Tag Archives: Old Testament

Christ

Christ: (n) the title, also treated as a name, given to Jesus of Nazareth

From the original Greek, the word “Christ” means “Anointed One.”

So much like religion–one definition requires a second definition.

What is anointed?

Is the Christ the only Anointed One?

Are you anointed?

Am I anointed?

Or is it a religion because there’s only one anointed person, who is worshiped by scads of non-anointed followers?

When I read the New testament, especially the Gospels, I can envision Jesus as a person. It’s when they start working hard to make him the Christ, fulfilling
Testament prophesies and legitimizing traditional practices, that I tend to duck back into the shadows.

I often wonder if Jesus would consider himself the Christ, the Anointed One.

We do have the occasion when he deflected praise for being God from a rich young ruler.

He constantly elevated the floor plan of people’s lives by telling them that “their faith made them whole.”

Is it possible that all of a sudden he turns into this opulent Son of the Most High God, who declares himself to be the Anointed One?

And it begs the question: do human beings require an Anointed One? Does somebody have to be perfect, free of sin and sent from the heavens in order for us to be impressed and impacted?

I woke up this morning to a world of white, layered in snow. I looked out my window and watched as a man in a car braved the elements, sliding his way over the ice, out onto the main thoroughfare of humanity.

That was pretty impressive. I wouldn’t call him anointed, but I did stop for a second and applaud him.

What does it take to touch us as people?

We are touched when we’re around other people who are burdened by our same difficulties, and still have not given up.

That’s what moves us.

Jesus did pretty well with the multitudes.

But Jesus Christ lives in a more uppity neighborhood.

 

Donate Button

Brute

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Brute: (n.) a savagely violent person or animal.

Violence usually connotes physical contact:

  • A smack

An attack

An assault

Yet there is a passage in the Old Testament where a prophet named Ezekiel attributes the term “brute” to pastors and religious leaders.

It’s rather doubtful that these shepherds were beating the hell out of the sheep. Being pious sorts, theyDictionary B probably prided themselves on never lifting a hand to harm anyone.

So was Ezekiel misusing the term? Or is there another possibility?

Let me say–it is savage to lay burdens on people who you know are unnecessary, mean-spirited and lack significance.

Case in point: I went to a church one Sunday and the minister, in his sermon, informed me that my problem was that I didn’t pray enough, I didn’t worship right and I must have some “hidden sin”–otherwise, God would be blessing.

Now, this was not just addressed to me, but to the entire body which came together needing encouragement–and left brutalized.

If God made me human and He knows my capability, then God can simply go to hell if He’s not going to give me a successful pathway to commune with Him.

Being a brute does not require that you throw a punch.

You can be a brute simply by putting unreasonable, unrealistic and unkind demands on another human soul.

 

Donate ButtonThank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix 

 

 

Brainwash

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Brainwash: (v) to make someone adopt radically different beliefs by force

If you happen to be a person who believes in God and the teachings of the Old and New Testament, you might have an understanding of what leads people astray and causes them to follow the most ridiculous ideas with subservient reverence.Dictionary B

For after all, the first brainwasher was referred to as a “serpent,” and he hung out in a garden called Eden.

He possessed a total understanding of the psyche of the human being. He realized you could get people to do almost anything if you offered them two advantages.

Number One: “What I’m about to give you is going to make you live a long time. You’re not gonna die. You’re going to bury all your friends, and you’ll have enough energy to till your garden and dance at your great-granddaughter’s wedding.”

Number Two: “If you will just trust me, you’re going to become smart. Smarter than everyone around you–superior. SO smart that you will be considered wise.”

Throughout history, promises of immortality and supreme intelligence have caused the human race to chase all sorts of devils–political, religious, financial, academic and even Mum and Pop.

Yes, we all become brainwashed when we believe that we control all the aspects of our mortality, or we feel the desperate need to be smarter than everyone else.

Donate ButtonThank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix 

 Don’t let another Christmas season go by without owning Jonathan’s book of Christmas stories

Mr. Kringle’s Tales …26 Stories ‘Til Christmas

Only $5.99 plus $1.25 shipping and handling!

An advent calendar of stories, designed to enchant readers of all ages

“Quite literally the best Christmas stories I have ever read.” — Arthur Holland, Shelby, North Carolina

Only $5.99 plus $1.25 shipping and handling.

"Buy

 

 

 

Baptist

Baptist: (n) a member of a Protestant Christian denomination advocating baptism only of adult believers by total immersion.Dictionary B

Baptists believe a lot of other things, too, besides dunking people in water.

If their only stance was immersion, then the endearing notion of being born again by the action of bathing in righteousness would be beautiful.

But Baptists often find themselves in the position of defending ideas which congeal the Old Testament and the New Testament in an uncomfortable and unfortunate gelatin of purposes.

Christianity becomes so much easier when you stop being Jewish.

If you insist on being a good Jew who follows the testament of Moses, and a dear Christian who pursues the philosophy of Jesus, you will often find yourself personally confused and incomprehensible to others.

On the other hand, simply to view Baptists as spiritual Neanderthals and socially retarded is to miss the blessing of simplicity that these folks often bring to an overly complex world.

For I will tell you, it is amazing what many Southern Baptists can achieve with a few moments of prayer and a platter of chicken.

So what am I saying?

I am saying that if you’re going to be a Christian, you must be willing to abandon Judaism while still loving the Jew.

For I do not believe in the Koran, nor Scientology, or even the teachings of Olympus … but still happen to love Arabs, Hollywood stars and Greek folk.

 

Donate Button

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

*******************
Don’t let another Christmas go by without purchasing Jonathan’s bestselling Christmas book!

Mr. Kringle’s Tales … 26 Stories ‘Til Christmas

Click here to read all about Mr. Kringle's Tales...26 Stories Til Christmas! Only $5.99 plus $1.25 shipping and handling.

