Posted by Roberta Grimes • January 14, 2023 • 46 Comments
Jesus, Slavery, The Teachings of Jesus
Jesus calls us o’er the tumult of our life’s wild restless sea;
day by day his voice still calls us saying, ‘Christian, follow me.’
As of old Saint Andrew heard it by the Galilean lake,
turned from home and work and kindred, leaving all for Jesus’s sake.
Jesus calls us from the worship of the vain world’s golden store,
from each idol that would keep us, saying, ‘Christian, love me more.’
In our joys and in our sorrows, days of toil and hours of ease,
Jesus calls, in cares and pleasures, ‘Christian, love me more than these.’
– Cecil Francis Alexander (1818-1895), From “Jesus calls us, O’er the Tumult” (1852)
Last week we heard Jesus say to His Apostles, “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you” (JN 15:18-19).
And in the Book of Matthew Jesus gives a longer pre-crucifixion charge to His Apostles that includes these words: “As you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with leprosy, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give. Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for the worker is deserving of his support. …
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be as wary as serpents, and as innocent as doves. But be on guard against people, for they will hand you over to the courts and flog you in their synagogues; and you will even be brought before governors and kings on My account, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you in that hour. For it is not you who are speaking, but it is the Spirit of your Father who is speaking in you.
“Now brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.
“But whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes” (MT 10:5-23).
Jesus even says, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a person’s enemies will be the members of his household” (MT 10:34-36).
What on earth is going on?! All this hatred, and yet when we think of Jesus we imagine a kindly and loving Man teaching radical forgiveness and perfect love. Whether the version of Jesus in your mind is pale church-Jesus with blue eyes and light-brown hair to His shoulders, or is the sweet young Mediterranean-looking Man that Jesus prefers to present to His astral visitors today, this notion that Jesus was hated when He was teaching on earth is hard to imagine. But when you read the Bible through, you are unceremoniously dumped from the archaic Old Testament Book of Malachi directly into the Gospel of Matthew, and you are suddenly in the presence of a modern young Man teaching primitives. Unless you are blind and deaf, you really cannot help seeing their cultural friction. Jesus is the Son of God! His coming was foretold as the Son of Man (see e.g. Ezekiel 33), and Jesus Himself claimed that designation. The cultural shock is at least as extreme as it would be if a Man from the far future were to land abruptly in Times Square today. The people around Jesus were living in the Iron Age, many of them illiterate, deeply clannish, and highly superstitious. They were heavily oppressed by Roman rule, by their own ruler Herod, and by the rule of their clergy. And in addition, there are some peculiarities about Jesus’s life on earth and about the life of His mother that my favorite blogger, Keith Giles, may just have nicely explained for us. Mother Mary and Jesus may in fact have been slaves.
Slavery was common in Biblical times. And as Keith’s source explains, the Greek word that Mary uses to identify herself to the Archangel Gabriel in the Gospel of Luke is the word for “slave.” As I first read Keith’s recent post on this topic and the Daily Beast article on which he draws, I realized that the point he was making explains a number of things about Jesus’s life on earth that have never before made sense to me, including this odd question about why Jesus was so much hated by some for preaching with authority, especially near the start of His ministry. As the son of a slave mother, Jesus would have been born a slave Himself; but a law passed when He was a child would have freed Him at the age of thirty… which would neatly explain why He delayed beginning His public ministry until He reached the age of thirty. Omigod. And as an observant Jew, Jesus should have been married in His teens, but oddly that seems not to have happened. As perhaps it would not have happened if He was a slave when He was a teenager. And this also might explain why, when there was no room for them in the Inn, a stable was thought to be sufficient shelter for a slave-mother who was about to give birth.
And Joseph may have chosen not to marry a slave, even despite the Archangel Gabriel’s amazing announcement of the divinity of Mary’s coming child. And although Joseph may have had other children by Mary, he later may have instead married a free woman. Marriage for women in that time and place was an institution not much different from slavery, in any event. And if Mary was indeed a slave, that also might explain why Jesus from the cross asked His Apostle, John, to look after His mother (see JN 19:27), assuming that He could not be certain that his father would dependably care for His mother after His own death. As indeed Joseph did not, according to a close reading of the Gospel of Luke.
