It should be every Christian’s mission not only to evangelize, but also distill their faith. The most effective heart image of this would, internally, likely look like the lost Quelle.
The sacrament has to be done a specific way in a specific setting and circumstance:
1 Corinthians 11:27–29 -“So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.”
Importance of praying and worshiping together:
Hebrews 10:24–25 –“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Acts 2:42, 46–47 – Early believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer… every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together… and the Lord added to their number daily.”
The Church as One Body:
Matthew 18:20 – “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
Colossians 3:16 – “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.”
Ephesians 5:19–21 – “…speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks… Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Acts 20:7 – “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people…”
1 Corinthians 16:1–2 – Paul assumes they meet weekly: “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income…”
Canon Q’s
I have compiled below some questions regarding the formation of the canon among other reformed teachings. I’ve recently come across information that has inflicted inoperable trauma on the state of my faith in my current denomination. Humbly, I am reminded of Jonah, swallowed up by a truth much bigger than he was while trying his best to ignore it. Force is never the way of the Lord. I can no longer continue to numb myself from these undeniable, foundational facts of our Faith.
I’m unwittingly being pulled away from reformed teachings while drawn towards orthodox, even some catholic ideas; some of which you might agree are central (not for salvation but right theology). Albeit, by grace, through my protestant training over the past two years, the heavy idolatry and other heresies within catholic and even orthodox traditions failed to enchant me as I’ve been exposed to those ‘organs’ in recent months. I admit that I have fallen, though, for near objective historical accounts (some I would call undeniable) and for what I pray for deep discernment in and wholly believe was a righteously revealed surgical understanding of scripture.
The first and most pressing question, in terms of its implications, is what drove the reformation fathers, in compiling the Canon, to side with the Israelite priesthoods responsible for the murder of our Lord? Were they not aware that the early church had already been using additional books (as included in the Septuagint) precisely because these apocrypha supported and prophesied Jesus as the Hebrew messiah? These books were rejected by the Hebrew priests compiling the Tanakh all the way up to ~200 A.D. Were you to be in charge of forming the Canon, and hence inevitably translating it into latin and other languages, would you use the Torah scriptures from Jews that lived 200 years after the resurrection or 200 years before? If you ask me, I would think that since especially The Lord but also his apostles and their disciples in the greek explosion of the early faith read, applied, and profusely ministered using the Septuagint (as in almost every single O.T. quote in the N.T.) it is what we as Christians should use today. Even the original KJV included Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom of Solomon, two Apocryphal books also included in the Orthodox Canon. This is all with respect to the Apocrypha, but as for the modern-day Qumran Deuterocanon I am indifferent and would rather not even study or discuss, (which I’m sure is an attitude you share) as God never willed for us to have them until now, so they are certainly irrelevant to the church and strictly of historical interest if not purely fictional.
To me and I’m sure many others uninformed, it seems as though the reformation fathers were led by a genre of disdain, contempt, or even bitter pain towards the numerous early church saints, who on undeniable record from apostolic times unto today have exemplified their arduous works of repentance; thereby sharing in Christ’s passion through suffering. Their stories are only known today by virtue of their consequent strong sanctification; not only applied but enlivened by the widespread miraculous signs and services The Lord was able to work through them in order to accomplish, whether in worship or martyrdom.
Another pressing spiritual inquiry of mine that strongly attracts me to Orthodox teachings is the Filioque doctrine. In my limited, unlearned perspective, there need be a directionality within the Trinity Godhead. The Son does not beget the Father, so it only makes sense that he is not the creator of anything, including the Holy Spirit. In fact, it is said that the Word/Son existed prior to creation, and that it was through Him that everything was made. This affirms that The Son was unbegotten of creation, but it does little to illumine the nature and source of the Holy Spirit. Examining the grammar, the formula for prayer we get from Scripture seems to be To the Father, Through the Son, By the Power of the Spirit. This would mean that upon the first utterance “Let there be light” The Word became a living Word as Light, and through His Only Begotten Body everything was made.
So inevitably we have an absolute Source (The Father), and an absolute substance (The Son).. Inferring that no substance can exit its source or enter any sink without motion, then the very act of The Father willing the Son to move (in the many seemingly different energetic forms and patterns the universe works under) is the cause of the emergence of the Holy Spirit. As in how a pond shows no ripples unless a stone is cast through its surface. The Pond would be akin to the Spirit, who is omnipresent in potentiality/stasis and only visibly manifests as a dispensation from The Father in Creation; a process that we established is entirely contingent on the motion of the Son.
The Infinite Hotel
Many modern-day Christians, whether Reformed, Catholic, or Orthodox pray to Jesus directly. There is nothing gravely wrong with this, for God knows their hearts and would not judge them for such an innocent mistake. This is not to say that we should not want a closer relationship with God and that He wouldn’t welcome a more intimate relationship with His children. Would you consider someone a friend if they only seek you in their lowest times, whether depressed about things of the world, anxious of the future, or even if strictly ecstatic and charismatic because of something you just gave them or did for them.
You would more quickly label them an enemy, or in the least someone who should not be fully trusted. Although it often ought to be, this is not exactly the case with our Father. He of course loves full immersion and unity with his Children, yet if any sheep are led astray by their own careless action or subconscious inaction into workings of the Mind; getting lost in reason and forgetting the bliss of true contemplation, He will still meet them where they are at.
He will continue to put up several doors at every decisive moment in one’s life, expecting them to exit one and enter another further down the ‘hall’. In certain cases, as when the human soul is not able to contain His superconscious, He may allow it to go backwards, entering a previous door once more only to find, unsurprisingly, that it leads nowhere. For the ultimate goal of the soul is to exit this somber, endless hall.
