This essay continues a sequence. Read the previous one here.
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The Gospel of Matthew makes frequent reference to Christ’s use of the phrase “Ye have heard that it was said“, e.g.:
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time,
Thou shalt not kill;
— KJV, Matt 5:21
This is invariably followed by Christ providing a new and deeper interpretation.
This calls to mind discussions we have had in earlier essays, such as “God’s Perfection” and “We Don’t Understand Love“:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets:
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
For verily I say unto you,
Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law,
till all be fulfilled.
— Matt 5:17-18
The primary problem was not the law, but how human beings interpreted it.
Did not Moses give you the law,
and yet none of you keepeth the law?
— John 7:19
The Word is Truth (ref. “What Is Truth?“). Human interpretation of The Word is a different matter.
Christ emphasized that, by the time of His arrival one thousand five hundred years after Moses, the Ten Commandments (the core of the law and the prophets) had been misinterpreted by the entire Jewish people.
So, two thousand years after Christ, we should be open to the possibility that many things handed down to us through church and tradition might be misinterpretations.
Through the Gospels, we have heard that Christ said, but that does not mean we have understood Him.
How can we find the right interpretations?
These things have I spoken unto you,
being yet present with you.
But the Comforter,
which is the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in my name,
he shall teach you all things,
and bring all things to your remembrance,
whatsoever I have said unto you
— John 14:25-26
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Let us review these statements in detail:
These things I have spoken unto you
In “Act To Experience To Know“, we established that spiritual knowledge is not gained by merely reading The Word. It is the result of action taken in the sense of The Word.
In “The Word Is Christ, Not Jesus” we established that in the sense of The Word means in the sense of pure love. Therefore acting in the sense of The Word means acting out of pure love for God and man, in all things. This results in personal experiences that yield spiritual knowledge.
In “Will vs Love: A Divine Quantum Entanglement” we discussed how Love is the key to understanding God’s Will, and how by misplacing this key the Jews were bound to misinterpret the Ten Commandments.
In brief: loving activity in the sense of The Word is the basis for the correct interpretation of It.
…he shall teach you all things
While The Word contains infinitely more than we have yet discovered, Christ did not say everything that He could have said:
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
— John 16:12
So there is knowledge of The Word that is gained by loving activity and there is additional knowledge that is received through revelation by the Holy Spirit.
Exactly how these revelations are given is a topic for another essay. The point is that we must remain open to new revelations that are in sync with The Word.
Let us avoid the mistake of those Jews who told Christ: “We need no new revelations. We have the law and the prophets; that is good enough for us…” (ref “False Faiths, Part 1“).
…and bring all things to your remembrance
Finally, we infer that Christ knew that His Word would be misunderstood after His departure…
Given all the foregoing, we conclude that many traditional interpretations are incorrect. Accordingly, we must be on our guard.
Fortunately, by the Grace of God, every individual who studies The Word independently with an open and humble mind, and acts accordingly, shall be guided to the right interpretation through his experiences.
Today’s Resolution:
- We pray for the strength to continually study The Word with an open mind, and the courage to act accordingly in all things.
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