consider others more important than...

gordon 2

Senior Member
"Therefore if you have any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being united in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves.…"

Paul is driving this home (I a re-minder pershaps0 to the Philippians.

What does Paul mean " fellowship with the spirit"? How can Paul say," Consider others more important than yourself?" This is so not jewish in his time. The "chosen people" the jews, were to make themselves a people apart-- to guard themselves from others who could contaminate.

Where and how do you think Paul learned this 180 turn... from looking down on others, and totally without humility, to total humility and considering others more important than yourself.

What happened that Paul changed in this way? Ideas?
 

hummerpoo

Gone but not forgotten
"Therefore if you have any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being united in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves.…"

Paul is driving this home (I a re-minder pershaps0 to the Philippians.

What does Paul mean " fellowship with the spirit"? How can Paul say," Consider others more important than yourself?" This is so not jewish in his time. The "chosen people" the jews, were to make themselves a people apart-- to guard themselves from others who could contaminate.

Where and how do you think Paul learned this 180 turn... from looking down on others, and totally without humility, to total humility and considering others more important than yourself.

What happened that Paul changed in this way? Ideas?

What happened that Paul changed in this way?

IF Paul changed, and I'm unconvinced that he did, it was the revelation of God's commandment, through the new heart and indwelling of the Holy Spirit of regeneration is the "What".
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
Grace is. Our kingdom is sort of upside down cool. Instead of the grand and romance boasts of what we were, we talk about love and we do it ( we are not ashamed of what will be) --for there is encouragement from Christ plain and simple. The Philippians had this encouragement and we do. Yet Paul, Paul has all his being in it--he does not seem to stumble in deliberation or motive regards love.

If we get the encouragement of Christ it is surely for the Holy Spirit pointing to Christ ( as was mentioned). Yet Paul...has a super penchant for the preaching of "the like mindedness" God's love as if for the cross or after the cross it is the fire of The New Way.

When Paul lists what love is it is a list with depth, from someone having sat down to think about it with great seriousness. We take it for granted because the list is there for us to remind or to point to, but for Paul it was what was internal, intimate and profoundly known as the genius of God. It was so genius that all he needed to preach was Christ crucified and oddly preach on love in a way the was not that common at all.

It was common to give comfort or hospitality when a foreigner crossed or came into your land because the Hebrew knew what being exiled was like. But to love him more than yourself? For the Hebrew a foreigner was the occasion for a idol to come into the cult of their nation. And now Paul is saying that " if any fellowship with the Spirit" love others more than yourself!

The picture of the Good Samaritan comes to mind... with the background of the rabbis walking past the injured or mugged man because he was unclean which uncleanliness they would not risk on themselves-- so they left him there to the natural and supernatural elements... and then Eugene the Samaritan, a spiritual and a cultural misfit comes along with a different consciousness cleans up the guy, takes him to an inn to hopeful heal from his misfortune and pays the innkeeper for his troubles. And Eugene does not know anything about the victim!

Except Paul is no Samaritan. While the Samaritan might stand on his natural consciousness as enough to motivate him to do as he did ( after all the tenants of the orthodox Jews were not binding on him perhaps) , Paul instead has internalized that in fact God and Christ is the source of that consciousness and the source of comforting. It is a love Paul was united to in spirit and purpose, God's love and Paul's love the same love united in purpose and spirit. And the saints' love at Philipii were united to it also.

What happened that Paul got to be such a "lover"? If the Holy Spirit ministered to him, when and how was it that Paul got to be ministered to in this way? As Christians we want to say it was the Holy Spirit that ministered to him. But when was he filled by the Holy Spirit to know love for what we know it now? Was he filled and united in love when God talked to him? Was he filled when he was baptized in the way? Was he filled from some internalized study of scripture?

How did Paul get to be a loving man with love for "others more"than for himself and his kind, more than himself as the Jew, more than himself the rabbi, more than himself as a Roman? From what he had been in his past and all he had been in the past, Paul says he loves others more?