The only thing holding it back is the curiosity that, within some room far ahead, in the fancy reaches of this grand hall of life, there is something of substance. This is however impossible, for he who thinks he has found a room worthwhile, not only enters it and does not immediately leave, but in some cases cannot leave until he has turned it upside down and completely destroyed it looking for that which it is missing, but by then it is too late, and he is left with a messy room whose broken contents no longer fit together. He dares not open the door and expose to housekeeping the atrocity he has committed.
Left with the only option, he jumps out of the window and maims himself, then is taken to the hospital. After which he may re-enter the hotel and must continue searching for a room from the start of the hallway. It is only in rare moments throughout history where a special guest in God’s great hotel of The World enters it and, merely peeking inside every room, holds himself from entering any. Each time he is promptly faced with something about the room that displeases him; the curtains, bedding, etc. After endlessly browsing every room, even if tempted a few times to enter and fall into some of the adorned penthouse suites, this special guest finds himself on the rooftop, wherefrom he remembers each room, its color, fragrance, beauty, and yet also every imperfection within it. He realizes the hotel could keep him entertained for the rest of his years, but that when it came to an end, he would again surely end up in the hospital. He instead, being an honored guest, decides to jump off the hotel and commit suicide. The hotel staff, devastated, builds an executive suite after him, for all who have wondered the hotel without finding a perfect room. This suite is flawless in every way, and all who came after him can find rest in it and live in peace and bliss for the rest of their life, all in a room named after him.
Filioque
If the Holy Spirit eternally equally proceeds from the Father as from the Son, its own Person and even Divinity is arguably diminished.
However, even within the Trinity itself, at its core, there seems to be some form of directionality. The Father begat the Son, not the other way around.
The Holy Spirit comes from the Father, through the Son.
It is the true power of the Father as in Energy, which is still, absolute, timeless, and pure potential within the Father, is differentiated into light by no other mechanism than through the Son; the Substance and single body of all creation predating the entirety of same; The Word.
One can think of it from a bottom to top approach. If we are to pray, we must pray to the Father, through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the original way to pray.
Mirrored into a top-down angle, this formula yields that The Father is the Source of all things, The Son is the Substance of all things, and the Holy Spirit is the result of this Substance existing in motion in the world of time, where it constantly exists and enters its Source.
Universal Logic
There are three dimensions; left and right (x), up and down (y), and back and forth (z).
These three dimensions exist in the world of time.
The fourth dimension is Timelessness.
Timelessness exists in Oneness with The All; all that is.
All that is, is in motion, yet contains within it Stillness as its substance.
All that exists, in order to support its own existence in time, needs a Substance; a Body.
All Substance has a Source from which it came, this Source can be traced back indefinitely.
Neither a Source nor a Substance can exist without Motion.
Motion of The One Substance out of and into The One Source comprises The All.
This Motion is the Life-Force; a Spirit of sustenance for both organic and inorganic bodies.
It is called the Holy Spirit because it flows through the very central hole or null-point/still-point of every atom comprising every living being and non-living physical body.
The Holy Spirit pours forth from the Father, and as it exists the Sun it is carried by the Only Begotten particle, the very Substance of his Image; of attributes Good, One, Still, Eternal.
The Atom, His emanation, expands from Hydrogen into all known and yet to be discovered elemental forms. All are but as layers of an onion.
All are the same substance; Spirit, enlivening into Matter and Form from a Formless Pattern.
This Formlessness, Stillness, Oneness, The Absolute, is called Our Heavenly Father.
By the act of His Son, He both expanded into existence and married the universe.
That is why it is called the world of time, for He that is Eternal exists as equally present on the very outside, as so on the very inside of everything and every thing that is, respectively.
The eternal Substance of Jesus existed before His human life, walk, and work.
His Divine Pattern predated the Creation of the Universe, it is what is called the Logos or Word.
The Divine Pattern for all Humanity exists as One within the Logos in Stillness. Upon His initial utterance; the first action, through motion, the Still Light of the Father differentiated/adapted according to and alongside the patterned creation of the physical world of matter, first by being cast down and taking on a carnal body, then by dying and suffering on the cross for the whole of Humanity, thereby justifying it’s existence and cursed state brought upon itself by itself, and consequently redeeming, sanctifying, and glorifying that Body through perfectly embodying a Timeless existence every second of His life in the world of time.
The Father’s Only Son not only broke the chain of duration for himself, as in him doing so he justified, redeemed, sanctified, and glorified all humanity into infinity and beyond.
There are Twelve original human archetypes, some living humans today contain only a fraction of these original, perfect beings.
These twelve came from Two original archetypes;
Male and Female.
Which came from One original truly androgynous Being.
There is no cold, nor darkness, nor quiet, nor stillness.
There is only heat, light, sound, and motion.
All that exists is a product of the Great Mind of the Heavenly Father through the Action of His Only Son by the Power of His Holy Spirit.
From His stillness shines upward and outward unto all Creation Love, Life, and Growth.
The Father is not strictly the Stillness as the Son is not strictly the Word.
The entirety of the Father is unreachable, but the beginnings of His Patterned Generation from His Absolute Still Source are plainly seen by His Creation.
All expressions of energy rely on Motion.
There are five types of motion, two of which are wave-motion.
Motion exists as three different simple forms and two different wave forms
The complex motion of any physical object through the world of time can be classified into one or more of the three different simple forms; linear, circular, and spin.
All complex wave forms of motion are not motion of any object itself, but rather an expression of energy transferred through what ranges from a small to an incalculable number of physical objects, either in longitudinal or transverse fashion, sometimes both.
The longitudinal wave form is a repeating motion, as with gaseous atoms transferring sound.
The transverse wave form is a reciprocating motion.
Matter has no real strength lest for that imbued through it by The Holy Spirit.
THE VITAL TRUTH 