Spiritual Leadership ~ Unit 2 It’s all about Love Part 1 ~ Essay ~ Lesson 9

Lesson 9 ~ Spiritual Leadership ~ Unit 2 It's all about Love Part 1 ~ Essay

By:  Rev. Trent Murman

 

Do you truly know that our Creator prays for us? I don't believe anyone truly knows if  God, Almighty and creator of heaven and earth prays for us.  However, I am a great believer that He wouldn't have created us or the heavens to let us fade away into nothing.  I believe he embraces every one of us not only in our hour of need, but in his own way showing Love with the birth of a child.  This is His way of reminding us he does care for us and prays for us that we will continue on with His work.  Remembering, we the clergy shouldn't judge or otherwise make people believe or change their specific feelings or beliefs to ours.  I think it is possible that He prays for us to continue with the strength we gather through the experiences we tackle in our everyday life and dealings with others.    Do you pray for your Creator? Do I pray for our creator, no not as one might expect a prayer to be.  I believe most people that "talk to God" are asking Him for something.  Either guidance, help or some type of a sign to get them through a difficult time in their lives.  I believe most clergy pray to Him for people they are ministering to and do ask Him for help, but as to specifically pray for Him, I truly don't feel we do this. What would that look like:  What do I think He looks like?  I personally imagine God to be this colossal being with his arms spread wide in a circle fashion like He is enveloping the whole universe as He is looking down on His creations in the most caring way any father could look at his children.  Then again, who is to say God is not a female all caring and just as concerned with Her creations.  Just my opinion.   

Go In Peace

Lesson 8 ~ Christian Ethics ~ Ethical Perspectives of the Early Church Part 2 ~ Essay

Lesson 8 ~ Christian Ethics ~ Ethical Perspectives of the Early Church Part 2 ~ Essay

By:  Rev. Trent Murman

 

LESSONS VII & VIII Homework

Please state the three (3) closely interrelated issues looked at in lessons 7 and 8.  1. The law and the gospel.  2. The Kingdom and the Christian community.  3.  The gospel and social institutions.

 

The problem of the relations of the law and the gospel is essentially that of two kinds of authority. Please name them.  Code morality or externally given or authoritarian morality versus the loving, faith-filled response of the Christian to the grace of God in Christ.

 

Related to these two kinds of authority are two major issues. Please name them.  The relation of Christianity to the moral obligations resting upon Israel, and the more difficult and important problem of the relation of the gospel of salvation through Christ to the law of love.

Generally speaking, when did Jesus feel that it was ok to disregard ceremonial Jewish law?  . The moral law of Israel, as obedience to the will of the God who required of men justice, mercy, and faith, Jesus never set aside, though by his acts and his words he put deeper and wider content into these terms than any before him had done. The ceremonial law, as a good Jew, he apparently retained except where it conflicted with service to human need, and this was often. Then he did not hesitate to disregard it.

Please briefly explain "philia" love.  Philia means close friendship or brotherly love in Greek. It is one of the four types of love in the Bible.

 

Please briefly explain "eros" love.  Eros is the physical, sensual love between a husband and wife.

 

Which of the three (3) "loves" mentioned in these lessons, is a divine command in the Bible?  Agape is unmotivated love is a divine demand

As stated in Lesson 7, only one law is either adequate or mandatory? Please briefly state it.  'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Gal. 5:14).

Please briefly state three (3) reasons why it is important to relate the gospel to the "orders" of earthly society.   The first point to note is that the gospel never works in a vacuum, and because of the surrounding environment with its traditionalism, emotional ties, and social pressures, neither an individual nor a group is ever completely transformed.  The second observation is that the slowness of men to respond to Christ is no excuse for lethargy, or vacillation, or inactivity on our part.  The third is the commonplace but essential observation that there can be no legitimate cleavage between an individual and a social gospel. 