But Joseph did give Jesus a good education, to prepare his enslaved but still beloved oldest son for His legal emancipation as an adult. And meanwhile, Jesus’s status as a bondsman in His youth would adequately explain what are called the “lost years” of His twenties, when He would have been an enslaved carpenter. And I do know Jesus now! If the Jesus that I know and adore was planning to be born into a lifetime to be lived in a place where a significant percentage of the population was enslaved, then He would have wanted to be born enslaved Himself. Of that, I have not the slightest doubt. When I asked my Thomas if all of this was true, his answer was, “Do you really have to ask?”
So I take this new evidence as probably true. It makes a puzzle-piece that fits the whole puzzle of Jesus’s earth-life so neatly! And the complexity that this new information adds to our study of the teachings of Jesus is of crucial importance. It adds a layer of deeper debasement to Jesus’s lived status, especially in His home community. And it is no wonder now that the clergy and everyone else of higher rank hated Jesus for speaking out as boldly and as radically as He did. It wasn’t just that Jesus regularly dined and socialized with the dregs of society, but many people knew Jesus to have been born into the dregs Himself. Who was He to be speaking so far above His social status? Even now, Jesus is almost unbelievably charismatic. And Thomas tells me that He always has been this way. So as soon as He was emancipated at the age of thirty, Jesus then began to teach. And almost right away He was drawing crowds that soon, incredibly, numbered in the thousands.
“And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through all the surrounding region. And He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all. And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read. And the scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to Him. And He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.’
And He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all the people in the synagogue were intently directed at Him. Now He began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ And all the people were speaking well of Him, and admiring the gracious words which were coming from His lips; and yet they were saying, ‘Is this not Joseph’s son? ‘And He said to them, ‘No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me: “Physician, heal yourself! All the miracles that we heard were done in Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.”’ But He said, ‘Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown. But I say to you in truth, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months, when a severe famine came over all the land; and yet Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many with leprosy in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.’ And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and brought Him to the crest of the hill on which their city had been built, so that they could throw Him down from the cliff. But He passed through their midst and went on His way” (LK 4:14-30).
The last part of that passage never made sense to me before. But it makes absolute sense to me now! This was just Joseph’s son, the local carpenter’s boy, who was a slave until barely a season ago, now claiming to be the fulfillment of prophesy? No wonder they wanted to throw Him off a cliff and be done with Him! Jesus soon learned to speak perhaps a bit more circumspectly. But our knowing this additional aspect of His personal history does explain so much!
And knowing Jesus’s countrymen’s disdain for Him adds even more power to the scene where John the Baptist recognizes Jesus as God’s own Son. And John says, “I have the need to be baptized by You, and yet You are coming to me?” But Jesus, answering, says to him, “Allow it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John allowed Him. After Jesus was baptized, He came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and settling on Him, and behold, a voice from the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (MT 3:14-17).
Oh my, yes! If anyone around Him was going to be a slave, then the Jesus that I know and adore would have chosen to be born a slave as well. When He says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (MT 5:3) and “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (MT 5:5), Jesus well knows whereof He speaks, because He knows personally what it is to have been a slave-boy, once so belittled and so despised as to have felt Himself to be invisible.
It is only late in my life that I am coming to see that I have had one great advantage in this lifetime. I have known since I was eight years old that of course there certainly is a God. If you, on this beautiful morning, still have the slightest doubt of that fact, please let me give you a decided skeptic’s personal assurance of at least this much. Oh yes, my treasured friend, there is a God indeed! Like Moses with his burning bush, I first encountered God when I was eight, which has let me spend the rest of my life happily figuring out all these details. But what I did not know until much later was that religion was going to turn out to be perhaps God’s enemy, and not God’s friend….
Jesus calls us: by your mercies,
Saviour, may we hear your call,
give our hearts in glad obedience,
serve and love you best of all.
– Cecil Francis Alexander (1818-1895), from “Jesus Calls Us, O’er the Tumult” (1852)
Hi Roberta,
Thanks again for another wonderful and eye-opening post.
