Summary thoughts for this series of blogs.
Virtues We Want Are Adjuncts of Our Spiritual Inheritance Self-help books proliferate by so many needing the virtues/qualities/traits Christians possess, without accepting God in Christ. Let us learn that all who trust God in Christ naturally accrue what others vainly seek elsewhere. If Christians don't have them, it's because we haven't claimed and tried them, not because they don't exist. Temptation Is a Goliath Overcome The Philistine threat to Israel hadn't been removed by Goliath's death. Saul's obsession with a non-existent threat from David limited his ability to once-for-all finalize Philistia's incursions. Point of Fear. Like Goliath, temptation is no joke. Like him in other contests, temptations seem invincible. Only with David's accession did Israel exhaust Philistia's strength. They tested his strength and found IT imperviously redoubtable. Point of Faith. Goliath-sized problems always appear to intimidate us. Impossible situations rise for which no solution exists. And sometimes man-killing tasks that everyone else avoids. David's confidence in God fills us with assurance. As his victory over the man representing Philistia anticipated Israel's conquest of Philistia in his later reign, our resistance to or victory over any temptation represents what can always be the result when facing problems. God is the Greater power whatever Great power we face, the Waymaker by being THE WAY, over, through, under or around otherwise stunning obstacles. For sometimes God doesn't so much kill the giants as he makes us so much bigger it shrinks them to runts. The Historic Struggle Continues David's success in slaying Goliath symbolized the victory of Israel's monotheism over Philistine polytheism. The outcome of the entire contest, first suggested by Goliath, and accepted as the basis of battle by David, proceeded on the basis of ONE God or Many gods. New Testament Christians confronted the same struggle. Did but ONE God exist or did a plethora of gods and goddesses aplenty and lords and saviors not a few? In his ministry Jesus declared his Spiritual Singularity against all the plurality Roman society advocated. John 14:6 but one of many examples. His people naturally accepted his authority as absolute. And, for the first 30 years, Roman tolerance served as a haven for Christians beleaguered by Jewish fanaticism. Then, beginning in A.D. 64, with Nero's persecution of Christians, a shift from tolerance to suspicion occurred. With the destruction of Herod's temple in A.D. 70, Rome became aware of the distinction between Judaism's former compliance with societal expectation and Christianity's refusal to negotiate Christ's authority. That led to the frightful persecutions of Christians during the latter part of the first century, the episodic persecutions throughout the second through the first decade of the third. In Revelation 2-3 the greatest danger facing Christians in the Roman world was the temptation to soften Christ's dangerous Singularity into a compromising Diversity; diluting his Pure Spiritual Truth with doses of innocent-sounding theories and philosophies. It hasn't changed to this day. The thoughtless immigration changes in the 20th century—buttressed by America's failures in war—have brought to America foreign nationals wanting all the freedom and prosperity we enjoy while demanding the right to retain all their customs and religious practices. Christians agree to freedom of religion. But we'll never agree that freedom OF religion means equality IN religions. Jesus demanded that his people defend his Singularity under the Caesars and hasn't changed his Singularity into a more comfortable Duality now or a cuddly pluralism that reduces him to a religious figurehead among equal religious figureheads. Fini
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