Soul School “lessons” are released each Wednesday (aka “Hump Day” aka Midweek).
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Today is the continuation in a series on ancient wisdom and further reading and reflection on Ecclesiastes. Be sure to listen to all of it and begin with Lesson 50 to listen the whole way through to get the full understanding and depth intended this series.
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Soul School “lessons” are released each Wednesday (aka “Hump Day” aka Midweek).
• On FRIDAYS I feature guests and on a variety of topics!
Have you ever had a “pang of awesome” in your chest when you did a good thing? That’s the feeling you get when you help here.
HOW FUNDING WORKS: Spark My Muse takes me 25-30 hours per week and costs money out-of-pocket each month to create, produce, and host online. Listeners, like you, give in support to defray the cost so the show can stay alive and well.Thank you for giving today.
Today is the second in a short series (and the 1st for Ecclesiastes) that explores ancient wisdom text concerning finding the meaning of life and gaining understanding about some of the the most common and nagging questions the plague humans across the ages.
Episodes are released each Wednesday (aka “Hump Day” aka Midweek).
Have you ever had a “pang of awesome” in your chest when you did a good thing? That’s the feeling you get when you help here.
HOW FUNDING WORKS: Spark My Muse takes me 25-30 hours per week and costs money out-of-pocket each month to create, produce, and host online. Listeners, like you, give in support to defray the cost so the show can stay alive and well.Thank you for giving today.
For the ancients, the heart was not the seat of emotions (like we tend to see it now).
The heart was seen like we might see the mind today. Or a combination of the mind, heart, and will–the core of a person. For the ancients, the emotions resided in the bowels.
The language of the wisdom literature and choosing the right path.
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Genesis and Science speak two different languages.
Medieval Jewish readings of the Genesis story Adam reflects and parallel the story of Israel and paradise land.
Adam as a symbol, theme, or pattern. Be aware of literary structure.
Bible written as thoughtful theology not history (or science). Written as the story of Israel that show their ideology. (and identity)
MIN 13
[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]Literalism is a modernist reading strategy [of the Bible].[/ictt-tweet-inline]
(To share this nifty quote above on TWITTER, it takes 4 seconds. Just click the blue bird icon. And keep your eyeballs open for other easy-to-tweet quotes throughout these show notes.)
Different books of the people (in different eras) adjust and revise other parts of scripture.
[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]I find that the most conservative way of reading the Bible is the most unbiblical.[/ictt-tweet-inline]
MIN 15
Pete, what do you mean by “GOD”? (and how he encounters that in his newest book.)
Using the word “God” is almost lazy.
MIN 19:30
[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]There is no one portrayal of God in the Bible.[/ictt-tweet-inline]
It changes depending on the culture, theology, time, circumstances, and author or authors writing the book. The New Testament comes from the Old Testament trajectory.
MIN 22:00
[In Paul’s letters] Paul [is] trying to make sense of Jesus when it’s a radical departure from Jewish thought.
[The bible is] [T]he development of how humans think about God. The tribal God is warlike [is one example].
[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]The “biblical God” is the God we see through our own lens.[/ictt-tweet-inline]
MIN 25:00
God in our image.
[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]“It’s not just that we use psychology, we ARE psychology.”[/ictt-tweet-inline]
[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]“All theology is psychology and sociology, [because] we are people who live in communities and people with histories.”[/ictt-tweet-inline]
[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]“God allows [God’s] children to tell [God’s] story from where they are from their perspective.”[/ictt-tweet-inline]
Hold with an open fist.
MIN 28:30
The mystery of the Incarnation and how we see the world.
[ictt-tweet-inline via=””]“Jesus is the model and Savior and messy and a 1st century Jewish man.”[/ictt-tweet-inline]
What’s the divine part of Christology?
MIN 32:00
How has Pete’s personal concepts of God have evolved?
My experience of God is not irrelevant and not relegated to just the academic and the life of the modernist mind.
(Eastern) Orthodox “God as Being” (rather than a Being)
When you think of God what do you think of?
God is in you and without God there is nothing. And God is all around you. (New ideas for Pete).
(Dura Europos – Fresco from 2nd C Synagogue Jews cross the Red Sea pursued by Pharaoh.)
The Jewish people have a big event, a central story, that encapsulates what the Jewish (and Judeo-Christian) faith is about:
Crossing a sea: Crossing from slavery to LIBERATION
“Let my people go!”
This is the cry of (the Jewish) God, the Living God, through Moses; and it’s really the cry of freedom in every human heart.
So what do we want to be liberated from?
Oppression.
Yes, of course.
…and oppression takes many forms.
But, we tend to also want liberation from authority…and that’s not what God has in mind. That misses the mark and produces precarious results.
In fact, the best liberation we can have is one that happens internally.
Our heart is liberated from sin and death and then we receive peace and life.
This is no marginal quality of our faith tradition. Liberation is found not in fleeing something (or someone) but in returning.
A homecoming. A reception by the Father for the children he loves.
Liberation must always be about fleeing to someone (the One).
…and that someone isn’t just another warden in a different prison, but One who wants our peace to be fully realized.
It’s about community identity and belonging.
Each brings freedom and saves us from ourselves.
Sometimes we suppose liberation means freedom to act autonomously and unilaterally for our own interests. True liberation is the antithesis of that.
When I consider, in this very moment, what I hope to be liberated from in my own life, it seems to concern being free from believing lies. Lies about myself, others, and any sorts of ignoble things that imprison my future in a jailhouse of smallness.
A confined place that is missing the grandeur of what it means to be a sentient being enjoying the majesty of creation that a benevolent incomprehendable Being has fashioned.