To be able to love someone who treats you as a slave is a true testament to Jesus. Something I will be striving for and maybe after 100 more earth life’s I will get there.
Reading many of your posts it seems like we are two different beings.
Our true self and the humans we become when we come to this existence. I wonder how much control our souls have over these lives?
Sometimes I wonder if my soul is being held hostage and crying for help. haha
Well, we’ve hit a new record, my dear ones! This is the first time I have ever signed in first thing on a Sunday morning and found ten comments already posted! Thank you!
My dear Thomas, the more I am close to Jesus and the more I work with His teachings, the easier I find it to think more like Jesus. And I do find that to be kind of amazing! There is a sense of stepping back out of oneself and expanding perhaps, thinking more from the perspective of the other person, and ultimately then from God’s perspective. Jesus is out bridge!
Thanks Roberta,
I am focusing on the way I think. Hypnotizing myself in a way to think more about loving everyone no matter what. Your posts are a huge help. Makes me understand Jesus in a way that Catholicism never could (which is why I was never able able to stay with it).
We ARE of course different beings in different lifetimes.
In our spirit form we are not trammeled or constrained by what we experience in this physical world. We chose to incarnate to experience, learn about and appreciate the differences between life incarnate and life discarnate. It’s said that helps to enhance our spiritual progression.
How many lives we may choose or need is moot. More than one seems a given although not everyone agrees. Maybe lots but how many is a lot anyway? 5, 10, 50, 1000? Thus far even spirit teachers have been unable to give clear guidance over how many. Perhaps it’s like asking how long a piece of string is?
Your soul, however, is not held hostage by anyone or anything outside of yourself. Your already-perfect spirit has no need to cry for help even if your incarnate self has. 😉
Thanks Mac, maybe the crying is my spirit guide wondering what they got themselves into. 🙂
😉 🙂
I think all of our spirit guides have those moments, and more often than once!!
My dear Mac, thank you! Of course, as you know, each of us is on our own journey, and so individualized that is is difficult for us even to generalize very much. But it is good for everyone to learn what they can from those who have more knowledge and experience!
This news that Jesus was probably born a slave should have come as a bombshell to me, and yet it did not, because I am already so used to so many amazing and “unorthodox” new insights provided by the different channels like yourself which I study with an unending eagerness.
There is a new exhibit in Spain where someone has made a “hyperrealistic” 3D model of the mystery man behind the shroud of Turin; they leave it up to the visitors to decide whether it was Jesus or not.
https://themysteryman.com/en/the-mystery-man/
Blessings,
Adrian
Thank you for this, my dear Adrian! I think it’s interesting that they depict their “mystery man” as a western European, which of course Jesus emphatically was not when He was crucified. I am so used to His Mediterranean look now that this version rather shocked me!
This is what I think I have reasoned by my 84th year. All that exists is God. God takes from what God is to create what appears as the realm of consciousness illuminated by light to be Heaven, and populated by angels, people, animals, plants, and what may be termed rocks and water; existance for all in Heaven is pure bliss, but with such perfect bliss, none there woulkd even know it is blissful for lack of any contrasts, such as iullnesses and death; by lacking any stressors in Heaven, the spiritual level of the inhabitants is frozen well below the magnificance of what is God.
Thus, after Heaven was created and populated, God seeing the opportunities possible for spiritual development in a harsh material world, He then created such as a means for spiritual development; the very design of the material world creates stresses that provide the opportunities for spiritual growth that are absent from the design of Heaven.
Jesus, likewise created by God from Himself, acquired a spiritual level far above the ordinary spirit– I know not how. When Christ came to live in the material world to help us develop as loving beings here, despite the harshness of life from physical needs and injuries, and ill imagined religious and socio-political needs, he came without the memory block for our Heavenly home, and so was able to tell us that there is such a realm we come from and will return to, but our time here ought focus on goodness, not temporary material and religous, sociopolitical motivations.
For us to come here from Heaven with certainty of its existence, because we had no memory block, would render our material life here as a temporary situation to be gamed, instead of providing the opportunities for spiritual growth by striving to be good and loving in the face of hardships and death.
A good material life has as its purpose achieving a loving spirit for all of God’s creation even in the face of hardship, injustice, and death. It is most likely that we have many lives in the material world to enable spiritual growth.
Dear Jack,
Thank you for your insightful sharing; some very good deep thoughts to consider.
All quite wonderfully said, my dear beautiful Jack!!
Heartfelt thanks, Jack. I needed this!
Dear Dr Jack,
Thanks for outlining you knowledge and sharing it with all of us here. This spiritual perspective really does need to be shared. And you do it so well my friend.
I see things in a similar way. It’s that proverbial fish isn’t it? The fish is oblivious to water because it swims and breathes in it. It only knows water and who knows? perhaps fishy doesn’t even realize it is there at all. Hence the last creature to discover water is this sorry, old, soggy fish.
It is the birds and animals in drought who really understand water – by the scarcity and absence of it during the ‘big dry’ and then by it’s fullness and generosity when the rains return. The fauna really know what water is, in the core of their being. And that’s what it is like on earth I guess; we live with extremes and actually living through something teaches us to really know it.
As you say Jack, earth life is abounding in stressors. I tend to look at the shining, archetypal principles like; love, truth, kindness, bravery, freedom, nourishment and honesty et al as being ‘under Pressure’ here on earth. That’s how we really manifest them by standing firm in our core values, though at times our core truths may be assailed on every side.
Why the USA was birthed by brave men, women and youths who manifested freedom, no matter the lethal power of the empire leveled against them. Who knows freedom better than those who lived and died for it; those who spent themselves completely in the fight for it.
I would wager that your founding generations cherished freedom and knew its worth far better than some people in our modern, free societies who don’t believe in anything while becoming adult, spoilt brats. Some individuals rudely insult and aggress anyone who simply has a different opinion to themselves. They seem quite oblivious to the fact that, were they living in a totalitarian state, they would be ‘vanished’ by authorities and never seen or heard again. I guess taking something vitally important for granted is not to know it.
Certainly I don’t think I appreciate freedom nearly as much as those who had to fight for it, to free their country from oppression. As I’ve grown up in a free, democratic and peaceful society, how could I really understand it’s worth? Contrastingly, I’ve met immigrants from communist and other dictatorships who fall on their knees and kiss the red earth of Australia, filled with emotion and gratitude. (Yes Jack, I’ve actually seen this happen!)
It’s this dang ‘separation’ thing. The Divine created separation here on earth, so we must find Divine Union again, over the course of myriad lives.
For some reason…
Literally, we have Jesus to lead us through the door into the Shining place. Ever wondered what our evolutionary track would have been like if He didn’t come to be with us?
🕊🙏🏼🌅
Efrem, Thank you for your insights.
American society is now rapidly degenerating, and what you observed here well explains why:
” I would wager that your founding generations cherished freedom and knew its worth far better than some people in our modern, free societies who don’t believe in anything while becoming adult, spoilt brats. ”
Our Democrat Party is inviting a flood of immigrants, because they believe that such people who come here and are forced initially to survive on welfare will be beholden to the Democrat Party, and when they and their children get to voting they will be staunch Democrat loyalists. To the contrary, as you state,
” Contrastingly, I’ve met immigrants from communist and other dictatorships who fall on their knees and kiss the red earth of Australia, filled with emotion and gratitude.” The current Democrat Administration while encouraging immigration without prior authoriation specifically inhibited Cuban immigration precisely because the know better than to support authoritarian
socialism; immigrants now from Venezuela will likewise know better. Many of the immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America are Christians who value the family as core to living, and would be aghast at the transexual woke agenda of the Democrat Party used to gain votes.
Christ brought us the hope that this life is not our only existence, but there is Heaven available for the good who take care of each
other with kindness and love as more important than selfishly acquiring monetary forms of wealth. Unfortunately, as Roberta has explained, Christ’s messages of love and hope have been coopted by religions for gaining their own monetary wealth. Roberta’s distillations of what Christ Himself actually preached is what’s most valuable as a guide for living than what the official regions promote.
Oh well said, my dear Jack. And here in Texas, which is full of Hispanic immigrants, we are seeing the same thing that they experienced in Australia: people fleeing oppression are glad to make a new beginning in a free place, and don’t vote for oppression here. Fortunately!
Much to think about in your response Jack. 👍
You are right when you say above: “ Roberta’s distillations of what Christ Himself actually preached is what is most valuable as a guide for living, than what the official religions promote.”
I can see and feel the difference! 👌🏼🙏🏼🌅
Also: Both left and right Australian governments pick and choose immigrants who come to the country quite carefully. The applicants are vetted quite closely before being accepted.
However, we are lucky to be surrounded by sea. There are no mass crossings of unvetted people overland. In addition, there are no boats allowed to just arrive on our coasts unsolicited. This strictly enforced law stops notorious people smugglers from plying their scurrilous, human trade of selling spots on dangerous, sub-par, over- filled vessels.
Thankfully though, Australia does have a strong refugee quotient in our yearly immigration policy.
Oh no, my precious Efrem, I cannot imagine a reality if there had been no Jesus. That is something that I cannot see. He is our lodestar, our ballast and the wind beneath our wings. Without Him there is nothing!
Beautifully said Roberta:
“He is our lodestar, our ballast and the wind beneath our wings.”
That is quite lovely; quite poetic my dear. 😉
Actually, I cannot see a world where there is (or had been) no Jesus. After I posed the question I could see only blackness. Just a dull dark, as if such a world would not be able to exist. Maybe there is something in that .. ❣️🌅🌿
Dear Roberta,
As Adrian shares, I also find myself not surprised nor challenged in any way by this. And the way you have woven scripture with the article and reminded us about the actual world Jesus was born into-“the iron age”, is so important. I sent the link to my sister and said “yet again, another layer of “white wash” wiped away.” I truly believe that.
I also find it ironic that today, the lesson (15th) in ACIM is
“My thoughts are images I have made”, and the ensuing teaching by Jesus is to understand what we’ve been using our eyes for, compared to True Seeing/Sight.
That, to me, at this point in my journey, tells me “True Seeing” is more than just physical eye sight-it’s feeling the Truth. I feel the Truth in your article.
As a former Catholic, I of course learned about Mary. And while I put aside my rosary and have put all my focus and attention on Jesus and Holy Spirit, I still could not let go of the painting from my parents (from paternal grandparents’) house. This puts Mary into a new light of truth for me, and even more so, unravels a history of women that’s also always been swept under the rug.
And it’s not pretty.
Yet, there is a peacefulness in all this for me. I am grateful. Thank you for sharing this. Fran
Oh my sweet Fran, I feel as you do, that it is far better to know what is true than it is to make up our own illusory notions and believe in them! And Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (JN 8:31-32).
A wise Man indeed is our beautiful friend, Jesus!
Hi Jack,
That makes a lot of sense as usual.
A question keeps popping up… Why then would Jesus come to teach us about our true reality if we purposely come here with no memories?
As I get older, I’m seeing many people around my age looking towards more spiritual explanations.
So maybe, for most of us, that is our natural evolution.
Starting out indulging in everything this physical world has to offer to slowly moving towards a more spiritual existence. I think many is finding the physical world just doesn’t bring us the peace/happiness we had thought it would.
Sorry for the random thoughts, my brain is trying to work everything out and it helps to write these ideas down. We have a great group of people here and the feedback is just awesome.
Dear Thomas, You posed the pivital question. It seems that there is a balancing required of our belief system best maintained between ignorance naturally leading to despair from life’s insults, injuries, and loss of loved ones from death — and the certainty of knowledge that we have from memory of coming from Heaven and will return when our material body dies. Not knowing may too often lead to despair and mean regard of others and life, whereas certainty may lead to contempt of life or game playing with no benefit from mortal life.
Oh my dear Thomas, I feel as you do, that our commenters here are perfectly wonderful and very supportive of one another!
