The New Church Landscape: October 2011

Monday, October 24, 2011

Theology - The Queen of Sciences

There is growing up a generation that was not taught the Bible stories, taken to church or much experience of Christian prayerful living. Small wonder that these one see little need for 'religion.'
They claim, "One does not need a god to be moral.' Meaning they do not believe in God and do not think it relevant to themselves as moral people. They can make 'good' choices without the guidance, background and education of Bible training, exposure to Christianity, or understanding of the ethical attitudes of Jesus.
My father was the son of a missionary and deeply scarred by the experience. However, growing up in China of the early 1900's, he also learned about the ethics of people without the Christian ethic. You could not trust the Chinese in their business dealings. You always had to be on guard against trickery - the stone in the pile of wood when you got paid by the weight of the wood.
Dad's conclusion was that you cannot have a highly developed society without built in ethical training developing ethical character in which one could trust. He observed that much trust was involved in western business and financial transactions. He discerned that things would not be the same if we lost the religious training and ethical training that was the foundation of character in the West.
That is why mom and dad took us all to church. They believed that this grounding is important. They were right. It is important to be exposed to the religion and ethic that is the backbone of the West.
In my generation television came in and replaced religion as the major influence on morals and ethics. The driving force behind television was not developing character but training people to consume goods. This is a battle that religion, to a large extent, lost and commercial interest won.
Now we can see that dad was right. We will see what it is like to live and work with people without an ethical backbone - people you cannot trust.

Now to the question as to why Theology can be considered the Queen of the Sciences, I will quote:

"we strongly believe that no education is a useful education without the study of theology. One's theology (understanding of God and his eternal law) determines how facts, events, and philosophies are judged. It is necessary to have a good (correct) theology in order to make good moral judgments, rightly discerning between right and wrong.
     A popular phrase we often hear is "you can't legislate morality." However, every law in every land legislates somebody's morality. We see the strife in medical arenas concerning abortion, cloning, grafting, etc. Difficult choices have to be made about what is right and wrong. Many of us are under the counsel of psychologists, psychiatrists, ministers, and others. Depending on the counselor's view of man, God, and true mental health, is the success of the treatment. In the arena of the structure of authority we have to know what man's inherent rights are and where those rights come from before we can determine if a government is righteous.
     One's theology affects his every action and belief. It is the framework upon which hangs all we learn from history and the framework upon which the future is built. The "Queen of Sciences" should order and illuminate all the other disciplines, providing one with a genuine liberal education.  The Tanglewood School Curriculum, recognizing the importance of the study of theology, provides a place for planning and record keeping in the teacher's Corebook. We encourage each parent to study and to aspire to a correct theology and to instill in the child an understanding and love for this sacred discipline.
     After all, as was once said, "The only rightful purpose of education is to know the truth and to live by it."

This is from http://www.tanglewoodeducation.com/queen.htm

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Matthew 18:18 - what means 'bind' and loose?

This e-mail arrived with a question about binding and loosing in Matthew 18:18. Here is the letter.

Hi,

I just read you information on cursing from the Internet – via Google.

Most of it I agree with and see the wisdom of not continuing a practice of prayer that I really thought was correct. So now, what about Matthew 18:18, which says “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven;” what are we to “Bind” and what are we to “Loose?” What does that in your opinion refer to?

Thank you for your input.

God lover

"Study to show thyself approved..." 2Tim 2:15

I explain this on the Listening-prayer web site in the section called Demonic, negative and unhealthy Spiritual Warfare under the title Spiritual Warfare: Binding and Loosing.

In the Jewish New Testament (David Stern, 1989), the translator explains the meaning of "bind" and "loose" to the Jew. This would mean that the leadership had the authority to set up a new religious community and establish the rules of this community. The new community formed around Jesus was not to be bound by Jewish law. They could, in effect, establish new rules for the new community. God's authority would be behind them in this. And so it was as we see in the Book of Acts.

In North America it has fed in to the power drive and wrongly interpreted as 'I can take authority in Jesus name over Satan and territorial spirits. That, in fact, is very dangerous advice as it puts us in a position of rebellion against authority. It encourages acting in pride and arrogance.

It accomplishes the opposite of what is intended. One loses protection. One's position in the battle is exposed. The enemy penetrates and attacks supply lines. This is experienced as money always disappearing, losing jobs, just about to get a job and it goes to someone else.

Read more of my articles on listening-prayer.com and this should all be explained.

George

My articles on the internet about cursing include the following: