Student Labor

There is an exercise to everything. Everything that has life within it, and everything that needs a spark of life to work, takes exercise. This scheme, concerning the growth and the development of our conversation, is no different. 

We shouldn’t think to breathe without exercising our lungs. We shouldn’t think to write without exercising mental and physical faculties. We shouldn’t think to love without exercising trust. We shouldn’t think to speak without first exercising thought. Yet, when it comes to our conversation’s belief, we do not think to exercise it. 

When it comes to our devotional conversation, it is acceptable to let another exercise it for us. When it comes to our faith’s intellect, it is acceptable to let a ritual handle it. Why is this acceptable? Why does a care for personal learning turn off when perceived belief arises? Why, when in the religious world, is there no heart to say to self, “Why is my liberty judged of another man’s conscience?” 1 Corinthians 10:29

Paul’s attitude is for the conversation desiring self-regulating learning. Paul understood the negligence in handing over the intellect of our faith to minds outside of our experience. In response to ministers seeking to not only rule the mind of other ministers, but also his own, Paul writes:

“But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself,” 1 Corinthians 4:3,4.

Paul gives to us an exercise that is contrary to the exercise given to “the sons of men.” Making fun of “the sons of men,” concerning how they govern themselves, Paul writes, “…ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ,” 1 Corinthians 4:15. He is mocking them because, with so many instructors, he still has to say of them, “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,” 2 Timothy 3:7. 

The curse of “the sons of men” is a curse where they are forever learning and yet never able to understand, concerning the Bible’s philosophy, one bit of truth. Instead of giving one’s time to such a lifestyle, Paul advised minsters to collect their minds and to independently labor within the scriptures for understanding. He writes: 

“And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you,” 1 Thessalonians 4:11. 

There is an exercise given to the conversation that would sincerely claim its experience. That exercise is an experience involving the conversation building a relationship with the Bible’s words. Above suffering the “judgment” or the commandment and theory of ministers, the Bible would have the mind personally active, which is why it says, “He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread,” Proverbs 28:19. 

The “land” to till is the heart of our mind. This is understood from how it says, “Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you,” Hosea 10:12. 

What is to be rained on, according to the Bible, is the mind, meaning that words are to be poured out. This is also understood from how it says, “I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you,” Proverbs 1:23. 

The exercise given to the Bible’s student is an assignment where an outpouring of words is occurring upon the ground of the conversation’s heart. Again, it is understood that the “ground” spoken of is the heart of the mind from how it says, “On the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience,” Luke 8:15.

The previous blog post highlights the most fraudulent and vain experience we can have with the Bible. The lifestyle highlighted is for the mind having a concern not for human and inward wellbeing, but for the theatrics of theologians and philosophers. The mind within the Bible would have its student form a relationship with its words, even a bond wherein its words may become the healing influence within the life. 

The Reality

You’re in a car. You’re in a car that you love. You’re enjoying your drive. Your thoughts are free, you feel one with the road; every journey in this car is the hallmark of your day. But there’s an issue. The car, from under the hood, is making all kinds of violent rattling noises. The car, when it shouldn’t be driven, is driving, and you are ignoring every sign that it needs to be fixed. 

Who would do this? Why would anyone do this? Having a car that is, at any time, clearly about to break down, who would risk further damaging their car, ignoring the fact that it needs to be taken to a shop? 

We have our reasons. One reason could be that we love our car and want to, until it kicks the bucket, get every last moment with it. Another reason could be that we don’t have the money to get it fixed, and are therefore, until the car decides to stop working, forced to carry on. Yet another reason could be that we just don’t care, or that we have too much going on in our life to worry about it. 

This is how we naturally treat our devotional conversation. To us, our conversation is divine. To us, our conversation is naturally entitled. And, when you think about the belief our conversation either adopts or inherits when conceived within the religious world, this is the only condition our conversation can have. Herein a, “Thus saith the living God,” is needed:

“I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream,” Amos 5:21-24. 