And my dear, the reason why we don’t come here with memories is that if we remembered much about our true home, we likely wouldn’t try very hard while we are here. Why bother? Nothing here is REALLY do-or-die, is it? No need to knock it out of the park! But with your memory wiped, you aren’t certain of anything and you will fight even to keep this material body alive. You will learn a lot more, make much more of this lifetime, and it all simply works a lot better.
Hi Thomas,
My sentiments exactly! I agree that it seems we naturally move to a flow of more spiritual explanations (I imagine us as little boats on a stream that now turn and go down a new path). Yet, have you also seen that this turning is growing to a greater group-not just elders, but younger generations as well? It’s as if there is an awakening across all peoples, who are seeing a meaningless to our world and somehow having a “knowing” that God does not create a meaningless world, and so we seek.
I’m not trying to do brainwork on this, I find. Today, I am allowing it to be, to assimilate it, and just be. I usually try to research and “find things out”; but not today. There is no huge bell ringing for me, it’s more a quiet acceptance and knowing there is more to come. Peace be with you. Fran
Hi Fran,
I haven’t noticed what the younger crowd has been doing besides a lot of TikTok dances. 🙂
I think I read the biggest career choice for young people are social media influencers. Hopefully that isn’t true, but who knows.
I was raised Catholic but it never really sat well with me. The rules changed enough to make me wonder who was making the rules. My grandmother suggested Protestants but I figured it was just a different set of rules and that didn’t make sense. Who again was making the rules to follow?
I’m getting to the point where I just enjoy our goofiness.
Have a great day!
Hello, Roberta and Friends,
Thank you for your words. I feel very peaceful this morning knowing all the chaos, violence, and war that is out there. God, give me thankfulness, love, forgiveness, and kindness here in my reality at this moment in my living room. Please, God and Jesus, bless all the world with the same in their personal realities.
Sincerely, David D.
A peaceful morning sounds pretty darn good, David.
Feeling at peace has been something I’ve been trying to attain for some time. I am slowly inching my way towards it with the help of everyone here.
Enjoy it!
“A question keeps popping up… Why then would Jesus come to teach us about our true reality if we purposely come here with no memories? ” Jesus was just one such teacher. Like his predecessors he tried to help those burdened by fear of the (consciously) unknown and to give guidance about the fundamentals.
Maybe the intention for humankind was never that the mechanism hiding what our spirit knows to be true should work as effectively as it does. (for many/most)
Dear Mac, I tried an answer above to Thomas.
dear Jack – I expect he’ll (have) read it.
Thanks Jack and Mac,
I suspect you’re both correct on why we need some intervention.
I guess it is up to us to change the tides as they say. Hopefully we can make it a little less negative.
I see so many people trying to deal with the negativity in unhealthy ways. The lucky ones can change their trajectory while many are stuck in the endless cycle.
Luckily this is temporary and that alone helps me cope with seeing so many people going through such hard times.
Oh my dear Thomas, I empathize with you! I get so many emails daily from so many good and kindly people who feel somehow lost, vaguely sad, more or less lonely, not sure what they are missing but sure that they are missing something. I have just come from trying to answer yet another dear person. I am not sure what I can say in two minutes that might make any kind of difference!
It occurs to me now that it would be useful to our discussion here to recognize that there is a major complication for applying our expectation that our mortal life has as its purposes development of our spiritual character, and support of all other living entities in their lives in the harsh environment of Earth.
It is not only our needs for physical well being that stress the mortal life, but our body’s desires as well. The body of all mortal animals is designed to be able to survive and procreate. The eminent psychiatrist Freud defined three primary psychoanalytic functionalities for motivating behavior, although they have now fallen into disuse by psychiatrists:
1. The ID motivating instinctive behaviors, such as satisfying hunger drives, reaction to immediate threat of dangers or death, and pleasure;
2. The Super Ego pursuing moral ideals, such as self-sacrifice and honesty; and
3. The Ego for resolving conflicts between the ID and reality, and also for accommodating Super Ego motivation.
Whereas the ID and Ego have been mapped to identified areas of the brain, no Super Ego brain locality has been identified. The analysis proposed here includes a solution for the missing Super Ego by reifying the Freudian Super Ego to be equivalent to the soul. Freud had relegated the Super Ego to a material brain process, along with the Id and Ego, to be a proper hard scientist. However, the Super Ego function rests in the soul that attaches to the body.
