Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART LXVI
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α
GoodWill IS Love in Action
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way , the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do ; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:3-12).
We leave our sayings above although we will probably not get to them today; this is good reading and very meaningful and we will get back to it shortly. We repeat here again the verses from yesterday so that we can complete our thoughts on them with easy reference; we add the lead in verse also:
“Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons , and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said , What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by , and beheld your devotions , I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein , seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at ; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said , We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them. Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them” (Acts 17:16-34).
We looked through these words of the Apostle Paul to the Epicureans, and Stoicks at the reality of God and of man’s relationship to him. This relationship is on manifold levels; in Paul’s words we find that we are children of The God of whom he says “God that is Lord of heaven and earth, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things“. While we can take the idea that “we are also his offspring” as that it applies to both the physical and the spiritual, we should rather lean toward the spiritual as this is the True man; the physical body merely houses it for its time here on Earth. It is possible and likely that these Greek ‘scholars’, being that they are adherents to the two ‘schools of philosophy’ ordered by the works of Zeno, the Stoicks, and of Epicurius , the Epicureans, had some understanding of these matters of life and death and of things spiritual and that they had understood to some degree this premise of the True man. Through this perceived understanding the apostle is attempting to tell them that their idea of God, as taken from their inscription “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD” as it adorned the alter, is the SAME God that Paul is speaking of and who he wants them to see in his “new doctrine“. This “new doctrine” is coming from a man that they do not KNOW and references what they perceive as “certain strange things” which, upon the hearing say “May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean“.
In this request we should try to come to a better understanding of the Apostle Luke’s use of the word idolatry in the lead in verse above. Vincent tells us that these words are not what is generally conveyed to the reader; he says of: Wholly given to idolatry (kateidwlon). Incorrect. The word, which occurs only here in the New Testament, and nowhere in classical Greek, means full of idols. It applies to the city, not to the inhabitants.4 We can see here that the intent is to convey that there are many such statues or idols and this is reported to us through Greek History; we should also understand that the division of the ONE GOD into so many Greek Gods is merely the naming as an individual personality the different aspects and attributes of God as they appear to man as is common around the world in these ancient and rather superstitious times. Some of whom they speak of in Greek literature, Hercules and Hermes to name two, are still considered to be ‘Sons of God‘ as Avatars, and as those who are charged with bringing Light from God to Earth. From the inscription above we can premise that these Greeks themselves KNOW that these are all resolved into ONE, and, for them, ONE who is UNKNOWN.
Our point is that these Greeks are not the heathen that they are at times made out to be by church doctrine but are the philosophers and scholars of their place and time. We should understand here also that while it is commonly interpreted that Paul is evangelizing, the reality is that he is answering to their request of “May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is” which results in their saying at the end that “ We will hear thee again of this matter“. In the last post we dealt briefly with the idea of ignorant and here again we should see that that it is not Paul’s intent to disparage these men and, at the same time, Paul does not proclaim that he KNOWS this UNKNOWN GOD; he only proclaims that this is the same God that he teaches and that He is the ONE GOD which he explains by way of the UNITY and the brotherhood of man….that the ONE GOD is the same GOD for ALL. Vincent tell us of Paul’s use of the word translated as ignorant saying that it is Rather, unconsciously: not knowing. There is a kind of play on the words unknown, knowing not. Ignorantly conveys more rebuke than Paul intended 4.
It is our intent here to expand on our thoughts from yesterday and our idea that it may be by design that this episode is enacted and written about and in this design is the passing along of the understanding that these Greeks were open minded enough to see the reality of God from their own perspective as well as from the words of the apostle and that, up to the point of the resurrection, they have no issues with anything that he says. It is in this openness that these Greeks are able to overcome their own sense of God and of doctrine and become as it were, building blocks of the new faith in God through Christ. And, while they were sparked by the UNITY and the brotherhood expressed in Paul’s words, they have fallen prey to the same doctrinal prejudices against other beliefs as the rest of the Christian Church.
Where is this UNITY and brotherhood?
- “God that made the world and all things therein , seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth”. He IS the God of ALL.
- “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation“. Of “one blood all nations of men” is a statement that should put to rest any and ALL ideas of Christian superiority and likely does but, this reality falters in the insistence of the doctrines of the churches that one MUST be a Christian or this UNITY does not count. Paul’s saying is clearly that we are ALL brothers, ALL of “one blood” and in this we should take his message that this idea transcends the True man as the Soul as God’s offspring, and extends it to the expression of that Soul in form where, while the differences between men can be seen, we KNOW from Paul’s words that there are none.
- “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring“. Here we have many things; first and foremost is the fact in Paul’s saying of our existence in God and here we see this is True from the perspective of the True man, the Soul, and the man in form on the Earth. Our True Life is as the Spirit manifest as Soul and this is our being while our movement can be seen as our activity in the world of form. The fact that Paul recognizes that “certain also of your own poets have said” this same thing gives us that certainty that Paul understood the nature of the Greek beliefs and that he is showing them more the similarity than the difference. Finally our confirmation that ALL are the children of God for here Paul IS NOT speaking to believers but to those who we today consider heathen.
Can we find ought but brotherhood in these words from the apostle? Paul goes on then to give them understanding of the new dispensation of repentance and we will continue with this in the next post.
