Is there any equivalent of the Shivoham experience in Christianity? A seeker's question to followers of Christianity:

In all the religions that originated from India, there is a concept of oneness with God.

My question is: What is the equivalent of this in other religions, like Christianity?

Explanation:

(1) There is but one God ==> Monotheism

(2) There is but one, God ==> Advaitic religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, etc.)

Please understand the difference in the two.
The first (1) statement, is more like a moral science lesson, which says there is one God, God is one. There should not be a fight between my God and your God, because God is one. There is no your God and my God ... etc.

The second statement means,
There is only God in the universe and we are all part of Him. Oneness with God. It also implies, the entire universe is not separate from God. The entire universe is filled with divine consciousness. We all are one with each other, and one with God. There is no individual identity - what we call EGO. Advaitic philosophy says, that EGO is a illusion, because there is no individual separate existence. It is like God is a big ocean (param aatma / super consciousness), we are drops(aatma/consciousness) in that ocean. And Upanishads go even further to tell us, even if you take out that drop(aatma) from the ocean(param-aatma), even then that drop(aatma) is not separate from the ocean(param-aatma).

In short, we are one with God. This is celebrated as
Shivoham => I am Shiva / God (one with God & universe)
Soham => I am that (whomever you believe as God )
etc.

What is the equivalent OR alternative of this in Christianity?

In the terms you describe, most - if not all - forms of Christianity are Monotheistic in nature.  That said, there are three key concepts (that again most forms of Christianity subscribe to) that are somewhat comparable to 'Shivoham' as you've described it: God's Immanence, the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a believer, the Glorification of believers.

Before describing those three concepts, I will firstly explain why Christianity* should be regarded as Monotheistic (versus Pantheistic) in character because God is transcendant over His creation:

  ...[this] means that God is above, other than, and distinct from all he has made - he transcends it all. - Theopedia.com

This is repeatedly implied in the Bible through descriptions of God as Holy (cf. Isaiah 6:3,Revelation 4:8,Leviticus 20:26) - ie separated, other, above - as well as stated more explicitly in certain passages such as:

  8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
      neither are your ways my ways,”
  declares the Lord.
  9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
      so are my ways higher than your ways
      and my thoughts than your thoughts. - Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV

The concept of the transendence of God in Christianity is antithetical to the concept of Shivoham.

Moving on to briefly outline the three more comparable concepts:

Firstly, The doctrine of the Immanence of God means:

  ..."to be within" or "near" in relation to God's creation. Immanence is closely related to God's omnipresence, in that God is always present within the universe, though distinct from it. God is 'within' the universe in that God is its sustaining cause. - Theopedia.com

This teaching empasizes the closeness of God to his creation and can be seen in passages such as:

  27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ - Acts 17:27-28 NIV (emphasis added)

While this doctrine does not go to the extant of Shivoham in identifying God as inseparable from creation, it qualifies our understanding of transendence - God may be 'other', but He is not completely separated from His creation, rather He is close and His presence sustains it. This is an explicit disavowal of Deism.

Secondly, the doctrine of the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers is inextricably linked to the concept of sanctification and teaches that not only is God 'close' in a particular way to them, but through the agency of the Holy Spirit, he allows them to become partakers in the divine nature:

  Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. - 2 Peter 1:4 NIV (emphasis added)

Most forms of Christianity are not universalist however, and this particular identification of the (renewed) nature of the believer with the nature of God is restricted to the 'household of faith'.

Finally, the doctrine(s) of the Glorification of the believer address the end stage of spiritual development and while appearing in somewhat different forms in the various branches of those who identify as Christian, most will affirm something very similar to:

  ...“glorification” is God's final removal of sin from the life of the saints (i.e., everyone who is saved) in the eternal state (Romans 8:18; 2 Corinthians 4:17). At Christ’s coming, the glory of God (Romans 5:2) – His honor, praise, majesty, and holiness-- will be realized in us; instead of being mortals burdened with sin nature, we will be changed into holy immortals with direct and unhindered access to God’s presence, and we will enjoy holy commune with Him throughout eternity. In considering glorification, we should focus on Christ, for He is every Christian’s “blessed hope”; also, we may consider final glorification as the culmination of sanctification.

  Final glorification must await the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13; 1 Timothy 6:14). Until He returns, we are burdened with sin, and our spiritual vision is distorted because of the curse. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Every day, we should be diligent by the Spirit to put to death what is earthly in us (Romans 8:13). - gotquestions.org

In conclusion, while there are some elements of the doctrines of Immanence, Indwelling of the Holy Spirit and Glorification that are somewhat comparable to the concept of Shivoham as described, they cannot be considered as identical, as they assume the transendance of God which explicitly denies it.

*Generally on this site, we seek to avoid characterising 'Christianity' as a whole, as there are many religions that claim such a label that possess exclusionary elements to each other. This is so even within the largest generally recognized meta grouping of Nicene Christianity (Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants). That said, 99.9% of Christian sects can be accurately characterised as monotheistic despite the very real distinctions in many other aspects of their theologies.


Jesus Christ recieving Holy Spirit Jesus Christ received the Holy Spirit when he was 30 years old. Wasn't that supposed to take place much earlier?

There are a few angles to answer your question from.

First the Eternal Son of God, who existed before being incarnated into a baby child through a virgin can never be said to not have the Spirit for the Trinity if One God, Father, Son and Spirit.  This is the basic view of God within Christianity.

Second, when the Eternal Son was incarnated the human nature that he incorporated into his person could never be said to not have the Spirit for the Divine nature and the Human nature are inseparable in his person forever.

Third, as a man Jesus needed additional supplies of the Spirit to resist sin and to obey all that his Father has given to him to do.  In this sense of ‘needing’ the Spirit to live a holy life as a man in communion with his Father he must have to be fully human. We can see even in what little record we have of Jesus as a child where the Spirit was mighty in him. In Luke 2 Jesus was separated from his parents and was later found engaging the teachers in the temple courts. When they rebuked him for getting lost while they were worried he said “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”. This implies at an early age he was already deeply aware of his fellowship with the Father which is by the Spirit.  It is then added that:

  And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. (Luke 2:52, NIV)

This obviously implies that the Spirit of God was causing the boy Jesus to develop in ‘spiritual’ wisdom, not just the human kind, meaning the Spirit was deep at work within him.

It is from this third aspect that your question is based and the answer is simple. Of course Jesus as a man always had supplies of grace from the Spirit and communed with his Father, but it was not until his official ministry in preaching the gospel was inaugurated that he received the Spirit in an extra and unusual manner in order for him to perform his earthly ministry.

This is not only true of Christ but of all Christians that ‘receive the Spirit’. It is not something that happens once but over and over again and our needs require and God’s grace supplies.


The nature and extent of the atonement of Jesus during the crucifixion Biblical examples of God's wrath against damned men and angels are graphic:
Revelation 14:10-11: “He also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”

Considering the evangelical view of the Trinity and the atonement of Christ, what did the atonement of Jesus consist of during His crucifixion?  Jesus bore the intense physical pain without complaint, even praying for the Father to forgive the Roman soldiers while they nailed Him to the cross.  At a climactic point, though, Jesus cried out: "My God! My God! Why have you forsaken Me?"   This one time, Jesus did not refer to God as His Father.

That cry, quoted from Psalm 22, possibly indicates a schism in the Trinity itself:  God the Father separated from God the Son.  Was that seeming separation of God the Father from the Son of His love while the latter bore the sin of the world the atonement - or payment for our sins - or is there a spiritual dimension to it that wasn't visible?  If it was separation from the Father, it seems the Father surely suffered greatly for His beloved Son.  That does not seem to be addressed in the Bible, however.

This post title and substance were edited from 'wrath of God' to 'atonement', due to a post below that noted the wrath of God being directed toward Jesus on the cross is not found in the Bible.

The Greek phrase "wrath of God" is οργη θεου.  The phrase appears only twice in the New Testament.

John writes that the wrath of God will be visited upon those who do
not believe in His Son (3:36).
Paul writes that the wrath of God is revealed against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Romans 1:18).

The same Greek phrase also appears occasionally in the Septuagint, but always in the context of God being angry with Israel (e.g. Numbers 12:9).

It does not appear in New Testamant Scripture that God visited His wrath upon His Son.


When and why did the devil, or Satan, really emerge as a force in Christian belief? From what I understand, the devil is not a character who appears obviously in any part of the Bible.

If this is true, when was it that Satan/the devil began to terrify people who called themselves Christians, and why?

If you mean the idea of Satan (aka "the adversary"), it is mentioned in the Bible, as others have referenced in comments.

The particular image of a creepy guy with hooves, arrow-pointed tail, horns, red skin, and possibly a pointy beard, on the other hand, originated (to my knowledge) in the literature of Dante Alighieri -- specifically his Divina Commedia, or Divine Comedy, in which he narrates a journey between Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.

While Dante concerns the work largely with medieval (it was written in the 14th century) Christian philosophy and beliefs, he drew from many other cultures in bringing the story alive.  The Bible and other pre-Divine-Comedy depictions don't go into enough detail about "the adversary" to create the concrete images Dante needed for his tale.

