Aphorism of the Day, January 2023

Aphorism of the Day, January 31, 2023

How would the laws of the Torah be like scientific laws?  A scientific law is tentative until a better explanation comes about.  A scientific law is relative to the context of observation and observer and when those change things once negligible become a new part of the defining context.  The laws of the Torah can be seen as contextual and of constant need for application in future time of new contexts and this means a law is always in need of better fulfillment in time.   What is always abolished is the past time of a law; what is needed is new fulfillment in new application.  This mean that law is a process of on-going fulfillment.  Jesus was not abolishing the past of the law in time by denying how it had functioned, he was looking at new fulfillment in his time and in the future.

Aphorism of the Day, January 30, 2023

Jesus told people without social power to be "salt" and "light" within their situation.  This implies people without status can still influence their environment toward exalted values.  What does "salt" and "light" behaviors mean for people who have social power?  It should mean justice for all.

Aphorism of the Day, January 29, 2023

Probably more people would be Christian if they saw more people living the beatitudes.

Aphorism of the Day, January 28, 2023

If the beatitudes pertain mainly to oppressed peoples, how can Christians who have the status of being "Empire Christians" accessed the meaning of the beatitudes?  Only by freeing the oppressed and ending the conditions of inequity, discrimination, and persecution.

Aphorism of the Day, January 27, 2023

The beatitudes of Jesus might seem to be servile living to placate oppressors and bend to their power.  On the other hand, they might be realistic, survival, non-violent, martial arts to demonstrate inner strength of another order.

Aphorism of the Day, January 26, 2023

How do meek persons inherit the earth?  Could be that they know that the creator gives everything to everyone all of the time even though human capacity only allows everything to be known in piecemeal.  The meek perhaps believe in owning alll that has come before and all that comes after because they've read the Will of the Divine.  Meekness is based upon the humility of knowing one's continuing limited capacity in processing the Great Gift in time.

Aphorism of the Day, January 25, 2023

According to Micah, God's requirements are to do justice, love kindness/mercy, and walk humbly before God.  The beatitudes are a further explication of this requirement and imply that we have these requirements even when we are not receiving justice, kindness, and when others are not walking humbly before God.  The requirements of the righteous oppressed seemed to be greater than those for the oppressors.  The rule is not to return evil for evil.  The faith standard is higher than a juridical standard which requires that evil be punished in this life.

Aphorism of the Day, January 24, 2023

Ponder the church in situations where living the beatitudes was not required because so-called Christian nations were subjugating and persecuting indigenous people. What an irony?  So called Christian people subjugate others and force them to live the beatitudes.  American slaves had to live the beatitudes to survive their "christian" masters?

Aphorism of the Day, January 23, 2023

Nietzsche could regard the beatitudes as a "transvaluation" of the values generated by the Will to Power.  Beatitude "power" is the power of peaceful resistance that expresses Christly martial arts for persons without political power.

Aphorism of the Day, January 22, 2023

In the present, we can only draw from all of the words of our lives, products of speech, writing, and acted scripts, and seek new word products, neologisms, whose inventiveness should be judged by whether we progress in love and justice.

Aphorism of the Day, January 21, 2023

What is the difference between replication of scientific experiences which support a "law" of science, and the kind of replication which happens when different people at different time and different ways have an experience of the sublime while listening to classical music.  Or when people at different times and different ways have religious or mystical experience.  Both kinds of replication happen; but they are substantial different kinds of how traces of the past are re-presented in the present.  Experiences of the sublime are not precisely replicated and partake of too many elements of contextual diversity.  They do not submit to the limits of the conditions like when water consistently boiling at 212 degrees at sea level.

Aphorism of the Day, January 20, 2023

Biblical studies is trying to create the contexts for when the words were written with imagination because one is so far removed from the actual contexts and the words on the page cannot really be the original situation.  When the words refer to things which cannot be empirically verified, it is a sign to know that the writers were not using language of empirical verification.

