Guns Kill People

A popular meme says:

So if guns kill people, I guess pencils misspell words, cars drive drunk, and spoons make people fat.

Guns are designed to kill, pencils are not designed to misspell words, cars are not designed to drive drunk, and spoons are not designed to make people fat. But guns are designed to kill. That’s their purpose. These things are not equivalent.

When guns are used to kill people it is a crime. When a pencil is used to misspell a word it is a mistake. When cars are operated by drunk drivers it’s a crime. And when spoons are used to overeat it’s an unwise choice. Notice that only two of these things kill people, and therefore are crimes. But only one of these things is designed to do so

Just as you need to have a license to drive a car, you should need to have a license to own a gun. And for the same reason. Both can kill people if they are misused. And just as drunk drivers lose their license if they drive drunk, people who are mentally or criminally dangerous should lose their license to own a gun.

Understanding Grace

“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18).

Most Christians don’t understand grace. Grace is not unmerited favor. You can’t grow in unmerited favor, you either have it or you don’t.

Grace is the special influence of God upon a person.. You can grow in the special influence of God in your life. The more you surrender to God, the more you die to self, the more God fills your life.

You cannot reap a harvest if you don’t plant seeds. And the seeds won’t grow if you don’t water them. But if you plant and water the seeds, they will grow and produce fruit.

The seeds are your resolutions, the water is the spiritual disciplines, and the fruit is the result in one’s life in the form of thoughts, words, and deeds. The sun is God’s grace, it is his influence that works in and with you, enabling you to live a holy life.

God’s grace is already given, it is in the very presence of God as the Ground of Being. We are God’s offspring, our existence is a donation of God’s Being to us. Therefore, all we do, we do with the rays of divine influence all around us.

God’s grace is like the sun. As the sun hardens the clay but softens wax. So too does God’s grace hardens the selfish heart but softens the loving heart. When we resist the divine influence, we harden our hearts against God. When we surrender to the divine influence, we are saved. For we are saved by grace, not by the self-centered works.

Walk Alone

You are born alone, and you die alone. Yet, how we fight against this reality.

Before you begin a deeper walk with God, know that that walk will be a lonely one. The closer you get to God, the further you’ll be from people.

Leonard Ravenhill said it well:

Great eagles fly alone; great lions hunt alone; great souls walk alone-alone with God. Such loneliness is hard to endure, and impossible to enjoy unless God accompanies them. Prophets are lone men; they walk alone, pray alone and God makes them alone.

Defining Gnosticism

Before we talk about Gnosticism, we must define it. But defining Gnosticism has become one of the leading problems in the field. Whole books have been dedicated to the subject (See books by Karen L. King and Michael Allen Williams).

The problem is that Western scholars see religion as something dealing with beliefs. So, naturally, they think that Gnosticism should have something to do with doctrines and beliefs. I think this is a mistake. In fact, I think it is the mistake.

Gnosticism, in my opinion, should refer to the orientation by which groups deal with their religion. Not the content of what they believe, but how they believe. Not concepts in the mind, but practices and actions in dealing with living their religion.

In a recent book of mine, I gave the following definition:

Gnosticism is an orientation towards religion that approaches Scripture as myths, interprets Scripture allegorically, has mysteries (musterion) reserved for the initiated, aims for salvation through mystical insight (gnosis), is open to new revelations from God, and follows a Messiah Savior-God.1

Notice that it is an approach, a method of interpretation, an initiation practice, an aim, an openness, and a following. These are all verbs and deal with actions.

This means that Gnosticism says nothing about beliefs. So Gnosticism, as orientation, must be added to the belief system of the group. Gnostic Christianity, for example, fills in their Gnosticism with the Lord Jesus Christ as their Messiah Savior-God. This is their central guiding myth.

Therefore, there is no such thing as classical Gnosticism. A group is Gnostic or it is not. Gnostic Sethians fill in their Gnosticism with Seth being the Messiah Savior-God. This is their central guiding myth.

Whenever you make beliefs the defining characteristic of Gnosticism, you immediately have to have a hundred qualifications for why this group or that person didn’t believe it. You have to explain how Clement of Alexardria is a Gnostic, as he calls himself, and how the Sethians, Valentinians, Cathars, Manichaens, and Madeans are also Gnostic.

My solution is the only real solution. Otherwise, the category must be dumped. Study each one of these and you will see that all of them share an orientation towards religion, but that they differ widely on what they believe, what Scriptures they hold sacred, and who their Messiah Savior-God is.

What is ironic, is that Ireanius’s intuition that they were all related somehow, was right. But as a Fundamentalist, he couldn’t quite understand how. For him, they were just all heresy. That is because he was living in his own orientation, Fundamentalism.

Reference

1. Jay N. Forrest, The Five Gnostic Sacraments, Albuquerque: Tserrof Books, 2024, 11-12. Note: I changed the original transformation to salvation.

Get the Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DGL6W8DM/

The First Creed

This is the oldest creed of Christianity. It is recorded in the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (15:3-8).

  • For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the [Jewish] scriptures
  • And that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the [Jewish] scriptures
  • And that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
  • Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.
  • Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
  • Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

 



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