Estudo Bíblico do Novo Cristianismo

Comentário

 

The Big Ideas

Por 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

Notas de rodapé:

1. Divine Love and Wisdom 4, 15, 16, 23, 301, Divine Providence 46, True Christian Religion 11, 19.

2. Divine Love and Wisdom 4, 29, 30, Apocalypse Explained 297, Heaven and Hell 13, 545.

3. Divine Love and Wisdom 31, 32, 57, 59, 84, 169-171, 329, 330, Divine Providence 3, 27.

4. Divine Love and Wisdom 65, 179, 180, 213, 230, 363.

5. Divine Love and Wisdom 44, 45, 55.

6. Divine Love and Wisdom 42, 43, 52, 154, Divine Providence 3, 5.

7. Divine Providence 27, 71, 72, 75, 129, True Christian Religion 459, 490.

8. Divine Providence 145, 322, 324, 325, 328, Apocalypse Explained 986, Heaven and Hell 522, True Christian Religion 457.

9. Divine Providence 67, 322, 333, 334, Heaven and Hell 312, 319, 324.

10. Apocalypse Explained 986, Heaven and Hell 479, 481, 525, 598. The True Christian Religion 795.

11. Arcana Coelestia 168, 1854, 3016, 5078, 6008, 8939, Heaven and Hell 445, 461, 493, 498, Divine Love and Wisdom 90, Last Judgment 25.

Das Obras de Swedenborg

 

True Christianity # 458

Estudar Esta Passagem

  
/ 853  
  

458. These points clarify where the connection between loving God and loving our neighbor comes from and what it is like: God's love for people flows into us; when we receive that love and cooperate with it, it becomes love for our neighbor.

Briefly put, the connection accords with the following saying of the Lord's:

On that day you will recognize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you. (John 14:20)

And this saying:

The people who love me are those who have my commandments and do them. I will love these people, manifest myself to them, and make a home with them. (John 14:21-23)

All the Lord's commandments relate to loving our neighbor. In summary form, they involve not doing evil to our neighbors, and instead doing them good. According to the Lord's words just quoted, people like this love God and God loves them.

Because love for God and love for our neighbor are connected in this way, John says:

Those who keep the commandments of Jesus Christ live in him, and he lives in them. If any say, "I love God in every way" but hate their brothers and sisters, they are liars. If they do not love their brothers and sisters, whom they see, how can they love God whom they do not see? This commandment we have from him: that people who love God also love their brothers and sisters. (1 John 3:24; 4:20-21)

  
/ 853  
  

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

A Bíblia

 

John 10

Estude

   

1 "Most certainly, I tell you, one who doesn't enter by the door into the sheep fold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

2 But one who enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.

4 Whenever he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

5 They will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him; for they don't know the voice of strangers."

6 Jesus spoke this parable to them, but they didn't understand what he was telling them.

7 Jesus therefore said to them again, "Most certainly, I tell you, I am the sheep's door.

8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn't listen to them.

9 I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture.

10 The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.

11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn't own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep, and scatters them.

13 The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand, and doesn't care for the sheep.

14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I'm known by my own;

15 even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.

16 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.

17 Therefore the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.

18 No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down by myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. I received this commandment from my Father."

19 Therefore a division arose again among the Jews because of these words.

20 Many of them said, "He has a demon, and is insane! Why do you listen to him?"

21 Others said, "These are not the sayings of one possessed by a demon. It isn't possible for a demon to open the eyes of the blind, is it?"

22 It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem.

23 It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon's porch.

24 The Jews therefore came around him and said to him, "How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly."

25 Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you don't believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, these testify about me.

26 But you don't believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I told you.

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

28 I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand.

30 I and the Father are one."

31 Therefore Jews took up stones again to stone him.

32 Jesus answered them, "I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me?"

33 The Jews answered him, "We don't stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy: because you, being a man, make yourself God."

34 Jesus answered them, "Isn't it written in your law, 'I said, you are gods?'

35 If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can't be broken),

36 do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You blaspheme,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God?'

37 If I don't do the works of my Father, don't believe me.

38 But if I do them, though you don't believe me, believe the works; that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."

39 They sought again to seize him, and he went out of their hand.

40 He went away again beyond the Jordan into the place where John was baptizing at first, and there he stayed.

41 Many came to him. They said, "John indeed did no sign, but everything that John said about this man is true."

42 Many believed in him there.

   

©2024 New Christian Bible Study Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed from newchristianbiblestudy.org