Thus, it is not merely the harshness of our physical envirnment that induces selfish needs, but the body’s inherent design for survival, procreation, and pleasure seeking, While our soul’s memory of our eternal existence in Heaven is blocked, God sends us here with an active conscience to guide our life– but our body and soul are often in conflict.
We know right from wrong, but our body seeks satisfaction regardless of any conflicts. Unfortunately, modern psychological practices emphasis drugs to alleviate conflicts between body and soul that produce stress and anxiety. Much more effective counseling would explain the underlying source for conflict instead of attempting arbitrary sedation ( see Hiller, J. (2021), Evidence of the Body Possessing a Form of Consciousness Beyond Its Soul. Scientific GOD Journal, 12(3): 213-217).
Thanks for that great post, Jack.
It’s pretty remarkable when looking at our genetic survival instincts.
I was reading “Impossible to Ignore” and it talked about long term memory and how our brain decides what is worthy to remember and what isn’t.
The long term memories tend to be ones that help us predict future events. Which helps us survive. Amazing how everything works without us really aware of it happening.
Definitely makes you wonder who is in control.
I’ve come to the conclusion I need to reprogram myself consciously to overcome many of those instincts.
Bingo, ” I’ve come to the conclusion I need to reprogram myself consciously to overcome many of those instincts. ” This is exactly what counselors need to be explaining, not sedating them with drugs while they carry on with selfish human causing conflict that eats the soul.
By the way, this now a recognized treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorders, and it works to reprogram the brain ( see You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life
by Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Rebecca Gladding MD).
Thank you for that, dear Jack! I love the way they phrase that. No, you are not your brain, indeed!
My dear Thomas, I can recall reading somewhere that fewer than ten percent of the things that we do are actually the product of conscious thought. Which kind of freaked me out!
Dear Roberta. It actually comforts me to find that many unkind and inconsiderate actions may just be thoughtlessness. I occasionally call it sleep walking.
The revelation about the possibility of Jesus having been a slave shows the importance of having some historical context. It does make sense that he would‘ve chosen a life beginning from such lowly means.
Now to being helpful in two minutes. Every word you say that helps someone overcome their fear of death is of great service.
Thank you my sweet friend Ray! As you have come to know Jesus, dear friend, you know that whatever the pail might have been, He would have wanted to be born at the bottom of it, don’t you?
Fascinating, my dear Jack! And the whole scientific thing is so odd, isn’t it? And so very self-defeating for the scientific types, when really so very little happens in the mappable physical brain, and yet they do keep trying. It is amazing to watch them keep on trying. And I do so very much admire your endless patience in all your efforts to keep engaging with them!
WOW, Roberta!!!!
That would explain what some people call the lost years of Jesus!!!! OMG, if I am reading correctly what you have written!!! It blows me away that Jesus might have been a slave!!!!
I learn many things from your post!!! Even the bible for which I could not understand and you explain it so clear!!!!!
I wish many could read your post and open their eyes to what you are explaining!!
I will have to re read this blog again!!!!
Litsa
Ah yes, my dear Litsa. This new information does rather turn a number of things upside down, doesn’t it? Of course, He would not have been a field hand. He was a carpenter, an artisan, and He was a scholar; but He was a bondsman until the age of 30, and my Thomas has confirmed what the evidence suggests. We will be putting this evidence on teachingsbyjesus.com just as new evidence, and letting people make up their own minds.
Oh boy all this wonderful replies pn this blog is AMAZING…I will re read your blog again and the replies from Jack and many others that responded! I LOVE THIS and I am excited to witness the Truth!
Ah yes, my dear Litsa, it is quite beautiful, is it not? So many sweet friends, and so much love and openness and sharing. This was Christianity for its first three hundred years. No oppression, and no condemnation. No dogmas! Just the open-hearted unity and truth of Jesus, our Wayshower to unite us. And that was quite enough.