Please briefly state three (3) points/observations that we can deduce in which both conservatism and revolutionary challenge can be seen being sanctioned by the gospel.  In the first place, we who are Christians today, like those of the early Church, must live in two worlds at once. These worlds, traditionally referred to as the "order of creation" and the "order of redemption," converge at the point of trying to be a Christian within the daily demands of the family, the job, the community around us, and the larger community of the state and the world of nations.  A second reason for looking at the fruits of the gospel in New Testament society has both a positive and a negative side.  The more obvious answer is, of course, that life in Eastern Mediterranean occupied territory, in a simple, leisurely, prescientific age, among a small minority having no political power, was very different from the conditions of today.  A third factor, both as asset and liability, stems from the preceding. There is much that is of permanent validity, not only in the words of Jesus but in the rest of the New Testament, as to how a Christian should act in relation to other men.

Go In Peace

 

Christian Ethics ~ Lesson 6 The Ethics of Jesus ~ Part1&2 Essay

Lesson 6 ~ Christian Ethics ~ The Ethics of Jesus Part 2 ~ Essay

By:  Rev. Trent Murman

 

LESSONS V & VI

Test 3

                           I.          For whom, did Jesus come as a gift for?  All mankind from God.

                          II.          State five (5) things that Jesus taught. a) Jesus taught an ethic completely integrated with his religion.  b) Jesus laid primary stress on ethical and spiritual inwardness. c) Jesus set forth a clear pattern of the demands of the God-centered life. d) Jesus had a realistic knowledge both of human sin and of the possibilities of the redeemed life. e) Jesus declared the supreme worth of every person to God.

                         III.          Regarding ceremonial acts or correct outward behavior for humble obedience to God and loving one's neighbor, what was Jesus completely opposed to?  Jesus was completely opposed to the substitution of either ceremonial acts or correct outward behavior for humble obedience to God and loving concern for one's neighbor.

                        IV.          Did Jesus condemn ceremonial tithing or making clean the "outside of the cup" as illustrated in Matthew 23:23, 25-26?  Note that he does not condemn ceremonial tithing or making clean the "outside of the cup"; what he condemns is the substitution of these for something more basic. In gentler tones this is also the burden of the Sermon on the Mount where, without any abrogating of the Ten Commandments, the emphasis is shifted away from legalism to those inner attitudes that determine the nature of a man, and hence his acts.

                         V.          What are the two (2) primary qualities found in the Beatitudes?  To put it simply….they guide and they point.

                        VI.          In the Synoptic Gospels, did Jesus, like Paul, look upon sin as an enveloping state of evil resulting from Adam's fall and corrupting man's whole being? They saw sin within a spiritual domain rather than a biological one. 

                      VII.          What are the four (4) requirements for sin's conquest? And for sin, repentance, forgiveness, faith, and obedience in love were the answer.

                     VIII.          State three (3) matters most directly related to the practical requirements of the Christian life. 

It is motivated by love.

It is progressive.

It is accordance with God's revealed will.

It is set forth in His divinely inspired Word.

IX        Define "Eschatology." Eschatology is the doctrine of the "last things." The eschaton means the end, and eschatology has to do with what happens at the end of human history and beyond it.

X.        According to Jesus, why did Moses permit divorce?  Yes.

Comparative Religion Lesson 6

Lesson 6 ~ Comparative Religion ~ Essay

By:  Rev. Trent Murman

Find out more about The Jewish Renewal:  The term also refers to an emerging Jewish movement, the Jewish Renewal movement, which describes itself as "a worldwide, transdenominational movement grounded in Judaism's prophetic and mystical traditions."^[3] The Jewish Renewal movement incorporates social views such as feminism, environmentalism and pacifism. About the movement, Jewish Renewal rabbi Rachel Barenblat writes:  Renewal is an attitude, not a denomination; adherents of Renewal come from all of the branches of Judaism. Renewal places emphasis on direct spiritual experience, and values accessibility over insularity...Renewal is a grassroots, transdenominational approach to Judaism which seeks to revitalize Judaism by drawing on the immanence-consciousness of feminism, the joy of Hasidism, the informed do-it-yourself spirit of the havurah movement, and the accumulated wisdom of centuries of tradition.