Though the common person at the time may not have realized it, much of the symbols coursing around 14th century Italian collective consciousness were derived from the earlier Greek and Roman polytheistic cultures.  Horns and hooves, for example, remained symbols of lust (especially homosexual lust), gluttony, and general excess of a morally-questionable (from the Christian perspective) variety, and so on thanks to the god Pan and his companions the Satyrs.

Dante drew on these and other symbols of older cultures in order to bring his story to life.  He did such a good job of it that his description of Satan remains strong in the collective consciousness of the Christian community despite (or perhaps due to) the Bible giving so much less detail.


How do Catholic theologians reconcile homoousion with the vulgate translation of Hebrews 1:3? How do Catholic theologians reconcile homoousion with the Vulgate translation of Hebrews 1:3?

(Vulgata Clementa) qui cum sit splendor glóriæ, et figúra substántiæ ejus, portánsque ómnia verbo virtútis suæ, purgatiónem peccatórum fáciens, sedet ad déxteram majestátis in excélsis
(Douay-Rheims) Who being the brightness of his glory, and the figure of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, making purgation of sins, sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high.

Isn't being a "figure of" God's substance indicate that he did not actually "share" God's substance?

We must start by referring to the original text of Heb 1:3a, which, leaving untranslated the last word, is:

"Who, being the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his hypostasis,"

where the text translated as "the exact representation of his hypostasis" is "charaktēr tēs hypostaseōs autou".

With this in mind, the short answer to the question is: translating hypostasis as substance would be perfect if we were translating Heb 1:3 into 1st century Latin, but after the Tertullian-initiated and Nicaea-confirmed understanding of substantia as ousía in the Nicene sense, it causes the passage to state either Arianism or tritheism.

The long answer follows below, structured into sections

1. Substantia is the original cognate of hypostasis.

Etymologically [1] [2],

hypostasis = hypó ("under") + stásis ("a standing" = (hístēmi ("to stand") + -sis, verbal noun suffix)) = "that which stands under"

is a direct cognate of [3] [4] [5] [6]:

substantia = sub ("under") + stans ("standing", present active participle of stō ("stand")) = "that which stands under".

According to [7], the first recorded use of hypostasis as "substance" was in the book "On the cause of plants" by Aristotle's successor Theophrastus (c. 371 - c. 287 BC), while the term may have been introduced in the philosophical discourse either by the Stoic Poseidonius (c. 135 BC - c. 51 BC) according to some, or by the Epicurean Demetrius Lacon (fl. late 2nd century BC) according to others, in both cases with the meaning of objective or concrete existence or reality. Thus, real entities were said to "have hypostasis", whereas merely apparent or imaginary entities did not.

Recalling at this point that both the Stoic and the Epicurean philosophical schools were materialistic, the first conceiving the all-pervading Logos as a subtle fiery aether and the second conceiving reality as consisting just of atoms and void, it is clear that, to the extent that they used the term ousía, they would not have used it in the sense of form understood as universal or even in the sense of form at all, but in the sense of the individual, particular, concrete entity, the "hypokeimenon", “that which underlies or lies beneath”, which clearly overlaps with the meaning of hypostasis. Therefore, it is clear that for both Stoics and Epicureans the terms ousía and hypostasis were synonyms, but that was due to the specific sense in which both schools understood ousía.

Introducing now the Latins, who were now becoming interested in philosophy,
into the picture:

Since, per linguistic design, substantia = hypostasis, and, per Stoic and Epicurean
understanding of ousía, hypostasis = ousía, then, for the Latin-speaking Stoic- and Epicurean-dominated culture, substantia = ousía, which was exactly what Tertullian did, as we will see below.

2. Heb 1:3 was written in a Stoic- and Epicurean-dominated lexical context.

In order to understand correctly Heb 1:3, we must first take into account the lexical context of the human author at the time of writing it. As is well known, the Letter to the Hebrews was written before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, since it consistently refers to the sacrificial system of the Mosaic Law as still ongoing (Heb 8:4-5; 9:7-10,13,25; 10:1-2; 13:11). On the other hand, it was probably written shortly before 70 AD, since the exhortation to "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith." (Heb 13:7) seems to refer either to James, brother of the Lord, killed in Jerusalem in 62 AD, or to Peter and Paul, killed in Rome in 64 and 67 AD. Therefore, the Letter was written in a cultural context in which, for the last 150 years, the prevalent philosophical schools had been Stoicism and Epicureanism, both of which, as we saw in the previous section, used the term hypostasis with the meaning of objective or concrete existence or reality.

Then we must note that the very notion of "charaktēr" - impressed image or copy of something, reproduction, representation [1] - necessarily implies a numerical distinction between the original and its charaktēr. Therefore, stating that the Son is "the charaktēr of the Father's hypostasis" necessarily implies that the Son is or has a numerically different hypostasis from that of the Father, irrespective of what hypostasis may mean in that context.

Taking these two points in conjunction, Heb 1:3 is saying that the Son is the exact representation of the objective, concrete reality of the Father. Therefore, the objective, concrete reality of the Son is numerically different from that of the Father.

Once we understand Heb 1:3 this way, we must answer two questions:

2.1. Is Heb 1:3 consistent with trinitarian orthodoxy, Arianism, tritheism, or all of them?

The key to answer this question is to realize that, in orthodox trinitarian doctrine, the divine nature does not exist in reality separate from the divine Persons. I.e. the common divine nature, abstracted from and without the personal properties, does not have objective, concrete reality. (And thus, in the philosophical lexicon of 1st century AD, it does not "have hypostasis".) It is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit Who have objective, concrete reality. (And thus, in the philosophical lexicon of 1st century AD, "have hypostasis".) And since the Father is really not the Son, the objective, concrete reality of the Son (-his hypostasis in the philosophical lexicon of 1st century AD-) is numerically different from that of the Father, which is precisely the sense of Heb 1:3, as we saw above. Therefore, Heb 1:3 is consistent with trinitarian orthodoxy.

Note that if in the framework of trinitarian orthodoxy we want to use the term hypostasis in a sense consistent with Heb 1:3, we must use it in the post-Cappadocian sense (as opposed to the Nicene sense of synonym of ousía), because, as we saw above, Heb 1:3 necessarily implies that the Son is or has a numerically different hypostasis from that of the Father, irrespective of what hypostasis may mean. Thus, the definition of Nicaea did not use hypostasis in a sense consistent with Heb 1:3.

Clearly Heb 1:3 is also consistent with Arianism and tritheism, which also posit that the objective, concrete reality of the Son is numerically different from that of the Father. The only inconsistency of Heb 1:3 is with modalism.

2.2. What is the correct translation of hypostasis in Heb 1:3?

As we will see, the choice of Latin-derived words for "his hypostasis" to convey the original sense of "the objective, concrete reality of the Father" can no longer, after the trinitarian debates of the IV century and the settlement of the theological lexicon, be made independently from the adoption of a particular theological position. This is because, as we saw above, Heb 1:3 necessarily implies that the Son is or has a numerically different hypostasis from that of the Father, irrespective of what hypostasis may mean. With this "charaktēr corollary" in mind, let's examine the options for translating hypostasis.

a. Substance. While "substantia" in the 1st century AD was etymologically and semantically equivalent to "hypostasis", after Tertullian coined the formula "tres Personae, una Substantia" early in the III century, substantia came to mean, among Latin-speaking Christians, the single infinite spirit that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have in common. This meaning of substantia as equivalent to ousía in the Nicene sense was reinforced by that Council establishing that hypostasis, the cognate and original equivalent of substantia, was to be understood as synonym of ousía. Therefore, translating hypostasis in Heb 1:3 as "substance" after Nicaea has as a consequence, per the "charaktēr corollary" recalled above, that the translated text necessarily implies that the Son has a numerically different substance, i.e. ousía in the Nicene sense, from that of the Father, which amounts to stating Arianism if the substances are qualitatively different or tritheism if they are qualitatively identical.

In other words, translating hypostasis as substance would be perfect if we were translating Heb 1:3 into 1st century Latin, but after the Tertullian-initiated and Nicaea-confirmed understanding of substantia as ousía in the Nicene sense, it causes the passage to state either Arianism or tritheism.

b. Being. This term is ambiguous, and in principle could convey the original sense of "objective, concrete reality" as either post-Nicene notion, ousía or Person, though it sounds more like the former, with which it is etymologically related. Therefore, it is in principle compatible with all theological positions, though it sounds more as Arian or tritheistic.

c. Person. This term is fully consistent with trinitarian orthodoxy (and also with the other theological positions, since it says nothing about whether the Father and the Son have the same ousía.) It has two drawbacks: first, it has no etymological relation with hypostasis, and second, it is not a general equivalent to hypostasis but only to a hypostasis of a personal nature.

d. Subsistence. This term was invented around 400 by Tyrannius Rufinus (344-411) to convey the post-Cappadocian meaning of hypostasis, for which the term substantia was no longer available since its meaning had been settled in Nicaea as the Latin equivalent of ousía [2] [3]. It was built by taking substantia and replacing the derivative of the verb stō by the derivative of the cognate and synonym verb sistō [4] [5]:

substantia = sub ("under") + stans ("standing", present active participle of stō ("stand")) = "that which stands under".

subsistentia = sub ("under") + sistēns ("standing", present active participle of sistō ("stand")) = "that which stands under".