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Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In relation to the Christ |
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GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Life |
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Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Truth |
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Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Way |
For our daily look at the United Nations we again rely on Wikipedia for this information on the World Food Programme:
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the food assistance branch of the United Nations, and the world’s largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger worldwide. WFP provides food, on average, to 90 million people per year, 58 million of whom are children.From its headquarters in Rome and more than 80 country offices around the world, WFP works to help people who are unable to produce or obtain enough food for themselves and their families. It is a member of the United Nations Development Group and part of its Executive Committee.
The WFP was first established in 1961[4] after the 1960 Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Conference, when George McGovern, director of the US Food for Peace Programmes, proposed establishing a multilateral food aid programme. WFP was formally established in 1963 by the FAO and the United Nations General Assembly on a three-year experimental basis. In 1965, the programme was extended to a continuing basis.
WFP strives to eradicate hunger and malnutrition, with the ultimate goal in mind of eliminating the need for food aid itself.
The core strategies behind WFP activities, according to its mission statement, are to provide food aid to:
- save lives in refugee and other emergency situations
- improve the nutrition and quality of life of the most vulnerable people at critical times in their lives
- help build assets and promote the self-reliance of poor people and communities, particularly through labour-intensive works programmes
WFP food aid is also directed to fight micronutrient deficiencies, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, and combat disease, including HIV and AIDS. Food-for-work programmes help promote environmental and economic stability and agricultural production.
In 2011, WFP reached 99.1 million people in 75 countries and provided 3.6 million tonnes of food, including nutritionally improved products such as Plumpy’sup and Plumpy’doz) and Supercereal Plus. The number of malnourished children who received special nutritional support in 2011 was over 11 million, up from 8.5 million in 2010. Some 23 million children received school meals or take-home rations. WFP has scaled up its use of cash and vouchers as food assistance tools. Some 4.4 million people received assistance through cash or voucher programmes in 2011. In 2011, WFP bought over 2.4 million metric tons of food, worth more than US$1.2 billion, in 87 countries. Of the 2.4 million metric tons of food, 71 per cent was purchased in developing countries, representing approximately US$870 million and more than 1.7 million metric tons.
Among its other activities, WFP is coordinating the five-year Purchase for Progress (P4P) pilot project. Launched in September 2008, P4P assists smallholder farmers by offering them opportunities to access agricultural markets and to become competitive players in the market place. The project is underway in 20 of the 21 planned countries and, since the launch, more than 116,000 farmers, warehouse operators and small & medium traders have received training from WFP and partners in improved agricultural production, post-harvest handling, quality assurance, group marketing, agricultural finance and contracting with WFP. More than 207,000 metric tons of food valued at US$75.6 million have been contracted.
WFP focuses its food assistance on those who are most vulnerable to hunger, which most frequently means women, children, the sick and the elderly. In fact, part of the response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake consisted of distributing food aid to women as experience built up over almost 5 decades of working in emergency situations has demonstrated that giving food to women helps to ensure that it is spread evenly among all household members. School-feeding and/or take home ration programmes in 71 countries help students focus on their studies and encourage parents to send their children, especially girls, to school.
WFP operations are funded by voluntary donations from world governments, corporations and private donors. The organization’s administrative costs are only seven percent—one of the lowest and best among aid agencies. In 2011, WFP’s total revenue was $3.73 million. From 2008-2012, private donors donated around $500 million.
Critics claim the World Food Programme to be harmful to the aided countries. Kenyan economist James Shikwati says in an interview with Der Spiegel: “aid to Africa does more harm than good”. According to him, the food aid increases corruption as local politicians steal some of the aid to bribe voters and/or sell the aid in the black markets killing the local agriculture. He claims that the WFP people as an organisation “are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment where hunger actually eliminated”. He suggests that WFP answers too easily to the calls of the corrupted governments, and supplies too much of food aid leading to reduction of the production of local farmers as “no one can compete with the UN’s World Food Program”. ***
The criticism here is valid and likely a real threat to local farmers but what is the alternative? Perhaps subsidizing the local farmer to make of him a participant would be the right idea but this is countered by the motives of the countries that are giving the aid which desire the WFP to spend the donated dollars that buys the food in the country that donates. There is a solution to this that is easily reached when the Truth and the Reality of this giving is better understood and the philanthropic aspect better appreciated.
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment.:
So that we do not forget that the reality of this ALL is still LOVE which is our Truth regardless of whatever other realizations may come to us in Life, we present here again the Apostle Paul’s words followed by our own understanding of this reality:
….but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:8-10).
The first of all the commandments is, Hear , O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this , Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these
(Mark 12:29-31)
We should remember always to link to this Greatest Commandment that other saying of the Master that gives to us the practical understanding of how to love one’s self plus the practical instruction on how it is that we CAN Love our neighbour; He tells us:
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them
(Matthew 7:12)
Unlike so much of the Master’s sayings that come to us in the form of parables and for which we can only surmise that we have the spiritual presence to understand, these sayings are very straightforward and they are the key to many of the promises of spiritual life; they are the very key to the Kingdom of God. To these sayings we add our adopted definition of the Greek word agape (agapao) which is translated into the English words Love and Charity and which is:
‘In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men’
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
- ** United Nations Website: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview.html
- *** Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia,