You who are to Christ, you... how and when did Christ change Paul's ideas and actions regards love? What do you think? Is love of others a common thing as Paul states it, or is it revolutionary to the human consciousness? Paul says that the love he is talking about is directly from God... that God humbled himself and so we do. Was Paul's understanding of this an intellectual awakening, a logical progression of comparing one's self to Christ with the Holy Spirit pointing to it or was he rewired by some other means-- as in God putting his very own heart in Paul? If it is the latter,--- How did God do it? ---When did He do it?

Was Paul filled? Was Paul taught?

Paul does not faint in his ministering regards love. Don't faint in your replies.
 
Last edited:

gordon 2

Senior Member
Obviously it pleased God as to revealing " His son in me."

Paul says ( despite knowing all kinds of things about love in common spirit with Christ) that he presses on. He says Christ took a hold of me.



"...but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

Paul speaks of pouring himself out...in the context of being Christ like-- pouring himself out as Christ did for him.

From what manner of pouring did Paul get his take on love? Was it from an intellectual understanding of the economy of the cross? Was it expelled from the heart of Jesus when Jesus talked to him? Did he get it from the people who were already in the way and who baptized him? Did he get it some where else? How did Paul get his knowledge of love so he can say to consider others more important than the himself? And that it is a spirit we have in common with God.

How-when did God get a hold of him... so that it changed his life 180 degrees? When it pleased God to reveal Christ to Paul, what event or events contribute to the revelation. How did God do it in Paul's case? Why is Paul so smart about love? Did he go to school under the people who baptized him? Was it an intellectual Aha! Was it poured out of Christ when Paul heard Jesus speak?

Ideas?
 
Last edited:

gordon 2

Senior Member
How did the only One "learn" him? When did the only "one" "learn" him? Was it when Jesus appeared to Paul as Jesus as he did to the other disciples or was it after this when he was baptized, or was it by being present at "church" or in the body?

When Jesus went home with the sawed off guy that had to get up a tree to see what all the kerfuffle was all about as Jesus went by, that same guy was not that same guy the next morning. Do you think this is what happened to Paul?

Or do you think He studied scripture( perhaps differently than he had in the past) and with other saints and then after a while he changed? Was he ministered to by men and women that were like him regards love?

Or do you think he had a sudden or progressive insight, as in an intellectual insight that to consider others more important than yourself was life changing?

What do you think on it? The Holy Spirit thought Paul, there is no doubt. But you as a Christian what do you say (How) Paul got to be the way he was? How did the Holy Spirit reveal Jesus to Paul? How was Paul "taken a hold of"?
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.


5 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace,

16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

17 Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.

18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.

19 But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother.

20 Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not.




Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also.
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
When and how did Paul get the revelation of Jesus Christ? Ideas?
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
It was a progressive knowledge, Paul's knowledge regards love, that was due his spirit quickened life. The quickening was therefore when Paul was made aware of the gospel by Jesus. Do I have this right?

Initially for his spirit quickened life Paul's knowledge regards love was secondary to the quickening. For us love itself is not evident in the revelation act itself. The revelation or knowledge of love within the Christian context comes thereafter...

Paul was made aware of the good news first, and by Jesus directly, and thereafter he received his knowledge of God's love secondary and it is this way for all.

So if I have you correctly the receiving of the good news is quickening-- knowledge comes after. Every other saint has it similarly and from the quickening proceeds a stripping away of things of an old mind that was self centered.

Do I have you correctly?


The truth of the gospel is that Christ died "for our sins" on the cross and was resurrected.



"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that He appeared to Cephas and then to the Twelve.…


6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth.…

Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed. 12But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

---------------------
This is the gospel of Christ from Christ to Paul. By this alone one is quickened. This is how God takes hold of his and as every other saint has been. Knowledge about love, patience and a trusting hope comes in second.