Therefore translating hypostasis as subsistence is etymologically perfect, generally valid, and fully consistent with trinitarian orthodoxy (and also with the other theological positions, just as the case of person). The drawback is that the word has a completely unrelated usual meaning in English.

References

Section 1

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BD%91%CF%80%CF%8C

[2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%83%CF%84%CE%AC%CF%83%CE%B9%CF%82

[3] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/substantia

[4] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sub#Latin

[5] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stans#Latin

[6] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sto#Latin

[7] Ute Possekel, "Evidence of Greek philosophical concepts in the writings of Ephrem the Syrian", Peeters Publishers, Louvain, 1999.
https://books.google.com/books?id=rZ3gGQuJUS4C

Section 2

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%87%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%B1%CE%BA%CF%84%CE%AE%CF%81

[2] Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Trinity and God the Creator: A Commentary on St. Thomas' Theological Summa, Ia, q. 27-119, 1943, translated by Frederic C. Eckhoff, B. Herder Book Co., 1952. Reprinted by Aeterna Press, 2016.
https://isidore.co/calibre/browse/book/3085
https://www.ewtn.com/library/theology/trinity.htm
https://books.google.com/books?id=yGmkDAAAQBAJ

[3] "Subsistence." New Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 18, 2018 from Encyclopedia.com.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/subsistence

[4] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/subsisto

[5] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sisto


Can a priest say Mass for himself? May not get a response in time but our pastor's first name is Joseph and I was wondering on the Feast of St. Joseph the worker, May 1st, can we request our pastor to offer the Mass intention in his own honor on his name's feast day, since his name is Joseph, ie, would a priest in his humility refuse to offer a Mass for himself?

May a priest say Mass for himself?

The short answer is yes.

There is nothing forbidding such a thing. Personally, I would recommend this. Priests must sanctify themselves and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is, as Pope St. Paul VI said, the Mass is the apex of our faith. Priests may say the Mass intention for themselves.

There is nothing to prevent a priest from offering a Mass for himself at the request of one of the faithful.

I am presuming that the priest in question is saying the Ordinary Form of the Mass. Nevertheless, I would like to enforce this possibility with an example taken from the missal of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.

In the Tridentine Rite, priest are permitted to added prayers (collects) to the Mass they say each day for various reasons and/or occasions that may arise here and there. For example a priest may add the collects for the time of pestilence to the Mass he is saying, regardless if it is a Feast Day or not. One of the collects a priest may add to his Mass is For the Priest Himself (Missae Pro Seipso Sacerdote)!

The following example of several collects of the Mass, including the Missae Pro Seipso Sacerdote prayers can been seen on page 463.

In other words, John, go for it! It is totally permitted in either Rite.


How should Christianity respond to the person who defames it? In a Christian country (where the Christian law is obeyed), if a person insults Jesus, makes fun of him and defames the Bible, How should the Government, Church and Christians respond (according to Christianity)? Is there a punishment like death, torture or at least deportation?

PS: I am not sure if the tag is relevant, feel free to edit.

There are many different Christian perspectives and some may disagree, but it's arguable that at least a majority of Christians would agree that:

A Christian should respond as Jesus would and according to what He taught:

  38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. - Matthew 5:38-48 NIV

So, we should not retaliate, or even resist them; but pray and show love according to the will of our Father in heaven.

This is further explained by Paul, one of the early followers of Jesus:

  17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:

  “If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
      if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
  In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

  21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. - Romans 12:17-21 NIV

So we should treat them well and leave it for God to deal with them. The government is a quite different matter - it has the authority (given by God ultimately, and the will of it's people secondarily) to make laws that are just and fair for the benefit of it's citizens.  If the government decides it is in the interest of public order to enact a law that prevents the sort of behaviour you mention, then that is a matter for the government.  Christians have differing views on what should be the relation between the Church and the state, but most views seek to interpret what Jesus meant by:

  Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” - John 18:36 NIV

And will argue for at least some form of separation between the two - just how much and what that practically means is worked out in different ways in different contexts and is the subject of ongoing debate.

Summary: Most Christians would argue that we should not retaliate against those who seek to insult, mock or defame either Christ, Christians or the Bible; in fact we should pray for them, love them and leave them in God's hands to judge with the hope that they will repent and find mercy from Him. What the governement does to them is not necessarily a Christian's (or the Churches) business except insomuch as their citizenship or office requires them to draw up, vote on, enact or enforce the laws of the land.


Did Satan unwittingly create his eternal punishment by instigating the fall of man? God is omniscient and therefore nothing that happens takes him by surprise, and so that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil must have been something that God expected. And for that matter ordained.

All Scripture is quoted from the King James translation:

Everything I have learned about God from my study of the Bible, tells me that evil has no part in God, and therefore when God created His Kingdom, there would have been no evil. As far as I can determine Evil came into being with Lucifer's rebellion.

Up until the fall there was no such thing as death, and we are told that Satan and his minions were expelled from Heaven, not that they were sentenced eternity in the lake of fire.

  Revelation 12:7 through 9 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.  And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

God being the loving God that he is had only expelled Satan and the fallen Angels to the Earth, which seems a mild punishment for starting a war in Heaven.

Since there was no death there was also no second death:

  Revelation 20:14  And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

Since the second death is being cast into the lake of fire, it seems that Satan by enticing man to sin thereby providing his own eternal punishment.

The Bible is only a partial map of God's whole creation (universe) in that The Bible provides us with very little information about other worlds/realms and other creations and occasionally shows us that other creations are able to move into this world but not vice versa. Yet The Bible is sufficient for us and this world. So at best we can only speculate/debate on the other things. In this case The Bible's narrative gives us some hints that Satan already knew about the tree because Satan's first words to Eve reveals that. So more likely Satan and his cronies may have taken the fruits of the Tree in another realm and moreover also from the Tree of Life and thus injected evil into themselves but at the same time negated the side effect of the fruits (death) and achieved immortality. So having lost God's trust in their realm the next thing Satan and his cronies would want to do is to gain allies and numbers. Thus the generous advice to Eve. Here, an important thing is that the sly Satan never told Eve to also take the fruits of the Tree of Life. Once the fruits were taken, the cascading/butterfly effect started including the arrival of sin and death and the domino effect continues to this day till the end days.

God is omniscient in that God can surely preview everything and every possibility to its end, infinitely more than a programmer who created a program and claims to know its every logic, or a chess master who begins a new game and tries to model all possible moves and endings. God already saw the future and gives us a view of it in Revelation. The thing is that because God already knew it, God also gave the warning beforehand in Eden, then gave us the commandments generations later, and finally God gave us Jesus Christ and the Revelation. It was up to Adam and Eve to not take the fruits, and it is up to us to accept Jesus Christ, but then God already knows who will and who won't, but then again we don't know. The decisions/actions we take are ours because we have the freedom, but God already knows our actions/decisions but God didn't/doesn't make them. God already knows the endgame but the moves we make are ours and ours alone, and it's up to us to be held accountable (judgement) for our moves or instead move in sync with Jesus Christ and escape the accountability, but then God already knows who will and who won't. God 'knows' doesn't mean God 'wills' it, 'knowing' and 'willing' are entirely different. So Satan's actions/decisions are Satan's and Satan's alone though God may have already previewed it.

PS: I understand this to be a general category, so please forgive me if my way of answering is wrong.


On what basis did Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith declare that God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit cannot indwell a believer? The following is what Joseph Smith said from "Doctrines & Covenants, Section 130, Paragraph 3 regarding John 14:23.

John 14:23—The appearing of the Father and the Son, in that verse, is a personal appearance; and the idea that the Father and the Son can dwell in a man’s heart is an old sectarian notion, and is false."

Here is what the verse says

John 14:23,"If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and my Father will love him, and We shall come to him, and make Our abode with him."

The "we" of "we will come unto him" refers to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In other words, the disciple becomes the residence of God. the Apostle Paul elaborates on this truth when he says, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" 1 Corinthians 3:16.
Paul also said, "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own." 1 Corinthians 6:19.
Other verses would include 1 John 4:15, "Whosoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and he in God." Ephesians 3:17 and Revelation 3:20 also support God making His abode in believers.
It is my opinion on this is since Smith and his followers believe that God has a body of flesh and bone and cannot be everywhere present at the same time therefore God cannot indwell a believer.
I decided to look up the word "sectarian" that Smith used. "Denoting or concerning a sect or sects." Is not this the question that Smith asked God the Father and God the Son? "Which of all the sects was right that I might know which to join."
The answer he received was,

" I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the commandments of man, having the form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof."

So my question is:
On what basis did Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith declare  that God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit cannot indwell a believer?
I meant to post Romans 8:11 but simply forgot. "

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies THROUGH HIS SPIRIT WHO INDWELLS YOU."

The following is the LDS view of the Holy Spirit, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/holy-ghost?
lang=eng
Notice the statement:

All honest seekers of the truth can feel the influence of the Holy Ghost, leading them to Jesus Christ and His gospel."

The Dictionary defines "feelings," Feeling is a general term for a subjective point of view as well as for specific sensations; readily affected by emotion.
The point is that "truth" is not based on subjective feelings or emotions.

On what basis did Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith deny that God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit cannot indwell a believer?

As others have pointed out in the comments, Joseph Smith did not say that the Holy Spirit cannot indwell a believer, only that the Father and the Son cannot.  Doctrine and Covenants 130:3 that you quoted says "the idea that the Father and the Son can dwell in a man’s heart is an old sectarian notion, and is false."  No mention is made here of the Holy Spirit.
With that established, your supposition

It is my opinion on this is since Smith and his followers believe that God has a body of flesh and bone and cannot be everywhere present at the same time therefore God cannot indwell a believer.

seems a reasonable explanation for why Joseph Smith would teach that the Father and the Son (both held by Joseph Smith to be embodied Beings) cannot dwell in a person's heart.
Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any other scripture that could be used as a basis for this, other than the passages (including Joseph Smith's own accounts of seeing the Father and the Son) stating further that the Father and the Son have bodies.  I would welcome any additional exposition people have to add to my answer.


Is there extrabiblical first-century documentation of sadducee theology? The Bible mentions a few things about the sadducees' beliefs, such as in Acts 23:8, but doesn't reveal much detail. Are there any documents aside from the Bible from the first century AD (or first few centuries) which document what the sadducees believed?

Compared with the Pharisees, very little is known about the Sadducees in the Herodian period. The cause of this marked contrast is not hard to find, as Helen Bond points out in her book Caiaphas. In the upheavals that followed the two revolts against Roman rule (66-70 and 132-135), the Pharisees emerged as the winners and the Sadducees as the losers. There have been (in Bond’s words) “generations of Jewish scholars who understood Pharisees as the correct and trustworthy side of Judaism. … Unlike the Pharisees, however, the Sadducees have no modern successors with an interest in rehabilitating them. ... The Sadducees left no written records, and we are forced to rely instead on the negative parodies penned by their opponents.”


Does the Bible say that it is better to have been born after Christ? I have often imagined living as a Jew before Christ and can never really hold the thought that I would enjoy it that much. At first it seemed like a bit of a poor attitude on my part, but then I thought maybe it is just that life seems so much better after Christ? This leads me to a more formal theological question.  'Does the Bible say that it is better to have been born after Christ?' If it is better after Christ, in what specific ways?

Note: When I say as a Jew before Christ, I am imagining myself back then so that it is 'a believing Jew', who believed in the coming Christ and inherited eternal life just as those born after.

I will take a stab at this question, and say "Yes" the Bible does teach that it is better, but I caution not reading "better" as meaning "more pleasant," as your question included the statement that you would not have "enjoyed" Judaism much. Instead, it is better for some very specific reasons.

When I read your question, my mind instantly went to Hebrews, because the book of Hebrews is saturated with the idea of "better."  As a Son, Jesus is in a better position than the angels.  Our gospel is better than the sacrificial system. We have a better Sabbath, a better High Priest, and a better sacrifice.  It sounds odd to say, but Hebrews six and eight convey the idea that our position in Christ is founded on better promises. I don't fully grasp how the promises of God get "better" but Hebrews tells us that they do. We also know from Hebrews that we have a better hope and a guarantee of a better covenant (7:19-22). Other ideas in Hebrews include a better country, better resurrection, a better mediator, better blood.

So, yes, in seeing the comparison between before and after Christ, Hebrews seems to be the most comprehensive answer to your question, and the answer it gives is a resounding "Yes!" I believe  Hebrews is addressing a situation in which Jewish Christians were continuing to participate in temple worship, with all of its rites and ceremonies. They insisted on practicing circumcision, making the sacrificial offerings, and were essentially trying to Judaize their Christian faith. Why pour low octane fuel into your old Yugo when you have a Ferrari sitting here the runs on jet fuel?  That's better!


What are the primary differences between these Lutheran denominations? What are the primary differences between the WELS, LCMS, LCMC, NALC, and ELCA Lutheran denominations?

This is a quick rundown, keeping in mind that not every individual parish fully subscribes to everything their parent organization does (don't judge a book by its cover, but be aware of the connotations each cover generally carries):

Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS)

The Bible is inspired and inerrant, the Confessions are a clear and accurate articulation of biblical truth.
Salvation is by Jesus Christ alone, given to us as a gift by grace through faith in Him. Universalism is rejected.
Women cannot vote in congregational meetings nor serve in public ministry (no authority over men in any way in the church).
Functional view of ministry (no pastoral "office" per say—all members are ministers of Christ, pastors are men called to the specific vocation of preaching/teaching and administering the Sacraments). All forms of ministry are divine calls.
Close Communion (only baptized believers who share their distinctly Lutheran confession of faith in all points of doctrine may commune).
Marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman. Homosexual behavior is sin.

Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS)

The Bible is inspired and inerrant, Confessions are a true and binding exposition of all scripture and serve as authoritative texts.
Salvation is by Jesus Christ alone, given to us as a gift by grace through faith in Him. Universalism is rejected.
Women are free to vote in congregational matters, and may serve publicly in humanly established offices as long as those offices do not include any of the distinctive functions of the pastoral office.
Believe in a pastoral "office" of ministry, pastor has received a divine call from God, and no one is to preach, teach, or administer the sacraments without a regular call. Only the pastoral office is divinely established, while all other church offices are human institutions. Only men may be called to the pastoral office.
Close Communion (only baptized believers who share their distinctly Lutheran understanding of the Lord's Supper may commune; agreement in all doctrinal matters is not necessary).
Marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman. Homosexual behavior is sin.

Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC)

The LCMC is intentionally placed here in between the LCMS and the NALC. They are similar to the LCMS on their view of scripture, salvation, communion, and marriage and homosexuality. They are closer to WELS concerning their view on ordained ministry (functional view), however they affirm the call of women to ordained pastoral ministry.

North American Lutheran Church (NALC)

The Bible is inspired, Confessions are valid interpretations of the faith of the Church and true witnesses to the Gospel.
Salvation is by Jesus Christ alone, given to us as a gift by grace through faith in Him. Universalism is rejected.
Women and men are free to serve in all aspects of congregational life and ministry.
Believe in a pastoral "office" of ministry, pastor has received a divine call from God and includes qualified men and women.
Open Communion (all baptized believers are welcome to commune).
Marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman. Homosexual behavior is sin.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)

The Bible is inspired, the Confessions are valid interpretations of the faith of the Church and true witnesses to the Gospel.
Salvation is universal. What God has done in Christ is done for all in the world; God's act in Christ is the way that all come to God. Universalism is accepted.
Women and men are free to serve in all aspects of congregational life and ministry.
Functional view of ministry (no pastoral "office" per say - we are all ministers of Christ, pastors are men or women called to the specific vocation or "rostered ministry" of preaching/teaching and administering the Sacraments).
Open Communion (all baptized persons are welcome to commune). In practice, all are welcome to commune, sometimes including non-human partakers (pets).
Accepts and supports monogamous, same-gender relationships. Allows non‐celibate gays and lesbians to serve as clergy. The individual church may choose to call or not call gay or lesbian clergy.

Yes, I posted this question as an opportunity for self-answering it. I originally wrote this for an online Lutheran forum in January 2012 and recently wanted to find it. However, much to my chagrin, a Google search turned up no results no matter how carefully I searched. I decided that this post needs to be here on Stack Exchange where others can find it (including me!).


How do proponents of Apokatastasis deal with the "Everlasting punishment" texts in scripture? For those who don't know, the doctrine of Apokatastasis is an ancient form of Universalism which states that everything God has ever created will be saved and glorified, including the Devil and his demons. The existence of Hell is affirmed, but the punishment is held to be correctional and purgative rather than retributive, and it doesn't last forever, instead only lasting for as long as a soul refuses to repent. This makes the Universalist idea of Hell more like a "Universal Purgatory".

I find this doctrine very interesting and appealing. It seems to make the most sense of the biblical data and the Loving+Just character of God in my mind. Nevertheless there are some problematic passages in scripture which seem to contradict it at first glance.

The main one that troubles me is Revelation 20:10:

  10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of
  fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet were, and
  they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

This passage seems to completely rule out Apokatastasis and come down strongly in favour of the more traditional "everlasting punishment of sinners and the Devil" view.

How would a proponent of Apokatastasis interpret this passage?

