解説

 

The Big Ideas

作者: New Christian Bible Study Staff

A girl gazes into a lighted globe, showing the solar system.

Here we are in the 21st century. We know that the universe is an enormous place. We're just bursting with scientific knowledge. But how are we doing with the even-bigger ideas? Our human societies seem to be erasing them, or ignoring them - maybe we think we're too busy for them.

Here on the New Christian Bible Study site, we'll buck the trend. We want to explore the big ideas that give us a framework for living better lives. Here's a start on a list of big ideas from a New Christian perspective. For each idea, there is a footnote that lists some references in Swedenborg's theological works:

1. God exists. Just one God, who created and sustains the entire universe in all its dimensions, spiritual and physical. 1

2. God's essence is love itself. It's the force that drives everything. 2

3. God's essence comes into being, that is, it exists, in and through creation. 3

4. There are levels, or degrees, of creation - ranging from spiritual ones that we can't detect with our physical senses or sensors, to the level of the physical universe where most of our awareness is when we're alive here. 4

5. The created universe emanates from God, and it's sustained by God, but in an important way it is separate from God. He wants it to be separate, so that freedom can exist. 5

6. God operates from love through wisdom - willing good things, and understanding how to bring them about. 6

7. The physical level of creation exists to provide human beings with an opportunity to choose in freedom, with rationality, whether or not to acknowledge and cooperate with God. 7

8. God provides all people everywhere, regardless of their religion, the freedom to choose to live a life of love to God and to the neighbor. 8

9. God loves everyone. He knows that true happiness only comes when we're unselfish; when we're truly motivated by a love of the Lord which is grounded out in a love of the neighbor. He seeks to lead everyone, but will not force us to follow against our will. 9

10. God doesn't judge us. He tells us what's good, and what's evil, and flows into our minds to lead us towards good. However, we're free to reject his leading, and instead opt to love ourselves most. Day by day, we create habits of generosity or of selfishness, and live out a life in accordance with those habits. Those habits become the real "us", our ruling love. 10

11. Our physical bodies die eventually, but the spiritual part of our minds keeps going. It's been operating on a spiritual plane already, but our awareness shifts - so that we become fully aware of spiritual reality. 11

脚注:

スウェーデンボルグの著作から

 

Divine Love and Wisdom#16

この節の研究

  
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16. It therefore stands to reason that God is a person and in this way is God manifest--not manifest from himself, but manifest in himself. The one who is manifest in himself is the God who is the source of all.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.

聖書

 

Mark 15

勉強

   

1 Immediately in the morning the chief priests, with the elders and scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him up to Pilate.

2 Pilate asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" He answered, "So you say."

3 The chief priests accused him of many things.

4 Pilate again asked him, "Have you no answer? See how many things they testify against you!"

5 But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate marveled.

6 Now at the feast he used to release to them one prisoner, whom they asked of him.

7 There was one called Barabbas, bound with those who had made insurrection, men who in the insurrection had committed murder.

8 The multitude, crying aloud, began to ask him to do as he always did for them.

9 Pilate answered them, saying, "Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?"

10 For he perceived that for envy the chief priests had delivered him up.

11 But the chief priests stirred up the multitude, that he should release Barabbas to them instead.

12 Pilate again asked them, "What then should I do to him whom you call the King of the Jews?"

13 They cried out again, "Crucify him!"

14 Pilate said to them, "Why, what evil has he done?" But they cried out exceedingly, "Crucify him!"

15 Pilate, wishing to please the multitude, released Barabbas to them, and handed over Jesus, when he had flogged him, to be crucified.

16 The soldiers led him away within the court, which is the Praetorium; and they called together the whole cohort.

17 They clothed him with purple, and weaving a crown of thorns, they put it on him.

18 They began to salute him, "Hail, King of the Jews!"

19 They struck his head with a reed, and spat on him, and bowing their knees, did homage to him.

20 When they had mocked him, they took the purple off of him, and put his own garments on him. They led him out to crucify him.

21 They compelled one passing by, coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to go with them, that he might bear his cross.

22 They brought him to the place called Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, "The place of a skull."

23 They offered him wine mixed with myrrh to drink, but he didn't take it.

24 Crucifying him, they parted his garments among them, casting lots on them, what each should take.

25 It was the third hour, and they crucified him.

26 The superscription of his accusation was written over him, "THE KING OF THE JEWS."

27 With him they crucified two robbers; one on his right hand, and one on his left.

28 The Scripture was fulfilled, which says, "He was numbered with transgressors."

29 Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Ha! You who destroy the temple, and build it in three days,

30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!"

31 Likewise, also the chief priests mocking among themselves with the scribes said, "He saved others. He can't save himself.

32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe him." Those who were crucified with him insulted him.

33 When the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

34 At the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which is, being interpreted, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

35 Some of those who stood by, when they heard it, said, "Behold, he is calling Elijah."

36 One ran, and filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Let him be. Let's see whether Elijah comes to take him down."

37 Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and gave up the spirit.

38 The veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom.

39 When the centurion, who stood by opposite him, saw that he cried out like this and breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"

40 There were also women watching from afar, among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;

41 who, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and served him; and many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem.

42 When evening had now come, because it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath,

43 Joseph of Arimathaea, a prominent council member who also himself was looking for the Kingdom of God, came. He boldly went in to Pilate, and asked for Jesus' body.

44 Pilate marveled if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead long.

45 When he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph.

46 He bought a linen cloth, and taking him down, wound him in the linen cloth, and laid him in a tomb which had been cut out of a rock. He rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.

47 Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joses, saw where he was laid.