If the gospel message was depicted in a church house window then the message ---to love God with all you have and others as yourself--- is cleaned from study of the scene. The saints study gets him to knowledge.

Do I have this in whole or in part?

"And we heard from a place we had never heard before." within the gospel message.??? Later we learn the "spirit of Christ".
 
Last edited:

StriperAddict

Senior Member
Yes, indeed believers are quickened to salvation by faith in Christ.

What we have in Christ is an ongoing learning for certain. That we have the scriptures is awesome. That we posses the Word of Life Himself and continue to have the audacity to grow in believing Him, that's where the mind is renewed to what the heart is already alive to ... Christ in you, the hope of glory. Risking belief that His indwelling life will never fail or forsake, might make for growth towards such love, and it's aftermath, love towards others.

The early saints a few years after the resurrection didn't have much to study, a Pauline epistle here, a word of encouragement there. Yet God was still building His body.

Ezek 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

This is where babes and seasoned saints mature - in the renewing of our minds.
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
Got it Isreal. Thanks. I'm trying to discern what people say regards how Paul, as to when and where he gets all his wisdom especially on love. Is it for his Damascus vision or revelation or did he progressively learn like most if not all. Was it a knowledge he had as a Pharisee etc...

I get it that you point out that he gets it or had it not unlike Jesus had it in his personality, and it is due to having an "ear" or "eye" towards God ( Christ in Paul's case) and "learning obedience by the things they suffered". That is to say their knowledge or wisdom is progressively learned-- because we suffer progressively as we live.

In this context of learning the bible would be supremely essential to both Jesus and Paul. The forever context of the religious vs what God wanted ( His will) in scripture was their source-- that is for their relationship to the Father and Christ the bible progressively perfected their lives.

I hope I somehow suffered enough that my summary is at least in part comprehensible.

Resume: Perfection in God's economy is progressively learned. Paul's knowledge of love in a totally new context as compared to his brothers in the flesh, the Jews, was not because he got knocked off his high horse on the road to Damascus, he most likely learned it progressively there + ( plus) after...

When Peter said, " "Hatred stirs up strife but love covers all sins" (Proverbs 10:12) but this way, "
"And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins."

Peter had progressively learned this truth from scripture or Christ, pointed to by Christ perhaps and he passed it on to Paul at their meeting perhaps? In any case Paul did not come up suddenly or in his Damascus revelation with the relevance of it until after Christ "took a hold of him" or after the the Damascus revelation perhaps.

And so Paul learned this from James:

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.

and


Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves.…

This is James the brother of Jesus in a nutshell:

"If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless. 27Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

James' address is to a religious people who are hardened by the hard knock world. Love is the cure... or putting away the rigid cult of religion one needs to put back the Spirit of God in it.

James learned these things, from Christ and Christ pointing to scripture, not suddenly, but with time.
 
Last edited:

gordon 2

Senior Member
PS. My bias or ego is not in this Israel. If anything I would like to purge it. I want to know what other believers know or believe regards how it was that Paul received his revelation and when or how did he get so contrary ( to the Jews) or smart about love in the Christian context.

I must say that I do not discount that God filled Paul with his love on the Road to Damascus. Paul says he did not learn the Gospel from men or people, but directly from Jesus. I'm hoping someone might pipe in that when the Holy Spirit or the Glory was ministering to them--- they were in fact filled with love for the experience. Or something else, maybe that Paul not so simply had a crisis of wills--his own, his will as a Pharisee and God's will. His blindness was perhaps like lots of people who don't know what to believe anymore...their spiritual mojo is in limbo... until they find a new church to go to, or a new God even.
 
Last edited:

Israel

BANNED
How does one explain...endless depth?

I mean the words are there..."endless depth"...but if words are to convey any understanding? Just defining a word does not confer understanding, right? I mean, I can say "advanced calculus"...and maybe even give a serviceable notion such a thing is.