Those who believe in Apokatastasis believe Revelation 20:10 is grossly misunderstood. The Greek says:

καὶ ὁ διάβολος ὁ πλανῶν αὐτοὺς ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν λίμνην τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ θείου, ὅπου καὶ τὸ θηρίον καὶ ὁ ψευδοπροφήτης, καὶ βασανισθήσονται ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων.
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever- KJV

The Lake of Fire
The first thing that's significant is the Lake of Fire. A lake is a body of water. Water extinguishes fire, so this doesn't make sense. Therefore, we would interpret this metaphorically. Water cleanses and fire purifies. Yeshua says:

"For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." Mark 9:49

Other examples include:

"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" 1 Peter 1:7
"Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Isaiah 48:10
"But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto YHVH an offering in righteousness." Malachi 3:2
"And the sight of the glory of YHVH was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel." Exodus 24:17
"For our God is a consuming fire." Hebrews 12:49

θείου
θείου means "brimstone". According to Thayer's Greek Lexicon:

θεῖον, θείου, τό (apparently the neuter of the adjective θεῖος equivalent to divine incense, because burning brimstone was regarded as having power to purify, and to ward off contagion (but Curtius, § 320 allies it with θύω; cf. Latinfumus, English dust)), brimstone: Luke 17:29; Revelation 9:17; Revelation 14:10; Revelation 19:20; (); . (Genesis 19:24; Psalm 10:6 (); Ezekiel 38:22; Homer, Iliad 16, 228; Odyssey 22, 481, 493; (Plato) Tim. Locr., p. 99 c.; Aelian v. h. 13, 15 (16); Herodian, 8, 4, 26 (9 edition, Bekker).)

So brimstone was believed to have the power to purify.
βασανίζω
The next word is βασανίζω. Thayer's Greek Lexicon says the very first definition is:

properly, to test (metals) by the touchstone.

βασανίζω means to test, examine, or to cause distress. The only sort of "torment" associated with this word in the NT is mental torment, and it definitely does not mean "torture". Here are some more examples of this word, and hopefully this will paint a clearer picture of what it means:

But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed (βασανιζόμενον) with waves: for the wind was contrary. Matthew 14:24

How is it that a ship was "tortured"? However, if the waves were testing the strength and endurance of the ship, causing it distress, it is understandable why Matthew would use βασανιζόμενον here. Robert Young (Young's Literal Transaltion) understood this, and translates:

and the boat was now in the midst of the sea, distressed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

Mark uses this same word to describe this same event, but uses it a bit differently:

"And he saw them toiling (βασανιζομένους) in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them." Mark 6:48

Instead of the boat, it is the disciples who are having βασανίζω acted upon then. The American Standard Version says:

And seeing them distressed in rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them, about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking on the sea; and he would have passed by them

αἰών
The last word is αἰών and it is probably the most debated word in the bible. This word means "age". It always means age, and there is no reason to translate it any other way. For example:

"And the cares of this world (αἰών), and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful." Mark 4:19

The KJV chose the word "world", which is a bit deceitful because Greek already has a word for world...κόσμος. If we say "the cares of this forever choke the word", that doesn't make a lot of sense. Here is every instance of αἰών in the NT. Replace each word with "age" and it makes perfect sense everytime. Actually, the interlinear does it for you, because it's a literal translation and they know αἰών means age.
Conclusion
Those who believe in Apokatastasis would interpret Revelation 20:10 to be:

"and the devil, the [one] deceiving them, was cast into the lake of the fire and of brimstone (to be purified), where also the beast and the false prophet [are], and they will be examined/tested night and day for the ages of the ages"- very literal translation


Why did Jesus say to his accusers "You are gods"? John 10

  33The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not;
  but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself
  God.

  34Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are
  gods?

Why does Jesus mention to the people that are stoning him, that they are Gods?

Does that bring them up to the same level as Him (Christ)?

Here is one of those times where context helps quite a bit.

  John 10:33-36 (NIV)

   33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
   34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? 35 If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— 36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?

Emphasis mine, of course. The part in bold made me think that these were prophets, but let's check the reference to be sure.

  Psalm 82  (NIV)
  A psalm of Asaph.
   1 God presides in the great assembly;
     he renders judgment among the “gods”:
   2 “How long will you defend the unjust
     and show partiality to the wicked?
  3 Defend the weak and the fatherless;
     uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
  4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
     deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
   5 “The ‘gods’ know nothing, they understand nothing.
     They walk about in darkness;
     all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
   6 “I said, ‘You are “gods”;
     you are all sons of the Most High.’
  7 But you will die like mere mortals;
     you will fall like every other ruler.”
   8 Rise up, O God, judge the earth,
     for all the nations are your inheritance.

Huh, this passage seems to be talking about judges, not prophets. However, remember that in ancient Israel, judges and prophets were often the same people1.

Now the question becomes: why call these people "gods"? One readily apparent reason is that God is the great Judge, hence these judges are gods in that sense. Another, less clear and more speculative reason, has to do with them being prophets. Taking parts of two verses and putting them near each other...

  John 10:35b - to whom the word of God came

  Psalm 82:6b - you are all sons of the Most High

...it would seem like they are related by God's Spirit somehow. An analogue can be found in the New Testament with regards to Christians being brothers and sisters in Christ.

  Hebrews 2:11 (NIV)
  11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

  Romans 8:29 (NIV)
  29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

Similarly, God's prophets could be called "gods" due to their association with the Holy Spirit.

1 If someone could point me to a source for this, I'd greatly appreciate it.


Why is the ten commandments sometimes called the decalogue? I have heard the ten commandments written in Exodus and Deuteronomy sometimes called the Decalogue. What does this word mean and why are they sometimes called that?

The English phrase "Ten Commandments" is a bit of a misnomer. The Hebrew phrase עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים (eseret ha-dvarim) literally translates into English as "the ten words" or "the ten statements." The Hebrew phrase is translated into the LXX as δέκα λόγους (deka logous). Of course, from thence is derived the English expression "dekalogue" --- which is nothing more than a loose transliteration of that Greek phrase. δέκα λόγους is actually in the accusative case. The nominative would be δέκα λόγοι (deka logoi).


What is meant by "love covers over a multitude of sins"? And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.” (1 Pet 4:8, NKJV)
Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers all sins. (Prov 10:12, NKJV)

What does it mean for "love to cover a multitude of sins"? Does it mean one of the following?

Love prevents you from seeing or noticing sins at all?
Love allows you to see sins, but you overlook/ignore them?
Love allows you to see sins, but you forgive them?
Something else?

Also, in these two verses, the teaching/admonition seems to be directed toward man for human-to-human relationships, but how does "love covering a multitude of sins" play out in God's love toward man?

Love certainly does not mean ignoring sins or not noticing them at all. It is unloving for us to notice a fellow Christian living in sin and not help them. And when they sin against us, we are not to act like nothing happened in all cases, but we are to confront them Biblically when appropriate.

R.C. Sproul Jr. wrote an excellent article on the subject here. In summary, he said:

  When we are wronged our calling is to practice a careful moral calculus. Is this offense one I should let go of? Is it among the multitude that love covers? Or is this offense grievous enough that love means confronting in grace my brother? Sadly what we usually do is think we are practicing the former while actually holding grudges and putting miracle-grow on roots of bitterness. Peace in the church calls us to under-accuse, over-repent and over-forgive. Let us not be afraid to call sin sin, but let us not be slow to forgive it and to look past it.

There are cases where we are to overlook. If they were inconsiderate and bothered us, in many cases it is better to simply overlook and move on. But if the sin is greater, then we should confront them using the model presented in Matthew 18:15-19. In all cases, we should have an attitude of forgiveness towards them, willing to forgive the wrong when they ask for forgiveness.

In relationship to God's love towards man (and you could probably ask a second question on this part), we are to love because God first loved us. He paid the price for our sins on the cross, and forgave us our sins:

  For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:11-12)

God's justice demands there must be a payment for our sins. But because Christ died on the cross for them, God forgives us if we truly repent. Sometimes, God confronts us with our sins using some earthly method. But God always forgives, and we should too.


What would the Jews of Jesus' time have known about heaven? Looking at the cross references for John 12:34,

  34 So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”

I found several regarding the eternal kingdom of Christ:

Psalm 89:4

  ‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.’” Selah

Psalm 110:4

  The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

Isaiah 9:7

  Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end...

Ezekiel 37:25

  They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever.

Luke 1:33

  and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Given the wealth of such references, and the seemingly common misconception that the Messiah would bring about an earthly kingdom, it made me wonder:
What did the Jews of that time know about heaven, or indeed, about the afterlife? Was it a very concrete thing, was their picture of it accurate (whether somewhat primitive or full and detailed), and was it based on Scripture or on tradition?

I believe the best way to approach this question is to start with the following verse Acts 23:8 (RSVCE)

  8For the Sad′ducees say that there is no resurrection, nor
  angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

Thus some Jews in Jesus' time believed in spirits. When one died, their soul went down to Sheol.

