#christianit

[neolithicdesigner]

The Prayer Book of Bonne de Luxembourg, Duchess of Normandy

[source: The Met]

"This association of Christ’s side wound with female reproductive organs has connections with mystical writings that eroticised the body of Christ and that emphasised its nurturing and generative qualities. [...] In mystical writings, Christ’s body often takes on feminine qualities, becoming permeable, generative, and nourishing."

[source: "Mysticism and queer readings of Christ’s Side Wound..."]

[gramarobin]

[hiskingdomprophecy]

Overcoming Demonic Influences on Our Lives ~ by Shelly-Ann Powell

Demonic influence is designed to oppose truth, justice, holiness and purity.

Overcoming Demonic Influences on Our Lives  ~~~  Posted on September 11, 2018 by Shelly-Ann Powell

[wayfordailylife]

Christianity is following Jesus’s teachings - Way for Daily Life

Christianity is about following Jesus’s teachings. The problem is most people turn the idea of “following Jesus” into “following rules”—and that’s not the point.

[mutters-of-dissevering-power]

A Great High Priest

This poem is based on Hebrews 4:14-5:6. If it is helpful you may listen to me read the poem via the player below. https://audioboom.com/posts/6508669-a-great-high-priest There is nothing he has not gone through Traversed the birth canal from mother’s womb Gestating forty weeks, he broke into His creation, lived life unto, dying, tomb. There is nothing he has not gone through. There is no distance…

View On WordPress

[barryb64]

How To Deal With Negativity on YouTube

Pls read "How To Deal With Negativity on YouTube"

Welcome to my first official installment of Tech Talk.  My goal is to provide social commentary and insights for navigating the Internet.  As I write more articles for this category, Tech Talk may be changed into a more suitable name. What comes to mind, when it comes to the Internet? Does it seem like you need to be a technology wizard?  This is not necessarily true.  Modern technology can…

View On WordPress

[jacobbalint]

Breakfast on a beach.

At the end of the gospel of John there’s this scene on a beach where Jesus cooks the disciples breakfast. After they had polished off the last of the hashbrowns and egg mcmuffins, Jesus pulls Peter aside to have a little chat. With coffee in hand Peter breaks away from the crowd, nervous of the conversation Jesus wants to have, but knowing it necessary.

If you’ll remember the last time they were together, Jesus told Peter he was going to deny him three times, and Peter did just that. I imagine a sort of awkward tension and casual conversation over breakfast. Peter knowing he had denied Jesus, and Jesus waiting to reconcile the unfortunate events that he had predicted. As Jesus pulls Peter aside I wonder if Peter was expecting a rebuke, or an “I told you so. You disappoint me.”

Instead Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?”

“Yes Lord, You know that I love you”, Peter answers with head hung low.

"Feed my lambs” Jesus responds.

Again Jesus asks, “Do you love me?”

And again Peter replies “Yes Lord.” Peter lifting his eyes to make contact with Jesus’s eyes.

“Tend my sheep”, said Jesus.

He goes on to ask him a third time the same question. When Peter, a little frustrated, says he does, Jesus again tells him to “Feed my sheep”.

Peter was a man of many words, passions, and energy. He was the first one to stand up and proclaim, “You’re the Messiah!” He was the only one who dared step out on the water and try to walk on it like Jesus. Peter once tried to kill a guy in the garden when they came to capture Jesus. He swung his sword, missed, and cut a guy's ear off. Than he was the one who said, “I will lay down my life for you”, just hours before denying he ever knew him. In some ways Peter probably felt like a failure. He had tried so hard in so many ways to say and do the right things but always seemed to fall short. One of the main things Jesus was doing here was restoring that relationship. Peter denied Jesus three times, three times Jesus gives him the opportunity to say, “Yes Lord I love you.” To the same extent that Peter failed, Jesus restored.

Now I need to do a drive by on the meaning behind the lambs and the sheep. That is another topic for another day but just to clarify it has nothing to do with herding sheep. Basically it has to do with serving others. What I see when I read this story is Jesus moving Peter from one way of understanding to another. I read it something like this.

“Do you love me?... Do something.”

“Do you love me?... Take action.”

“Do you love me?... Okay cool, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Jesus seems to be moving Peter from one way of talking-trying-following, into a new way of doing-trying-following.

To wrap-up the conversation on the beach a few verses later Jesus tells Peter, “follow me.” Three years prior, probably along the same shores Jesus calls his first disciples. The scene is similar. Jesus approaches Peter and his friends who are fishing on the lake and says, “follow me.” This “follow me” was a physical “follow me.” They were leaving their home, work and family to follow this Rabbi and learn from him on a day to day basis.

The second “follow me” at the end of John is a little more ambiguous. This was not a physical- “come with me as we go into out into the land and do miracles and learn what I do”- type of “follow me.” Jesus is not going to be there anymore, he’s about to go to heaven and leave them to continue the work he had started. Jesus is calling Peter into something new, deeper, and that which requires more faith. It’s a type of “follow me” that is about action, and doing, and putting words into practice.

In the same way Jesus moves Peter into something new I believe Jesus has been calling me to do the same thing. For most of my life I have talked a big game and studied hard to get my theology right, without much action. I’ve been more interested with “the best way to do church”, or, “what is the literal meaning of Revelation” type stuff. I sense a new chapter. One that transitions learning from knowledge, to learning by doing.

In the Jewish culture they say that you don’t know something until you’ve done it. In our culture we gain knowledge through understanding, and consider it known. I spend a lot of time thinking on God, but have a hard time getting out of my head to see opportunities right in front of me. I read a lot of theology books, but putting those ideas into action requires so much more. I talk a lot about love, but I rarely love.

For Peter, it probably would have been easy to spend out his days with his boys fishing on the boat. Passing the time by debating the teachings of Jesus and discussing how his life impacted them. He could have written books on theology or maybe even retired to teach others the things he learned from Jesus. But he hadn’t yet done anything Jesus taught him. He hadn’t yet “known” the teachings as the Jews would say.

Jesus told his disciples that they would do greater things than him. He said over and over that they had the same exact authority and power that he had. So Peter stepped out. He tapped into that authority and way of life that Jesus had taught him. Peter left the temptation to sit back and be the guy in the bar talking about the good ol days when he and his friends used to run around Israel doing crazy things with a Rabbi named Jesus. As foreign and scary this new way of following Jesus was going to be, he did it. He put beliefs into action and the story of Peter continues. In Acts we see that Peter goes on healing, preaching, starting churches, and living a life of adventure.

So this “follow me,” this move from words into action, is scary. It’s unknown. It doesn’t have all it's beliefs in order. It doesn’t have Jesus physically by it's side providing an example. It is us jumping out of our safety nets into the unknown. It is trying and learning and trying again. It is acting now, and learning as you go. It is faith.