By J.R. EngeriserIn times of terror and war, it might be nice to reflect back on the Gospels of Jesus for a little wisdom. He, undeniably, was an extremely bright individual and had great ideas. Non-Zionists, stay with me on this. Over the next little while I will be revisiting the Gospels and throwing out an occasional post that might even shake the hypocrisy out of a Bushite. The current administration here in “God’s country” isn't very
WWJD. The Jesus people have stopped listening to their own guy.
As a mood setter, Jesus Flash #1 comes from Mark 2:23-28, where Jesus talks to the Pharisees. Pharisees were the religious leaders of Jesus’ time. They used the people’s respect for scripture to control and swindle.
Jesus slammed the Pharisees whenever he had a chance.
[23] One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain.
[24] And the Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?"
[25] And he said to them, "Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him:
[26] how he entered the house of God, when Abi'athar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?"
[27] And he said to them, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath;
[28] so the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath."Sometimes you have to break the rules. After all, the rules are made for us, not us for the rules. Notice that David stole bread, not just any bread, but holy bread, because he and his associates were in need. And, it was okay by Jesus. Starving yourself for the sake of following rules did not make sense to Jesus, because at that point the rules would no longer serve, but hinder.
Jesus questioned authority and rules. How else were things going to change? Not by sitting idle. He rebelled and started a revolution.
In the 1930’s, a man named Joseph Rutherford, the leader of the Jehovah’s Witness movement at that time, declared, “Religion is a snare and a racket!” His followers would walk up and down the streets with placards around their necks advertising this slogan. He said "Religion is the worship and service of the Devil and his associate demons .... Religion is the chief means that puts fear into the minds of the people and leads them into the Devil's snare .... Truly then, as stated, 'religion is a snare and a racket,' employed to collect money from them under false representations."
Problem was, Rutherford, while saying these words, was starting a religion. It went downhill from there. But, he set out with the right idea. When religion does bad things to us, like start wars, break up families, or exploit our trust, it’s time to put the people running the show in the same category as the Pharisees. Jesus said
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." -Matthew 23:27
For the love of Jehoshaphat I am so sick of hearing about Google's Gmail and not having an account. You see, I've visited ZDNet where they have Esther Dyson practically peeing her pants about it every five minutes. I've seen dozens of news articles, reviews, and screenshots. I've checked eBay where you can actually buy an invitation, which I considered doing until the bids went up to over 70 freakin' dollars per invite. I have checked my Blogger dashboard again and again because we who are regular users are supposed to get invited. I have expressed my interest in an account by filling out the form on Google. Hell, I even joined Orkut and participated in a Gmail survey. Do you think that any of this has gotten me closer to getting an account?