All however, did not suffer the same fate, the wicked one, cut off from his people, was tormented in Hades while the righteous one was gathered to his people, into the bosom of Abraham. [cf. Luke 16:23]

Heaven for them was the dwelling-place of God and where his throne was, the angels also resided there, and it was also the firmament, the region in which sun, moon, and stars are placed, and from where rain, the hail, and the lightning came. [cf. HEAVEN | Jewish Encyclopedia]

It should be noted that the Torah focuses on "Olam Ha Ze," which means "this world." That was the main focus for the Jews.

As for the kingdom of heaven? With reference to the Messianic age, it applies to the time when God will be the sole King on earth, in opposition to the kings of worldly powers. [cf. HEAVEN | Jewish Encyclopedia]

Further reading

Olam Ha-Ba: The Afterlife | Judaism 101
The Afterlife in Judaism, by Ariela Pelaia | About.com

cf. Ancient Hebrew Cosmology | Michæl Paukner.


What reason is there to believe that 1st C Jews thought that being the Son of God = God? One poster ask me the above question. Does anyone have a scriptural answer? I have one and will post it soon.

My answer! The Jews have what is called "idioms." One of those idioms is called the "son of" idiom and can be found both in the Old Testament and New Testament.
For example in the OT you have "Sons of prophets." (1 Kings 20:35; 2 Kings 2:3, refer to men belonging to a prophetic band. "Prophethood" (that which distinguishes "prophets" from "non-prophets") is the very nature that unities the "sons of the prophets" with their metaphorical fathers, "the prophets."
The same holds true for the following examples. "Sons of the goldsmiths at Nehemiah 3:31. Sons of the troop (2 Chronicles 25:13) are men of the army. Sons of affliction (Proverbs 31:5) are afflicted ones. I think you get the idea.
In the NT, "Son of peace (Luke 10:6 refers to a peaceful person. Who was the Son of perdition?" (John 17:12, 2 Thessalonians 2:3) is the lost one, This is applied to Judas and the antichrist. One more, "Sons of thunder" was the appellative applied by Jesus to James and John at Mark 3:17 because it signified something outstanding about their character.
What about Jesus Christ who identified Himself on numerous occasions as "the Son of Man" and as "the Son of God." The idiom DOES intend the meaning of a shared nature between ANY father, and his son and thus between "THE Father and THE Son."
The "Son of God" title is entirely consistent with trinitarian doctrine which states explicitly that the Son is of the same NATURE of the Father. Christ really IS the "son" of God and therefore, BY DEFINITION shares the distinctive nature of his father just as ALL sons bear the distinctive nature of their fathers.
That Jesus is ALSO the "Son of Man" (obviously in the metaphorical sense, given the fact that his actual father was NOT any man) is also consistent with the doctrine of the trinity which claims that Christ was indeed truly a man.
There was a reason why the Apostle John ends his gospel account by stating his authorial intent at John 20:30-31. "Many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; vs31, but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is (1) Christ/Messiah, (2) the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name."
If you read the context of the following verses you will notice a pattern or trend in what the Jews conclude by Jesus' words. John 5:18, John 10:30, John 19:7 and the trial record at Matthew 26:57-65. It boils down to, "Are you the Christ/Messiah, and are you the Son of God?"
This is the question the high priest Caiaphas said to Jesus at Matthew 26:63. "And the high priest said to Him, "I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether (1) You are the Christ/Messiah, (2) the Son of God." Caiaphas puts Jesus under oath to swear as to His true identity. Jesus answers at Luke 22:70 by saying, "Yes, I am." (NASB)
Most of the information regarding Jewish "idioms" is taken from the following site. http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/OTeSources/23a-Prophets/Text/Articles/Bess-SonOfGod-GTJ.pdf
The article was written in 1965 and I only had some written notes of it from many, many years ago. I decided to look it up and I found the complete article. He also deals with the terms "Firstborn" and the term "Only Begotten."


Does the Trinity share one mind or are there three separate minds? Curious what Christian theologians or the Bible may have said about this.  It seems like Jesus speaks in terms of his father's will as if it is not quite his own, which suggests separate minded-ness.

And what of the Holy Spirit ?  Is the Holy Spirit thought to have a mind in the same way Jesus and God the father are thought to (since they are considered "persons" in some sense of the word).

Maybe there are ways it could be a bit of both shared and separate.

There may be no obvious answer on this and it could be just up for speculation, and if so, I'd be interested in learning that fact at least.

I asked a similar question pertaining to will within the Trinity.
Given that the Triune God is one in nature and three in person, and that I consider the mind to be a part of the person, I would conclude that each of the three persons has their own separate mind.
However, because they share the same perfect and infinite nature, their is never any dissent or discord among the persons of God.  In a sense, though they are of separate persons each with their own mind, they are of "one mind", in unity of purpose and being.
Also, scripture talks in different places about the "mind of Christ" (e.g. 1 Cor 2:16) and the "mind of the Spirit" (e.g. Rom 8:27), quite distinctly at least implying two distinct minds for those two of the Holy Trinity.

14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Cor:2:14-16
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Rom 8:26-27


Did John Wycliffe accept extreme unction? According to Bruce Shelley, in Church History in Plain Language, John Wycliffe, the early dissident in Catholicism, accepted the sacrament of extreme unction:

  He retained belief in purgatory and extreme unction

However, this seems to contradict what Shelley writes next:

  he admitted that he looked in vain in the Bible for the institution of extreme unction [...] The standard Wyclif used to judge the Roman Church was the teachings of Scripture.

I have a feeling that Wycliffe's views on extreme unction were a bit more nuanced, or at least confusing, than that he simply accepted it.  So:

What did Wycliffe believe about extreme unction?

If he accepted it, on what basis did he do so?  Biblical (contra Shelley)? Or non-biblical?
If he rejected it, how did he explain James 5:14–15?

Do his writings indicate that his views changed during his life?

To answer your question about 'extreme unction' Gillets summarizes it best under the phrase 'qualified sense'

  The seven sacraments of the church were all admitted, though in a qualified sense, by Wickliffe. It is evident that his exposition of their significance would strip them of all that peculiar importance which was attributed to them by the prevalent superstitions of the age. (the LIFE AND TIMES of JOHN HUSS; or, the Bohemian Reformation of THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY by E. H. GILLETT, p64)

it seems clear that he opposed the idea 'in the way it was administered' but not in the overall entitlement of being called a sacrament. In a book where speakers had a talk about these subjects called "De conversation ecclesiasticorum" he directly addresses the matter:

  The names of these speakers are Alithia, Pseudis, and Phronesis—or Truth, Falsehood, and Wisdom. The opinions and reasonings of Alithia, accordingly, are to be regarded as those of Truth; those of Pseudis as being the contrary of truth; while in the person of Phronesis, Wycliffe himself speaks.

  XVIII
  OF EXTREME UNCTION
  Alithia. You have said quite enough on this subject, brother Phronesis; but inform me, I pray you, somewhat concerning the last sacrament, which is called extreme unction. It has its foundation in the passage, James 5, “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”

  Phronesis. This foundation for that sacrament does not appear to be adequate. For the faithful might urge with sufficient reason, that this holy apostle does not specify the last sickness, but merely says that consolation should be administered by the presbyter when any one is sick; and as it is in the nature of oil, in those parts of the world, to promote the health of the body, so he mentions this anointing; not that the oil affects the soul, but the prayer of a devout priest poured forth, hath a healing effect, so that God helps the sickness of the soul. If that bodily anointing had been a sacrament in the sense in which it is now represented, Christ and his apostles would not have been silent respecting its promulgation and due administration. Nevertheless, I grant you that this corporal anointing is to some a sacrament, other things being equal; but it is then necessary that the presbyters should heal the sick with their own devout prayers. Still, beware, lest through too light a temper, you understand the words of the apostle imperfectly.

  You may possibly err so far as to believe, that the mere fact that a priest has prayed for a sick man will be sufficient to remit any guilt that may attach to the latter. But many have been sick, and been anointed, who have, nevertheless, been doomed to everlasting condemnation. For it is not to be believed, that, insomuch as a priest so doth, his prayer of faith will save the sick, for then it would be a part of the faith of the church to believe, that whoever in his last moments should receive the sacrament, would be saved by faith in Christ, and this sacrament would then be the most necessary of all, for the recipient of the others may be finally impenitent, and be lost,—but so, without a doubt, may he be who receives this sacrament.

  Thus in the sacrament of baptism, in that of confirmation, and in all the rest, hath Antichrist invented unauthorised ceremonies; and to the burden of the church, without warrant from Scripture, hath heaped them on subjected believers. But other necessary sacraments he has overlooked, as is seen in respect to the seven works of spiritual mercy, which ought to be a sacrament in the esteem of believers, and especially of priests. But this sacrament, though very necessary, inasmuch as it has no temporal gain going along with it, and is irksome to those in high places, is faithlessly neglected.

  Whence it appears to me, that those who institute such private orders, and send forth such general rules, to cause sacraments of this nature to be universally received by those who are subject to them, blaspheme God, especially when God is pleased to save many without their receiving this sacrament. How like Antichrist is this presumption, for a prelate to assert, and without foundation maintain, that no one will be saved without partaking of a sacrament of this sort!