Click here to read all about Mr. Kringle’s Tales…26 Stories Til Christmas! Only $5.99 plus $1.25 shipping and handling.

 

“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

We need a good Christmas this year.

Mr. Kringle’s Tales will help you make it so.

Buy today.

"Buy

 

 

 

Babel

Babel: (n) Also called Tower of Babel, a tower presumptuously intended to reach from earth to heaven

Get busy doing the work, or you’ll find yourself busy chasing foolishness.Dictionary B

That’s some sound advice. It does beg some questions: What is the work? And of course, what is foolishness?

There is an Old Testament story about a tower which was presumably built in an attempt to rendezvous with the heavens and have communion with God. The premise itself is absolutely ludicrous, as most human ploys seem to be when viewed over the distance of time.

But in the moment, it seemed noble.

It seemed regal.

Worse, it seemed righteous.

Human beings are a horrible lot when they become discontented with being human and instead, try to either become animals…or God.

We’re not allowed to just be animals. Our brain is too big for that.

We’re not allowed to be God. Our brain is too small for that.

So what is the work? In the story, God confounds their plans by offering them different languages, so that they had to learn to communicate with each other.

There you have it.

My only work on earth is to learn to communicate with other people.

  • It’s the way I make money.
  • It’s the way I make friends.
  • Hell, it’s even the way I make love.

My only foolishness is to avoid humans, over-love animals or over-worship God.

Aside from believing in God and using the principles of love which He has imparted to me to interact with my fellow-travelers, that “Father Who Art in Heaven” who has the “Hallowed Name” only becomes my concern when one day I breathe my last breath … and He is my new reality.

 

Donate Button

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

*******************

NEW BOOK RELEASE BY JONATHAN RICHARD CRING

WITHIN

A meeting place for folks who know they’re human

 $3.99 plus $2.00 S&H

$3.99 plus $2.00 Shipping & Handling

$3.99 plus $2.00 Shipping & Handling

Buy Now Button

 

Antitheical:

dictionary with letter A

Antithetical: (adj) directly opposed or contrasted; mutually incompatible

The old saying is, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”

Truthfully, that’s not the problem.

The difficulty lies in the fact that human beings, having a worshipping nature with a side of adoring, either end up revering the baby and negating the need for water, or insisting that bathing is sacred, and, and murdering the infant.

Alas, extremes tend to be the rallying cry of the human race.

Yet in an attempt to bring peace and tranquility, we force ideas that are not cohesive or even coherent to one another into a small box and insist that they came that way from the manufacturer.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work.

Just as all forms of government are not the same, all men and women have certain talents and attributes, and even a certain shipment of a box of Kleenex will have aberrations, spirituality cannot be lumped into a clump of religions proclaimed equal.

It just isn’t.

And because this is true, I look for tenets of faith that can be shared, but more importantly, I try to discover principles of God that must be enacted.

Then it becomes pretty simple. Any religion, philosophy or plan of action that believes in the revenge of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” should not only be avoided, but quickly abandoned.

Why? Because it’s anti-human, which makes it dangerous to earth, causing it to be displeasing to any God who would have created us.

So this would include a tremendous number of the religions of the world, including sects and denominations of Christianity, which claim that the Old Testament is just as viable as the New Testament.

After all, Jesus tells us it is wrong to wreak revenge on our enemies.

So everything in life is antithetical to reasonable human progress if it believes that we create fairness by inflicting similar pain on others that they have perpetrated in our direction.

So religion must go.

Avenging nations must be set aside.

And “love your neighbor as yourself” needs to be lifted up on our shoulders.

Bluntly, antithetical to Planet Earth is any notion that we “get ours” by “taking theirs.”

 

Donate Button

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Adultery

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAdultery: n) voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a person who is not his or her spouse.

“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

Yeah. That should handle it–similar to attempting to conserve oxygen by asking people to hold their breath.

Sex is not optional. It is essential to the human being–not because of the physical release, nor merely because of the intimacy. It is the blending of playfulness with a demand to confirm that we are attractive.

Thus, the reason why the practice becomes common and often distasteful in elongated relationships. Very simply, we remove the danger. We take away the lust and replace it with undying love. And true enough, maybe the love doesn’t die, but all the parts around it do.

Adultery will continue to be popular because people will flirt, and in the process of doing so, will discover they are attractive and instinctively follow up on that, even though later on they may feel guilty or find themselves in divorce court.

What we should be doing is holding seminars on how men and women can get along, be playful, flirt, and even agree to withhold sexual intercourse in order to enhance the spiciness of it instead of continually promoting the idea that the sexes are destructive to one another, suffering from irreconcilable differences.

I get tired of the word “unfaithful.” If we really think that faith is something we can possess without the evidence of works to follow, we are in “dreamy land” and are expressing an erroneous psychology instead of truly understanding human beings.

We lose interest because we’ve stopped being playful, removed the danger, ceased flirting and have passed on the impression that we’re “not quite as hot for each other.”

After all, there’s no such thing as having sex. It’s an awkward, stumbling, childish, foolish, clumsy, delightful, adolescent, jubilant, silly explosion–an accidental decision leading us to roll over on our backs, thinking: “I wonder if I should have done that.”

There’s no reason you can’t keep those elements in a marriage, as long as both parties understand that remaining appealing to one another is not just primping the outer features, but also constantly evolving the inner self.

I think using the term “adultery” is Old Testament. It’s really a fling. Sometimes we try to justify it; most of the time we avoid it.

But no one will be honest enough to say that adultery is inevitable if we allow the communication between each other to come only in one flavor … vanilla.