SeaAndSky
Senior Registered
Hi John,
You are, indeed, moving into very exciting territory--both for yourself and for those of us who are following you.
From my standpoint, I think too many people are obsessing about the Bible passage in question. "Vengeance is mine" means to leave the whole matter in the hands of God--to work out as God wills. It moves on to speak of doing good to your enemies instead--which is self-explanatory. The observation that this will heap coals of fire on their head is obviously not meant literally (how would this have anything to do with doing good to them?). In my experience, this is always seen as figurative language, typically for making the folks who have injured you reconsider what/why they are doing what they do and hopefully become ashamed of themselves, and even more hopefully bringing them to repent of their treatment of the injured party.
There also seems to be a lot of "over-thinking" of the idea expressed in "Vengeance is mine"--which basically means to set aside your own idea of how to deal with the situation and give up the idea of proper response to God. It goes without saying that God's idea of what to do is not necessarily the same as ours. From what I can tell from various case reports, the idea of individual "karma" as a mechanical, mathematical balancing act is invalid. It appears that this is a system that works, and is applied by an administrative apparatus, to do whatever is necessarily to convince the individual wrong-doer of the wrong and make sure it is not repeated; it appears to be far more of a system for education than a tit-for-tat system of retribution (i.e., "soft karma" rather than "hard karma"). I do not know how it works on a societal (corporate) basis, but it may be more harsh (hard karma) there. In either case, God's idea of how to handle these situations is clearly far different from our often more emotional response. (BTW--I was interested to hear that "Let go and let God" was now "New Age"--this is an expression that--to the best of my recall--goes back many decades among Christians).
Anyhow, I'm not as interested in these matters as I am in others, particularly the religious balance and accommodation you seem to be striking between Christianity and Egyptian Gods, including seeking to harmonize various ideas of an impending "judgment" and aftermath, and working with both Bible passages and your individual (or source shared) insights/ideas.
Cordially,
S&S
You are, indeed, moving into very exciting territory--both for yourself and for those of us who are following you.
From my standpoint, I think too many people are obsessing about the Bible passage in question. "Vengeance is mine" means to leave the whole matter in the hands of God--to work out as God wills. It moves on to speak of doing good to your enemies instead--which is self-explanatory. The observation that this will heap coals of fire on their head is obviously not meant literally (how would this have anything to do with doing good to them?). In my experience, this is always seen as figurative language, typically for making the folks who have injured you reconsider what/why they are doing what they do and hopefully become ashamed of themselves, and even more hopefully bringing them to repent of their treatment of the injured party.
There also seems to be a lot of "over-thinking" of the idea expressed in "Vengeance is mine"--which basically means to set aside your own idea of how to deal with the situation and give up the idea of proper response to God. It goes without saying that God's idea of what to do is not necessarily the same as ours. From what I can tell from various case reports, the idea of individual "karma" as a mechanical, mathematical balancing act is invalid. It appears that this is a system that works, and is applied by an administrative apparatus, to do whatever is necessarily to convince the individual wrong-doer of the wrong and make sure it is not repeated; it appears to be far more of a system for education than a tit-for-tat system of retribution (i.e., "soft karma" rather than "hard karma"). I do not know how it works on a societal (corporate) basis, but it may be more harsh (hard karma) there. In either case, God's idea of how to handle these situations is clearly far different from our often more emotional response. (BTW--I was interested to hear that "Let go and let God" was now "New Age"--this is an expression that--to the best of my recall--goes back many decades among Christians).
Anyhow, I'm not as interested in these matters as I am in others, particularly the religious balance and accommodation you seem to be striking between Christianity and Egyptian Gods, including seeking to harmonize various ideas of an impending "judgment" and aftermath, and working with both Bible passages and your individual (or source shared) insights/ideas.
Cordially,
S&S