  But whether a rich man, thus anointed, is permitted subsequently to recover, and whether the priest ought to have a certain knowledge, that the man so anointed will not survive, and whether this sacrament of extreme unction ean be repeated, is a matter of doubt with many. But I leave it to the weak, uselessly to protract difficult questions of this nature. I merely state one thing as probable,—that a man thus sick, and thus anointed, and afterwards convalescent, cannot again receive the sacrament of extreme unction. (TRACTS AND TREATISES of
  JOHN DE WYCLIFFE, D.D.,THE REV. ROBERT VAUGHAN, D.D., P182)

So I think you can judge for yourself. He seems to oppose extreme unction zealously, in the way it was used.

From what I can tell the focus that Wycliffe held was in opposition to the authority of the Pope, more than say 'justification by faith' which was Luther's focus. However Wycliffe holds Augustinian ideas that seem to indicate that he felt real grace and predestination is what saved a man. However, it was not as focused and or nearly developed as in the case of Luther. His opposition to the Pope and corruptions of many of his representatives is very lively though. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be as much clear record of his writings either, compared to the large volumes available for Luther.


What led to Marshal McLuhan's late adult conversion to Catholicism? McLuhan didn't talk much about his conversion. Does anyone have any information about his reasons or how this happened?

What led to Marshal McLuhan's late adult conversion to Catholicism?

The short answer is G. K. Chesterton (amongst others).

Conversion is a deeply personal journey, often taking many years to reach an outcome. But it is certain that G. K. Chesterton started the ball rolling.

  What is often overlooked is that McLuhan was an ardent convert to the Catholic Faith.  Born in Western Canada in 1911, he was raised in a generically Protestant environment.  By the time he attended the University of Winnipeg in 1928 he had no interest in religion. Just prior to going on to England to study at Cambridge, however, he chanced upon the works of an author who changed his whole view of reality: G.K. Chesterton.

  In the common sense, wit, and striking paradoxical expressions of Chesterton, McLuhan discovered the wonder of the real world as created by God and full of meaning.  He was also introduced to the crucial role of the Catholic Church in fostering learning and culture in European history.  By the time he left Cambridge and returned to Canada in 1936, he had an intellectual conviction about the Church.  But he felt no personal need for religion.

  When friends asked him, "Why aren't you Catholic?" he was as puzzled as they were.  Then he realized he couldn't have Catholic faith by looking at the Church "from the outside."  He needed to approach the Church on her own terms, with the realization that faith comes from grace, and in order to receive this gift he had to pray.  So McLuhan began praying, and thereby he entered into the Church's life and felt her maternal embrace.  He also met a priest, Father Gerald Phelan (later his colleague at the University of Toronto) who guided his discernment and baptized him when he finally found faith in 1937. - Great Conversion Stories: Marshall McLuhan

Other articles can be found on the web and most imply the same rationale, more or less:

  His Conversion

  I was reading [G.K.] Chesterton, and [Christopher] Dawson and [Jacques] Maritain and those people. That’s how I came in.

  I had no instruction even from clergy at any time but there was a friend of mine who said, ‘Well, since you don’t believe in Christianity’ – I was an agnostic – he said ‘you could pray to God the Father. So you pray to God the Father and simply ask to be shown.’ And so I did.

  And I didn’t know what I was going to be shown, all I said was, ‘Show me,’ and I didn’t ask to be relieved of any problems. I had no problems. I had no belief and no problems.

  Well I was shown in a quite amazing way and quite unexpected: I was arguing about religion with a whole group of grad students one night at Wisconsin and one of them said to me suddenly, ‘Why aren’t you a Catholic?’ and I shut up because I didn’t know. Up to that moment, it had never occurred to me that I would ever become a Catholic. But I was suddenly caught. I became a Catholic at once within a few days. - Marshall McLuhan’s Catholic Faith


How are Supererogative acts even possible in Catholicism? God, through each person of the Holy Trinity, the Prophets, the Saints, and his people set out what to do in order to enter the kingdom of heaven through the commandments, through the beatitudes, though lives worthy of imitation (in the case of Jesus and the Saints) and building the kingdom of God (e.g. as specified in Matthew 25).  Obviously the list is not exhaustive, but suffice to say, there are clear duties set, and reasons as to why these duties help build the kingdom of God.

Those who thoroughly practice the Catholic faith strive to go beyond the minimum duties through the forces of Grace. Striving for the minimum understandably does not help much for a relationship with God, and thus it makes sense to go beyond "what the instructor specifies" so to speak.

But if God, who is the perfect instructor, lays out what to do for us to become perfect and thus be able to enter the kingdom of heaven, why must we go beyond what a perfect omnipotent being guides us to do?  I am struggling to understand why Supererogation is a thing.  Aren't those who follow God's law, in both spirit and letter already desiring to become perfect? How can we go beyond what God commands?  How can one go beyond desiring to become perfect?

I feel I am missing something here, but I hope readers understand my logical conundrum here.

I've misplaced my copy of David Heyd's Supererogation or else I'd quote it directly, but that's among the seminal texts you'll want to read for a Catholic view on this topic.  In lieu of that, Standford's Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has great article on the topic.

I think your key misunderstanding comes in here:

  why must we go beyond what a perfect omnipotent being guides us to do?

What I think you have in mind is that there are a set of things God requires us, but there is also a level of goodness that we can opt for beyond that.  For example, God's law required Israel to leave the corners of its fields unharvested for the poor and indigent, but farmers could also have chosen to leave more of their land the indigent if they so chose.

However, what makes an act truly supererogatory in the sense used in Catholicism is that it goes above and beyond what someone could reasonably be compelled to do.  We could reasonably compel a certain farmer to give more if there were enough people in need in the countryside, but one could not compel a farmer to give his entire harvest to the poor--that could devastate the farmer's livelihood.  Nevertheless, if a farmer chose to give his entire harvest to the poor, we would understand that he has done a very great good, a supererogatory good.  Supererogation arises out of the awkward place we're put in by acknowledging that the farmer's actions are good but yet no one could reasonably say that one is morally obligated to follow such an action.  What is good is bad not to do, and what is bad is good not to do, but what is supererogatory is good to do and not bad not to do.

For Catholics, this makes for a nimbler approach to ethics.  Because salvation in Catholicism is contingent on our continued friendship with God within the salvific cycle of sin, confession, penance, and Eucharist, it would be a pretty big problem for Catholics to be compelled to go to the absolute greatest level of goodness on all actions, because such friendship would seem impossible.  For Protestants, who typically deny the existence of supererogatory acts, the inability to carry out such profound acts of goodness is precisely what's of value, because it rids us of any illusion that we can attain God's level of perfection.  Conversely, Protestants have typically argued that the existence of supererogatory acts would suggest that it is possible to exceed God's moral requirements and, by implication, that it is therefore possible to fulfill God's moral requirements.

Some more food for thought:

1) Catholics often note that Paul advises that it is better to be unmarried but not wrong to get married (1 Cor 7).

2) Moses and other prophets frequently intercede with God on Israel's behalf, begging God not to bring harm unfaithful Israel when God would otherwise destroy them.  What is Moses had said "yes" to God out of obedience?  Surely, we couldn't fault Moses for obeying and deferring to God, but surely it is also good (indeed, quite heroic!) to stand before God and make the case to save Israel.

3) Can anything really be thought of as supererogatory in light of a savior who took up death upon the cross out of obedience, which implies a command (Phil 2:8)? If even the greatest act of compassion is an act of obedience to God, what else could possibly exceed "mere" obedience to God?

4) While I'm not typically Kantian on ethics, it's worth noting the question posed by the Categorical Imperative:  "What would the world look like if everyone acted like this?"  To that point, mandating supererogatory acts can create significant problems.  For example, proponents of supererogation would count giving away all of your possessions as supererogatory.  Yet, if everyone were required to do this, it would be unsustainable.  Half of us would give up our possessions to the other half, but in order to be morally upright, that other half would now have to give it back, and at the end of the matter, we'd probably have to destroy all of our possessions, whereupon we'd all die of starvation and exposure, and that's definitely not a moral good.  In such a world, giving to someone would oblige that person to give to someone else with no morally justifiable end recipient.  Giving would thus cease to be praiseworthy, since it would become a matter of divesting our material guilt onto others and forcing them into a conundrum that has no morally valid resolution.