I think of those 3 days Paul spent blind and not eating nor drinking. Stunned? Amazed? In awe and wonder? Trance-like? Vexed?

And here comes someone to help...from whom 3 days before he wanted blood.
I don't think he forgot what he was about those 3 days ago...BUT...as you say with the fellow climbing the Sycamore...things changed. Something eclipsed all else.

I am a man so easily given to arrogance that it seems even any "humblest moment" remembered (that's probably funny) seems not able to keep me from its dread creeping...it is to me like Iocaine poison from "The Princess Bride"...tasteless, odorless, colorless...but always fatal. I seem defenseless against it, no matter how I may decry pride, including my own. But then...contact! Someone prepared and hidden in their preparation...comes to me...and their light (with no intention of shaming me)...just discloses where I am. Lost in weeds I have mistaken for healthy growth.

This "one"...takes and has taken so many forms, approaches, appearances...and though I think I "know" to look for Him, my knowing is always insufficient against what He knows I need.

And so He comes.

And always quite alive.

And yes, as you say, the love itself is "in" the revelation...that even such a one would come to me...at all...even if all disclosing only shows me a wretch. This I cannot explain at all...how that the unspeakable comfort comes, has come...from one whose light is all but unbearable to my wretchedness...(who has no shame in His eyes)...but works at something, and is working at something tirelessly, relentlessly (especially in my moments of complete darkness/blindness to His intent and purpose)...to help.

And though I may say the only thing (it may be the only thing true I am able to be made known of "of myself") that to any and all others would sound like an eager invitation to an appropriate execution and death...and every pain of he11...

Can I say this?

It is far more than enough to hear: "OK, but you are my wretch."

If I say I have "tried" the gospel that seems to want me to be "feel better about myself", that to me has been shown as no gospel at all, for I am unconvinced man has ever had a problem with "not enough self esteem"...but rather with a (lacking of) the vision of the One who esteemed Himself as nothing at all before men...so as not to raise a peep against what they would do to Him.

It's interesting that both "like" and dislike...catch our eye. I never knew how many white Dodge Rams were on the road...till I owned one. Like them.

But this "One"...is not only so "unlike" to catch my eye...but so completely different in uniqueness and every form I might imagine a man might appear...I can't help but wonder "how does that One work?" I don't even see any wheels.

PS: It would be foolish to think I escape consideration or being pressed to consideration...of even my own words.
It could seem that in having tried (tested, examined, held to what light I have) of the gospel to make men feel better about themselves...I am proposing instead a gospel that "makes men feel worse". Whether it does or not I cannot say, but that is not for me what I am pressed to. Rather I find a truth (if not the truth) of it to be more along these lines: be honest. It's OK.

And for a man like me, who has never owned such a vehicle, that it appears most unlike anything I have ever seen or known....it captures me in its uniqueness.

Did I break the vase?
Yes dad, I did.

A conversation I never knew. Or believed I was even able to have.

Or be "safe" to have.
 
Last edited:

gordon 2

Senior Member
Thanks for sharing Israel. Your consciousness of your self includes the consciousness of a "Higher Power" outside and inside. In times of " All the world is a stage" or " All the world is a game these days." your liveliness to real life in Christ is never lost on me.

Your replies are always concrete to me, and plain speaking... Perhaps because your sentences are not, making them ( meanings) fresh and I get your points or I am not always certain but trust you are honestly engaged in life. Your not playing games-- your not on a stage play a part.

I was hoping that others for the suggestions which had formed their consciousness, white tie and coveralls, slacks or dress, would have piped in with their captures.

It is what it is. God bless.
 

StriperAddict

Senior Member
I am content in my many weaknesses that One has set captivity captive.

And in that I may be seen a giddy fool, or serious adherent. And there is peace for that, Abba knows the heart. :wink:
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
1.Each of us in a temporal body of flesh is to learn, hear...see, whatever is needed that our testimony of Jesus Christ be established in all truth. ( The Great Commission is good for everyone.)

