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

Imibhalo yaphansi:

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)

3506. Verses 5-7 And Rebekah was listening to Isaac while he spoke to Esau his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, to bring it [home]. And Rebekah said to Jacob her son - she said - Behold, I listened to your father speaking to Esau your brother, saying, Bring me venison, and make me savoury food, and I will eat, and I will bless you before Jehovah, before my death.

'Rebekah was listening to Isaac while he spoke to Esau his son' means the affection for truth and the life from that affection. 'And Esau went to the field to hunt for venison, to bring it [home]' means the effort of the affection for good to acquire the truth that was to be allied to the Divine Rational. 'And Rebekah said to Jacob her son - she said' means the Lord's perception from Divine Truth concerning natural truth. 'Behold, I listened to your father speaking to Esau your brother, saying' means that the desire of the Divine Good of the Divine Rational was for the affection for good. 'Bring me venison' means truth acquired from good. 'And make me savoury food' means the desire and pleasure gained from the pleasantness received from that truth. 'And I will eat' means in that way making it its own. 'And I will bless you before Jehovah' means conjunction thereby. 'Before my death' means life thus within the natural.