Research the following:

What was so profound in Buddha's teachings that it could not be recapitulated back into Hinduism? Buddhism as a religion refutes the ideas of eternal self (Atman) and eternity in nature (Brahman); this refutation distinguishes it from Hinduism.  Maya is the belief that everything, which one sees in this world is illusion, a product of the individual's own failed interpretation and self-delusion. It is one of the foundations of the Hindu faith. Hinayana Buddhists also believe in maya. It cannot be said, however, that Buddhist doctrine (as a whole) either supports or denies maya.  The two religions also share the law of karma. Karma is the belief in a "law of consequences." According to this doctrine, the actions, which one performs will redound upon the performer either as blessings for good deeds or curses for evil deeds.  Dharma is loosely translated as "obligation." It is the duty of the individual. To both the Hindu and the Buddhist, dharma is a very real concept.

What sects in Christianity are you familiar with? Were they founded by or around an esotericist?

Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs,^[1] that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest.

Roman Catholic: The Catholic Church is believed to have been founded by Jesus Christ himself, when he when gathered the twelve apostles, and is believed to be the original Christian church.   Yes, Jesus was an esotericist. 

Lutheran:  Martin Luther founded the Lutheran Church, in 1522. Yes Martin Luther was an esotericist.

Baptist:  The "Baptist" church was simply a church within a much larger group of Anabaptist churches (that included the Amish also), not a particular denomination in itself for many years. Historians trace the earliest Baptist church back to 1609 in Amsterdam, with English Separatist John Smyth as its pastor.

Pentecostal:  There is no one founder of the Pentecostal Church.

Protestant:  Really there is no "Protestant religion." It is a broad term often used by 1. Roman Catholics to refer to all other Christians who are not Roman Catholic 2. non-historic, non-denominational Christians who have no other formal title and 3. Non-Roman Catholic, Non-Eastern Orthodox Christians who want to clearly distinguish themselves as non-Roman Catholic.
The Mormon:   In the spring of 1820, a 14-year-old boy named Joseph Smith went into a grove of trees near his home in Palmyra, New York.
Evangelical:  Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement that began in the 17th century and became an organized movement with the emergence around 1730 of the Methodists in England and the Pietists among Lutherans in Germany and Scandinavia. The movement became even more significant in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th centuries, where it drew far more members than in Europe. It continues to draw adherents globally in the 21st century, especially in the developing world.  Evangelicalism de-emphasizes ritual and emphasizes the piety of the individual, believing that God works certain changes in the individual

Lesson 6 ~ Spiritual Leadership ~ Unit 1 Eight Fold Path Part 5 ~ Essay

Lesson 6 ~ Spiritual Leadership ~ Unit 1 Eight Fold Path Part 5 ~ Essay

By:  Rev. Trent Murman

 

I think it is very difficult to appease everyone all of the time.  However, as we grow in both our knowledge and the fundamentals of life as we know it, it becomes somewhat easier/harder to make decisions regarding "fitting in" or our learned "emotions" when it comes to dealing with people that don't necessarily have the same point of view as we do. 

 

I think a good rule of thumb for this is to "pick your battles carefully".  In other words, if you think confrontation is a definite losing battle then it might be advantageous to refrain from disagreement with the other person.  Sometimes it is best to just walk away.  Doing this still keeps your own convictions alive within yourself. 

 

If, however, you feel the other person is forcing his/her opinion on others and it is done in a harmful way to either embarrass or hurt them, then the appropriate avenue to take, in my opinion, is to take them aside and bring this to their attention , they may not be aware they are doing this.  I feel that in the long run they may even be thankful to you, thus changing their outlook on particular matters. 

 

It is very easy to conjure up a plethora of emotions during confrontations.  I feel to remain humble and just listen to others sometimes brings new perspectives to light.  It is always good to just listen, we can all learn new thoughts/ideas.  However, it is not necessary to dismiss your own values and adopt someone elses, unless you feel it is to your best interest to do so.  I don't feel Jesus would have wanted his followers to be radical in nature.  This can be detrimental to your ministry and may even drive some folks away.  Again,  "pick  your battles wisely".  GO IN PEACE