If Jesus is the son of God then why bother listing his genealogy? Mathew gives the following geneolgoy:

  Abraham Isaac Jacob Judah & Tamar Perez Hezron Ram Amminadab Nahshon
  Salmon & Rahab Boaz & Ruth Obed Jesse David & Bathsheba Solomon &
  Naamah Rehoboam Abijam Asa Jehosaphat Jehoram Uzziah Jotham Ahaz
  Hezekiah Manasseh Amon Josiah Jeconiah Shealtiel Zerubbabel Abiud
  Eliakim Azor Zadok Achim Eliud Eleazar Matthan Jacob Joseph & Mary *
  Jesus

Luke provides this one:

  God Adam Seth Enos Cainan Maleleel Jared Enoch Mathusala Lamech Noe
  Shem Arphaxad Cainan Sala Heber Phalec Ragau Saruch Nachor Thara
  Abraham Isaac Jacob Juda Phares Esrom Aram Aminadab Naasson Salmon
  Booz Obed Jesse David Nathan Mattatha Menan Melea Eliakim Jonam Joseph
  Judah Simeon Levi Matthat Jorim Eliezer Jose Er Elmodam Cosam Addi
  Melchi Neri Salathiel Zorobabel Rhesa Joanna Juda Joseph Semei
  Mattathias Maath Nagge Esli Naum Amos Mattathias Joseph Janna Melchi
  Levi Matthat Heli Joseph Jesus

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy_of_Jesus

Shouldn't it just be God & Mary -> Jesus?

Also, don't all genealogies go through the masculine side? Since Josef the Carpenter is not the father of Jesus what exactly are these genealogies trying to prove?

As Westerners, we live in what is known as a "guilt culture". Accordingly, we lack an understanding of the importance of familial lineage. Most of the Middle-east operates on what is know as an "Honor-Shame culture"

In a lecture before the Biblical Archaeology Society, Anthropologist Dr. Richard Rohrbaugh explains the significance of Geneologies. He explains that this establishes the reputation and credentials for Jesus.  I have transcribed some relevant excepts of this lecture below:

  Now, The Baltic Culture Continent that you and I live in, anthropologist call a “Guilt Culture”. ...the Mediterranean Culture Continent both today and in antiquity is what anthropologists call an “Honor-Shame Culture”.

  ...

  Honor is relatively simple actually to understand. Honor is your standing in the pecking order of the village, together with the public recognition of that.  There is no such thing as claiming honor that the village does not recognize. To claim honor that the village does not recognize is to be uppity; brash; a braggart; a fool. Honor is public reputation in the village and everybody in the village knows exactly where you stand in the pecking order. The reason for that is there are two primary ways in which you can get your honor rating or ranking in a village. ...

  The overwhelming way in which you get your honor rating is from your birth. It's what anthropologist call “ascribed honor.” It's the honor that you get the day you pop out of the womb. It's the honor that you and every member of your extended family has - male and female - everybody in your family has, has always had, and always will have. That kind of Ascribed Honor means that if you are born in a very high family, you have a high honor ranking. If you are born a low-life, you have a low honor ranking and you're probably going to have a till the day you die. So the overwhelming way in which you get your honor is from the family of your birth. Do you now understand why genealogies are so important in the Bible? Genealogies indicate in writing what a village knows orally. Namely, the family you were born in and hence the on a ranking you have.

  ...

  I spent some time living in the little Palestinian village of Beit Jala in the West Bank doing research. My primary area of interest is peasant studies and in living in Beit Jala, I discovered that when I would be introduced to peasants they would often immediately tell me their genealogy. For most peasants it's only three generations long: me, my father, and my grandfather. Maybe my son - Maybe four. Sometimes in an oral setting like that they will go back and add the eponymous ancestors of the community - Abraham Isaac and Jacob.

  ...

  Genealogies are, if you will, a kind of a map for the whole community - describing exactly where in the scheme of things you fit. Among non-literate people (which in antiquity was about ninety-six percent of the population); among non-literate people genealogies would be very short. Only upper class wealthy people have written genealogies. And you understand that the longer the genealogy, the better? Because it means you're from old money not new money. You understand?

  ...What I find interesting is the genealogy in Luke - It goes all the way back to “son of seth, son of Adam, son of God”. That is, it traces it to the beginning. That's the longest genealogy possible. Do you understand that in honor claim is being made? In fact we know from Roman texts that people in the Roman world who did become newly rich and wanted to move up the social ladder hired genealogists to create fictive genealogies for themselves and there were a few stars in the pantheon of Roman ancestors they all wanted to be associated with. For a fee, you could get that association. Now you have the map that tells everybody where you fit in the pecking order of things and that had an enormous impact on your life.

  I’m going to show you some slides in a minute of some ancient text that describe the fact that your honor ranking determine who ate with whom, who could marry whom, who spoke to whom, who listened to whom.  It determined who would speak first in a conversation. It determined who would marry whom and who would do business with whom. In fact it determined most of the social patterns of your life. It's therefore critically important that everybody in the village know exactly where you stand - because it provides the road map for how you and I are going to interact with each other.

  ...

  Jesus comes from a no-account little village. He's a village – a τέκτων (tektón) he is called in the Greek. We translate it carpenter – it could be a worker in metal, stone, or wood. I don't have time today but to show you just how low on the social scale that really is - It's very near the bottom. People like that don't get up and talk in public. So when Jesus does, It confuses everybody. In the Middle-East they expect somebody born of a great family to be great. You're born of a low family you're going to be no-account. What does not compute in their social compass is somebody born to a low-life family who turns out to be great. How do you explain that?

  Well of course what Matthew and Luke do to explain it is they give us these very elaborate birth stories in which they try to tell us that God was somehow unusually involved in this birth. Otherwise there could be no expectation that anybody would listen to Jesus. What do his opponents do in the twentieth chapter of Luke? They say, “Who gives you the authority to speak like this?” Note that they didn't say, “Did you have this authority from your birth?” They know that's not true. “Who gave you this authority?” Their assumption is somebody had to have acquired the honor from somebody who recognized it because all honor has to be publicly recognized.

So, in short, the genealogies are given because 1) they have traditional and cultural significance and indicate great standing and importance and 2) Just as you note, (at least one genealogy) claims Jesus to be the Son of God - it just does it via a more circuitous route in order to lend Jesus the honor ranking implied by all those ancestors who came before Jesus. (the other genealogy links Jesus to the eponymous ancestors of the community which is nearly as significant).

Despite both genealogies of Jesus listing Joseph as the father of Jesus, one of the given genealogies does, in fact, appear to go through Mary's side of the family. In the genealogy of Matthew, Joseph is listed as the son of Jacob while in another he is listed as the son of Heli. The first several generations of the genealogies are radically divergent, so either one is fictitious or one is the genealogy of Joseph while the other is the genealogy of Mary. Presumably, at the time of writing the gospels, children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren of Mary and Joseph were alive at the time of the writing of the gospels and would have known the genealogy of Christ. These records might also be obtained through the Roman census data at various times, so the most probable option is that one of the genealogies belong to Mary.

The translators of the NET point out that the parenthetical remark in the text is meant to indicate that the genealogy might not be Joseph's:

  The parenthetical remark as was supposed makes it clear that Joseph
  was not the biological father of Jesus. But a question still remains
  whose genealogy this is. Mary is nowhere mentioned....

Another reason that this makes complete sense is that Jewish heritage does not come through the masculine side, but instead is a function of the maternal heritage. Wikipedia has an excellent article on Matrilineality in Judaism and in it it, they explain,

  The Mishnah (Kiddushin 3:12) states that, to be a Jew, one must be either the child of a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism

Later, it states

  In the Hellenistic period of the 4th Century BCE – 1st Century CE some evidence may be interpreted to indicate that the offspring of intermarriages between Jewish men and non-Jewish women were considered Jewish

  ...

  Josephus (37 CE – c. 100 CE), in Antiquities of the Jews, refers to marriages between Jewish men and Gentile women without much commentary and seems to assume that the offspring is Jewish;

It is thus not unlikely that one of these genealogies comes through Mary, and both Aquinas and Clement as well as numerous others have shared this view. Even if one of the genealogies is fictitious however, a great honor claim is made nonetheless as Rohrbaugh explained.


Brush the dust from your feet vs cursing a town Is brushing the dust from your feet when you leave an area the same as putting a curse on it?

Jesus said this to his disciples prior to sending them out:

  If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town.  I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town (Matthew 10:14-15)

My NIV Study Bible makes this comment:

  A symbolic act practised by the Pharisees when they left an “unclean” Gentile area.  Here [in Matthew 10:14] it represented an act of solemn warning to those who rejected God’s message.

It seems that the Pharisees had a tradition of shaking the dust off their feet when leaving an unclean place.  There is a similar event recorded in Luke 9:5:

  “If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them.”

My NIV Study Bible makes this comment:

  A sign of repudiation for their rejection of God’s message and a gesture showing separation from everything associated with the place.

Another example is when Paul and Barnabas left Pisidian Antioch.  They shook the dust from their feet in protest against the Jewish community  who had stirred up persecution against them and who expelled them from their region (Acts 13:50-51). My NIV Study Bible makes this comment:

  Paul and Barnabas did this to show the severance of responsibility and the repudiation of those who had rejected their message and had brought suffering to the servants of the Lord.

By rejecting Jesus’ messengers, who proclaimed the nearness of the Kingdom of God, the people of that town were effectively rejecting the gospel message, and so they would have to answer to God for their unbelief. However, Paul and Barnabas did not place a curse on the towns from which they had been forcibly ejected. They came back to continue preaching the gospel, which was received by the Gentiles in those places, and they established churches and appointed elders.