The Word

Here's a summary of the key New Christian teachings about the Word.

What does the Bible say about its own inner meaning? Regardless of whether we prefer a literal or symbolic interpretation, it makes sense to look at how the Bible interprets itself.

Seven times, Jesus says things like, "I am the vine", or "I am the bread of life". What if someone isn't a Christian? What then?

It's common for people to describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious". What do you suppose that means?

Rationality is the ability of the intellect to understand what is true and good (and the opposite, what is false and evil).

“Truth” could be defined as “the expression of love” or maybe as “love expressed.” This can be pretty profound and beautiful.

Basically, statements springing from love of the Lord and love of the neighbor are “truth” and those springing from love of self or love of worldly things are “falsity.”

Divine love wants to work, to flow, to create happiness. How does it do it? Through divine wisdom.

"Endowed by their Creator" - in New Christian thought, with two capabilities: spiritual freedom, and rationality.

The Bible... what to make of it? It's been a huge influence on world culture for two thousand years, and on culture in the Middle East for many hundreds of years before that. How should we read it, and use it, today? It makes sense that a loving God would try to communicate true ideas to us, so that we could consider them in our rational minds, and decide what to do with them.

Human religious history can be seen as having had 5 main phases.

How can truth make something? How can truth sustain something? Imagine if you could mix elements of dreaming and being awake...

As human beings, we get stuck all the time in conflicts between what we want and what we know. We want to eat that extra piece of pie, but we know over-eating is bad for us.....

"The Lord's coming does not consist, as the letter has it, in His appearing once again in the world, but in His presence within everyone." (Arcana Coelestia 3900, Emanuel Swedenborg)

These two Latin words mean “to be” and “to exist”. Swedenborg translators sometimes leave them in Latin, but they have also been translated as “being” and “manifestation”. We can sort of think of esse and existere separately, but they go together.

Divine Love, the actual being and essence of the Lord, is pure spiritual energy, and the fundamental substance of reality.

For the Lord this “mental area” is time and space itself, even reality itself, where love can be constantly channeled into forms that draw us toward heaven.

Could there be reasons for the humble, vulnerable beginnings of Jesus’s life? Let's explore how the Divine design may have been at play from the very beginning of Christ's life.

"The people who walk in darkness" symbolize people who have faith -- they are walking -- but it's a dim faith, without much knowledge of the genuine truths in the Word. And yet, when the Lord is born, they are receptive.

The Old and New Testaments clearly teach that the Lord will come again. In the first advent, He came into the world in His own human form. The prophecies of His second coming are dramatic. What's the New Christian take on them?

The Lord communicates indirectly, in order to give us the freedom to opt in.