Aphorism of the Day, January 19, 2023

It often seems like the Gospel truths of Jesus are reduced to administrative truths for various religious bodies to build their identity and support their institutions and what may be lost is the promotion love and justice in our various settings.

Aphorism of the Day, January 18, 2023

The most basic message of Jesus was about the nearness of God's realm.  In Jesus, God's realm was made apparent even because humanity lives often with the realm of God being inapparent.

Aphorism of the Day, January 17, 2023

What might the metaphor, "I will make you fish for people," mean?   It could mean Christ as a charisma coach helping one to activate one's charisma so that one is  winsome with people toward the higher values of love and justice.

Aphorism of the Day, January 16, 2023

The life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was an epiphany for America.  He shown light on the banality of  American treatment of Blacks but he did so by calling all people to the better angels of love and justice.

Aphorism of the Day, January 15, 2023

One whose name means "lover of horses" and who never has spent time around horses might be misnamed.  There is often a disjunction between a reductive name and the actual occasions of becoming in one's life.

Aphorism of the Day, January 14, 2023

The question of the priority of becoming over being is also seen in the disjunction between being a Christian and doing Christ-like behaviors.  We are too quick to rely on our verbal identity of being Christian rather than the on-going occasions of becoming Christ-like in our actual behaviors.

Aphorism of the Day, January 13, 2022

An aspect of epiphany is often referred to as a "call."  It is a significant epiphany to find what one is supposed to do with one's life.

Aphorism of the Day, January 12, 2023

THE Epiphany is the informational overload of All confronting us always already.  THE Epiphany needs to be parsed into many epiphany as we trek toward greater adequacy in living together well.

Aphorism of the Day, January 11, 2023

Not having the capacity for comprehending all, seek but greater adequacy with the knowledge we have today as that adequacy is tuned in the direction of love and justice for all.

Aphorism of the Day, January 10, 2023

The writings of the Bible were most relevant in the times and contexts when and where they were composed.  As texts in different times, they are endlessly interpreted because no reading and no interpretation comes with self-evidential meanings implied.

Aphorism of the Day, January 9, 2023

Epiphany can mean an occasion of coming to be persuaded by new knowledge such that one changes the direction of one's life.

Aphorism of the Day, January 8, 2023

Jesus conformed to the ritual processes inherited in his setting and to an innovation of water purification associated with John the Baptist.  The ritual solidarity of Jesus with humanity is a feature of how God is with us in our identity rites.

Aphorism of the Day, January 7, 2023

The meaning of the Epiphany is a reminder that God in Christ is manifest to everyone.  It is like a re-surfacing in the human person of God's omnipresence.

Aphorism of the Day, January 6, 2023

Jesus is the very intensified particular manifestation of God to all to remind us that God is manifestly in general divine omnipresence.

Aphorism of the Day, January 5, 2023

Once the rituals of the church become more about the celebrants than those in the ritual process, the anthropological soundness of the sacraments are lost.  If sacraments are done for the church hierarchy rather than the incorporation of people into community, administration has triumphed over actual care of people.

Aphorism of the Day, January 4, 2023

Biblical literature includes lots of positive predications about people most of which never occur.  Positive thinking discourse for setting faith attitudes is a strategy for surviving by living in hopeful ways.  The task of living is to reconcile being hopeful with living with actuarial probabilities.

Aphorism of the Day, January 3, 2023

What is sanctified fame called?  An epiphany.  Good fame is when what is popularly promulgates aids us toward our better angels.  The Epiphany is about the Christ event becoming known.

Aphorism of the Day, January 2, 2023

A birth is contextual; it is most relevant to parents and family.  Jesus is firstly to and for Joseph and Mary.  A birth is also social; a child eventual belongs to more than parents and family.  The Gospels promote Jesus as the one who belonged to the entire world as a sign of God being with us.  And now we are supposed to be signs of God being with the world in the telling ways of love and justice.

Aphorism of the Day, January 1, 2023

Naming follows the function of language which is to reductively abstract from the many occasions of becoming to a single identifying name to assert the oneness of unity across the continuity of differences in time.