we are to be willing to part with our goods as appropriate to our role as stewards.
Yes, relegate the instructions of Christ and His apostles to the “age in which they lived”. People do that also with reference to Jesus' instruction against taking oaths, and a wife’s headcovering to honour her husband, as Paul instructed in I Cor 11, as well as many of the other instructions which they do not wish to follow. It can work with anything. If we don’t want to be a disciple of Christ at all, we can simply claim that discipleship applied only to those first disciples whom Christ called.
Perhaps if you read a little farther in Luke, specifically 16: 1-12, it will help to determine which of the above is applicable to a disciple today.
Jesus did not give the parable of the unjust steward only as an example of how his disciples ought to be good stewards. Rather He gave it to instruct them to make friends with money, and to be faithful with the little they had as well as being faithful with the things of others which had been placed in their care. Jesus and His disciples did have money, Judas being the treasurer.
How would one who has literally forsaken all he has be a steward of anything?
Jesus told the rich young ruler that if he wanted to inherit lasting life, he should sell all that he had and give the money to the poor. If the young man had done what Jesus said, would he be unable to be a steward of anything? The man would still have had to eat, even as Jesus and his disciples did. He would still have needed to be a steward of what the Lord provided.
Leo Tolstoy was a rich count. He didn’t become a disciple until later in life. When he did, he gave all of his money to the poor peasants of Russia, and lived like a peasant himself for the rest of his days. He continued to serve his fellow man, according to the word of Christ. This is how he continued in stewardship.
And then there is a very different solution suggested by Joachim Jeremias and Henry Alford. The story of the tower builder and king contemplating going to war in Luke 14: 28-32 is not about self-denial at all but rather self-examination. Does the man have what it takes to build the tower or to defeat a far more powerful foe? Therefore a person must leave behind "all he hath", which is inadequate, and depend on God. Thus Luke 14: 26-27 is about enduring faith in the face of persecution; the words "deny self" are not in the text.
This could not have been what Jesus meant, since He prefixed the story with the following:
If any one comes to me and does not discount his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”
Then he linked it with the tower building question with the word “for”.
Long ago I considered an ascetic lifestyle and how it might be. I quickly realized I would have a problem with pride and probably think myself better than other Christians.
So did your choice of not following through in practice your thought of living an “ascetic lifestyle” help you with the pride issue?
So tell us what you think "forsaking all that one has" means?
I think I have told you. It’s tantamount to “dying to self”. You boldly acclaim that this phrase is not found in scripture. Perhaps not the exact phrase, but the meaning of it certainly is. Let’s consider Romans 6:3-7:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.
When we have been baptized into Christ, we were buried into death. Just as Christ died, we died with Him when we were baptized. We didn’t die physically, but the old “self” died. The self-nature died, i.e. the fallen nature, or the sin nature which resides within us. This is how we have been set free from sin. For “one who has died has been set free from sin.”
Examining your fourth “possibility” a little more closely:
4. Jesus meant the abandonment as total but only in reference to those who followed Him during his itinerant ministry.
If this were the case, then Jesus didn’t mean that the early Christians after His death and resurrection should “forsake all that they have” in order to be his disciples. Yet, without being told to do so, those first Christians, filled with the spirit of God, chose to sell all their possessions and hold all property in common with their brethren:
Acts 2:44-47 NASB And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.
Acts 4:32-35 NASB And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them. And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need.
Jesus and His Father came by their spirit to reside in the first Christians, and so it was simply natural (in accordance with their new nature) for them to share all material things. Is this not the way in which those who were persuaded by the words of the apostles “forsook all” in becoming Jesus disciples? Is this not how they “died to self”, that is to the sin principle which was within them?
Who are we, to think we can continue to live for ourselves, and still expect to be “saved from eternal hell” because of what Jesus did for us on the cross? Jesus and His Father are not interested in saving us from hell by some kind of legal transaction which permits the Father to forgive us. God is interested in helping us to become righteous people, not only to overcome sin, but to serve the needs of others, even as our Lord did during His earthly stay.
May we all better understand the true gospel, the word of God, as taught by John the Baptizer, Jesus, and His apostles. May we understand it well enough to discern the other “gospel” which is not a gospel, but a word of deceit which feeds the self-nature, permits us to live for ourselves, and gives us a false assurance of heaven. May we, when we have understood the true gospel, actively reject the false, and abhor it as the bite of that old serpent. May we delight in the narrow way, the only way, which God has set before us.