2. The "world " bushel baskets" the things of God to deceive even itself making its will the will of God and dancing a happy dance even when God gets speared in the chest. ( The life of the world is conflict and conflict resolution leads to more conflict. Wheel keep on spinning.... and the beat goes on... etc Inequity is tears in the beers of the oppressed or joy in the wines of the oppressors. ( Forgive them they know not what they do... etc.)

3."Offense is rampant" in some sectors. It's like being in a fox hole dug in a minefield the especially the friendly is mortaring making a sacrifice of your position not for a few hours a day, but everyday, all yr... since the age of reason. Offense is rampant in cultures where if there is no external enemy to keep the stew pot brewing, internal offensives are just as good to the pallets. Offense is the only "our way of life" in some sectors and so boasts of the greatest hospitality and forefront due conflict, not so much in the value of others.

4. James the bros of Jesus-- might be summer-eyes-ed and summarized.

5 Control. Complete Control. Completed Control.

6. Cold. Nothing is quite as cold to the spine as the space between Adam and Eve in the marriage bed. Freezing to death offers a blissful state I'm told, near the end, just before the brain is indistinguishable from the cellophane wrap and the skull just above it. The spaces between what is sacred and what is unimaginable is enormous.

7. James the bros of Jesus says that in his opinion that to know truth is one thing but to do it is another.

8.Are we (us) offended by works or spirits? No not one or the other. Perhaps James means by knowledge we can dream up games and swim in circles and compare this to the spirit of the Philistine who don't care what you know or believe as long as it don't collide with their way of life, or do we dive into the hearts of man and into God's will with purpose?

9. "Logos Spermatikos-- the generative principle of the Universe" what has Christ done to you? The Holy Spirit, our Holy Spirit is said to reveal Christ. Why should I clean the artworks of antiquity for their take on the Father-- must more his controls? Why should I take control of my spirituality in order to find it controlled by the Father who birthed it? Ah,,, Wait, WAIT it was Christ who birthed mankind... This is no game... to jump in with Christ. Let the world or other saints call me what ever, but in Christ I'm ever called to supper.

10." It is not sacrifice I want, but mercy..." There must be a genius to this that a fellowship in faith can penetrate. Gentleman charge your batteries... Christ is... or he ain't. There must be at least one just case in man where loving someone has not crushed someone else, that the space between the partners in a marriage bed is not shape shifted into the form of a snake, but rather where there is a space between that it is same with the space that was not there in the act of lovemaking?
 
Last edited:

Israel

BANNED
Offense is rampant in cultures where if there is no external enemy to keep the stew pot brewing, internal offensives are just as good to the pallets. Offense is the only "our way of life" in some sectors and so boasts of the greatest hospitality and forefront due conflict, not so much in the value of others.

LOL...the absurdity, no?

How dare I hang out a sign from my vaunted hill "with liberty and justice for all" and then decry those who scrape their way to ascend to it, drawn by it shining lights I have focused upon it to show my superiority of sensibility?

Yes, yes...a wonderful notion speaking of my wonderfulness...just not "for you".
 

Israel

BANNED
So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

When they came to the place called The Skull, they crucified Him there, along with the criminals, one on His right and the other on His left.


Interesting that in dying (at least) one criminal was made able to see so clearly what he came to know as his only need.
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
"Interesting that in dying (at least) one criminal was made able to see so clearly what he came to know as his only need." Quote

He sure needed a better perch than the one he was on.

The conscious seared screams... but on the other had the crook on the right had perhaps a greater pain tolerance... and from childhood the need to disassociate well learned.

That Christ would vow the kingdom to the one that spoke speaks of some understanding in ( within) a common humanity that is able to talk and communicate for an intact "collective conscious".

The other patient... well... his soul might have been lost, like someone with dementia... a lost soul... but still a person of great dignity and fit to honor with blessings and much love. I really don't know.
 
Last edited:
Top