Jim,
I don't have enough knowledge at this point to mess with you nor would I do so intentionally, but thanks for the vote of confidence anyway. I assume your yes means yes ;)
Here's where I struggle... Every "conventional" explanation of 1 Tim 4:10 just never made sense to me. I know it is focusing too much on one passage, but it just strikes a chord for some reason. That is one, but there are others.
I read some of Yada's insights on one of the most recently released chapters about, the Spirit / Leviticus, where it is usually translated to a "burning sacrifice" with food or something like that, but Yada was focusing on the "rising up" piece instead. That is, the Spirit is what allows us to rise up, etc. I never saw that insight before Yada spent a whole heap of time on it.
I started really getting into this stuff about 2 or 3 years ago is all. I remember reading along beginning to end and thinking, man, this God is evil... until I came to Jeremiah 31. It was almost like the punch line to one heck of a lot of pain, that in the end would be for something good.
I think about those of us with some sort of innate calling or who were put into circumstances to allow us to fall before we could get up. I mean, really, I had not a whole lot of choice in whatever Spirit I may have found or think I found in this calling or whatever you want to call it. It is some sort of "instinctual" feeling that there is a God and he loves or something like that and we're to reach out to people and share. I ask my wife about it and she recalls never feeling something like that... at all. I know different people have different levels of this just from talking to different people. Almost like one person being born attractive and another smart.
So it makes me wonder if this whole thing, that is, the entire human situation, is some sort of training ground for the next life, and that those who are called have some sort of special responsibility, with what we were given, not what we chose. Now I imagine there are opportunities for us to choose on a smaller scale like Moses and his rock fiasco, but it seems like His plans are going to move forward anyway even if we mess up His plans.
Then I read in Jeremiah 31 about him basically having to tear down before he can restore - in essence, one monster of a spanking. Then I think about my own children.. I can't think of anything they could do that I would no longer love them and given enough time could repair whatever damage had been done. Then it makes me wonder? Is love really a choice then? I know in some situations it is, like as it applies to someone you may not know that well or an enemy, but it just doesn't seem that way to me. It just seems like sometimes .. it just is. I can't choose not to love my children.. I just can't, but I assure you, they will be disciplined or they ever really got out of hand get to sit in prison for awhile if they did something really awful.
Then I think of passages where Paul says something to the effect that there was no excuse for not knowing about God, because things as they are evident in nature itself. There is Psalm that talks about this as well if I recall correctly.
Then I read about how the whole burning in hell thing came into play historically and some of the earlier views on the subject. What was Paul so happy about? What was it?
Then the teachings about love your enemy, pray for them, then the stuff about forgive 70 times 70 or however many it was, then the stuff that Paul wrote about (I can't remember where as usual) about them being made blind for our sake and then us being made blind for their sake, etc. The other stuff about the whole lump in reference to the first fruits somehwere in Paul's letters.
Then I think about the different harvests connected with the feasts.. barley, wheat, and corn/winNot sure what to do with the corn, but anyway barley comes early, then wheat, then grapes and corn. Grapes must be tread under foot to make wine, the wheat needs to be laid in the "threshing floor" if I remember correctly, so not quite as bad as being tread under foot, then you have barley, which is a bit more resistant to cold, yet is the first harvest.
Then you have every 7 years all debts were to be forgiven, etc. etc.
So yes knowledge is good and teaches us how we were supposed to be, but then how would we have ever learned the value of anything good without having experienced some bad? gh
Now I know you could probably put all of these questions in an intellectual / scriptural half-nelson in a heartbeat, but I still think something is missing from all of this. There may indeed be tares in this world planted by an enemy for our sake, but if in divine judgment it was designed to teach, not to just punish, is it that hard to imagine that this lake of fire could be something along those lines, particularly when there are good uses for sulfur, and the root does seem to come from theon or however you spell that?
I guess the question is, what is being exterminated in the lake of fire? Sin or the soul? I'm just not convinced enough to be dogmatic about it being the soul at this point. Enter through the narrow gate - few will find it. Is it possible that the narrow gate is for those given the "calling" and who actually followed it, but the rest of us have to be torn down or even destroyed before we can rise up?
The passages you quote below focus on S&G being burned to the ground, but then I read in Ezek 16, where it seems like it is almost like a husband restoring his adulterous wife or parent restoring an errant child, etc. etc. Ever noticed how a field grows grass really really fast after being burnt to the ground? Of course, It doesn't grow back so fast once salt and brimstone is placed on it though. What is meant by portion, and what is meant by cup?
I think about how could I have possibly remotely understood Hosea or Song of Solomon without having almost lost my own wife. Though it was painful to have gone through that, in the end I would do it all over again to have learned so much. One heck of a cup to drink out of, but it changed my whole life. If it had never happened, we both would have probably been a typical miserably married couple.
I know this was quite a bit of rambling, but these are the things that have been puzzling me. Do you get the gist, though I may not be on the money with the finer aspects of Hebrew?
You've listed 7 times where that particular word is associated with something bad, but what I'm not seeing is the other side to the equation. I hope you understand more why I'm puzzled.
