To X and many others on this thread. A gift that could open your eyes.
Every historical period and every era has their own perceptions and prejudices which have been shaped
by their unique social and cultural experiences. Each age and each ethnic group
develops their own set of values from these unique experience.s In this scheme of things,
all values are relative. All values are relative without an established standard. Where will man find a standard to measure moral and ethical values?
An analogy may help. It is like a mechanic, a doctor, a dentist, a body man and a
minister approaching an accident. The doctor will concentrate on the medical aspects,
the dentist on the teeth, the body man on the damage to the car and the minister will
concentrate on the persons salvation. Each will remember the accident in their unique
way. Their memories of the accident will be conditioned by their professions. Although
all the facts about the accident exists, each person is limited in grasping these facts
because of their preconditioning. Each person can only recount what "he has seen".
This is what man faces when he tries to analyze morality, ethical values and historical events
without an accurate universal standard of truth. Without God, man simply lacks an eternal and absolutely accurate
measuring stick to measure things.
This is the state of man without God and the Word of God. Man can only evaluate and
see things according to his social and cultural conditioning.
It is not so with the Word of God. God sees all things. He does not possess a limited
and relativistic knowledge of events and things but an absolute and comprehensive
knowledge of all things. He is both the giver and the keeper of the Universal Standards of Weights and Measures in morals and ethics. This is why the Word of God transcends the prejudices of
historical eras and cultures. It is an eternal measuring stick that never varies because it is
based on absolute truth and reality. It escapes the relativistic prejudices of eras and cultures. The Word of God gives us eternal truths that
transcends all of our cultural and social conditioning. It slices through all historical and
Culutural eras and gives us Eternal truths.
When you compare the historical and social deviations of the ancient Hebrew Cutlure
contained in the OT, you are simply looking at the wrapping paper and not the eternal
precepts contained in the Word. The Word of God is always contained in the wrapping
paper of culture and transmitted through the vehicle of language, but the
spiritual observer-with the aid of the Holy Spirit-- automatically removes these cultural wrapping paper to view the pure Crystal
of eternal truths . The Greek and the Hebrew languages
were the vehicles and the wrapping paper was the Hebrew and Greek cultures.
This principle was clearly evident in Jesus. He spoke His Words while in the rush and
anxiety of life. He spoke the language of Greek and Hebrew and was emersed in the
Hebrew Cutlure, but look at the Words of Eternal Truth that He always spoke. People
were all around Him demanding His attention and distracting His mind, but everyone of
His Words are Eternal Truths that transcend all cultures and historical eras.
His Eteranl Words clearly identify Him as Divine.
It is the same with all the Divinely inspired Word of God. It is Eteranl and True. It
transcends all ages and Cultures and speaks to the essence of truth and the heart of man
today as it did in ancient Hebrew culture.
To prove this principle, isolate yourself in quietness and solitude and try to write one page of words
of eteranl truth--words that will transcend your cultural prejudices and your historical era.
You will find that all of your words are tainted by your previous social and cultural
conditioning. You will soon come to the conclusion that Jesus and the Word of God are
Eternal and not the cultural conditioned precepts that you have implied in your writings.
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