Notice that what is quoted is in present tense. That means the voice and the mind that is speaking is not ultimately sectioning out a particular or a specific group of people, but is calling out every group and individual fulfilling the saying, “O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the LORD, and make mention of the God of Israel,” Isaiah 48:1. 

The Bible isn’t a book commending worship and service. The Bible isn’t a book coddling the ego of one’s religious conversation. Once passed the lore of the scriptures and are found beneath its surface, one will understand the Bible to be a book giving counsel, correction, and advice to the personal devotional conversation.  

Our belief is birthed out of the religious world. While birthed out of the religious world, our belief is first conceived, although not by any act of self, within our self, where there is no trace of the philosophy within the religious world. Once we take what is conceived within us and bring it into the religious world, our belief becomes a violent vehicle. Because we are too lazy to either notice or care, or are too attached to what it has become within the religious world, we ignore the fact that our conversation is sick. 

The Bible is a book whose philosophy informs its careful student of the condition of their conversation. It doesn’t matter what we denominate our conversation to be, if we are saying the “God” of Israel is our “God,” then we naturally possess a damaged and a damaging conversation. Maybe we don’t know this, but the Bible is not shy to tell us. 

Why is our conversation damaged and damaging?  Religious theory keeps our spiritual thoughts flesh-based or confined to the “box” of religion and theology. We don’t know it, but this “box” of religion and of theology is the “curse” or “plague” given to the religious world. The book of Ecclesiastes, chapter three and verses ten and eleven make this quite plain, which is why it is so hard to truly hear how and why it says, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven,” Psalm 119:89. 

The philosophy within the Bible is about our conversation’s justification. If something must be justified, or cleansed, or purified, that means its natural or original condition is filthy and broken. The sooner we accept that justification is firstly for the conversation, the sooner we can begin to correctly understand what to spiritually or philosophical revere. 

The Movement

Every movement, organization, or crusade has a mission.

Without a mission, the movement is seemingly put on pause. 

The Bible discusses the movement of the living God’s chief apostle. That “crusade” is understood from how it says, “I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house,” Isaiah 42:6,7. 

The Bible says that this messenger, along with liberating prisoners and healing the blind, is to be given for a covenant of “light.” Is this true? Was the man to become, or to be transformed into a literal covenant? We find our answers by contrasting certain verses:

“Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people,” Isaiah 51:4. 

“For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life,” Proverbs 6:23. 

“…by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many,” Isaiah 53:11. 

“…he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles…the isles shall wait for his law,” Isaiah 42:1-4.

These verses allow us to understand the context behind the Bible alluding to or saying that “one” is given for a covenant. In reality, it is not the man that is to be taken for a covenant, but rather the “law,” the “knowledge,” or the “commandment” that is to come from his mouth. The living God has given no man as a covenant, but rather a specific philosophy from that man. 

The Bible makes a clear separation between that man and that man’s understanding. Our traditional religious or theological culture unlawfully and falsely combines the two, leading us to believe that the man is the understanding and that the understanding is the man. This confusion contributes to a legend that the man is more than a man, even like as it was said of Daniel, “I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee,” Daniel 4:9. 

Why is this present review relevant? Why is it well to separate the fact of the man’s mission from the fiction of the religious tradition emboldening his aura? Why is it important to know the man’a actual movement and to learn how to disassociate the person from the theological theory forced upon that mission? Why does this matter? 

How would you feel if, after you led an intellectual and philosophical movement, your actual cause found itself hidden by an intention given to you by history writers? How would you feel if you, after having died for a cause deeply touching your heart, had your reason for willingly sacrificing yourself turned into something grossly far and contrary from your concern? This is what happened, more than 2000 years ago, to the living God’s chief apostle. 

Mission matters. Fact matters. Reality matters. The man’s actual cause means much to our conversation’s  growth and development. It means much because our devotional experience is to mirror that man’s philosophical and devotional movement. 

This man taught the living God’s “good will.” That “good will” is a commandment or a “law” of devotional wellbeing. We owe it to our conversation’s thoughts and feelings to let it know the experience intended for it. This is why understanding the actual man’s movement matters. This is why he said, “If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death,” John 8:52.