He Takes Care Part IV
It is hard you see a leader to say: I am a follower of the prosperity doctrine. But what classifies a leader as sympathizer, an adherent or someone taking advantage of the fronts of this theology is mainly his or her practices, which will be the parameters to determine the extent he or she is supporting what the prosperity doctrine proposes. Among these practices is the tolerance to preachers who come to the local church emphasizing actions and practices originated from the prosperity doctrine, such as:
1- What determines prosperity is giving (to give the tithe, for stance); prosperity will come to those that give even they do not practice justice in their lives (this is the secret to prosperity, they say, based on Malachi 03); material prosperity is not in a righteous life, prayer, in being spiritual along with giving, but uniquely in giving money.
This kind of teaching helps to create believers without responsibility concerning the truth and spiritually; it helps to create worldly believers with little compassion for those who have less.
2- You have to determine and declare in order to make things come true. This kind of affirmation comes from the positivist confession which is part of the prosperity doctrine, which defends that our words can be materialized as the let there be of God was materialized during the creation. (By the way, arguments of quantum physics are being used to sustain ideas that our words can be materialized. In my point of view, believers will hear more and more about these ideas. Quantum physics will be used in an attempt to persuade believers that they can have what they want – THIS MATTER OF QUANTUM PHYSICS WILL BE DISCUSSED IN TEXTS I WILL POST AHEAD).
3- Tying the blessing to money offers at meetings specifically designed to receive blessings.
Bring your prayer request and propose to give 50, 20 or 10 dollars (not to use higher figures) and God will give you your blessing.
They are preachers who go easily and amazingly deep into God’s mind to know who God is going to bless.
Our lives should not be measured by what we have; the world already do this. The church has to have a different message for those who come in it, a message that can bring and give something different of what we find outside the church in our every day life, in our struggle for living, a message that can help us leave the church more human and more confident than when we entered it, and so through mercy, love, peace, through communion with God, abandoning sin, we can make the difference, in someway, to somebody.
It was never so necessary to be alert, watchful and steadfast concerning what the gospel really proposes to us, that is, we depending on Him, being in Him and living for Him, because He has taken care of us.
Believers matured under the circumstances of the message of the cross can discern and then they stay within the boundaries of which was revealed to them through the scriptures and they take what Paul said to the Corinthians seriously: …that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written … (1Co 4.6).
Also David Wilkerson, founder of the Teen Challenge (center of rehabilitation of drug addicted teenagers) after which the other centers existing around the world were inspired, in one of his teachings in Times Square Church, in New York, speaking about the gospel of prosperity said:
The mark of a mature believer is a refusal to be "tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine..." (Ephesians 4:14). Such believers cannot be manipulated by any teacher. They don't need to run around because they are growing up in Christ. They are feasting in green pastures. They have circumcised their ears, and they measure every teacher, every doctrine, by how much it conforms to Christ's holiness. They can discern all doctrines that are false, and they are repulsed by all the strange, new teachings. They have learned Christ. They will not be held by music, friends, personalities or miracles, but by a hunger for the pure Word.
http://www.tscpulpitseries.org/english/1980s/ts880118.html
Incentive for possessing properties based on losing inner qualities of the being, can create and accumulate poors within the church, not poors in the sense of holding tightly and not giving, but in the sense of having palpable, tangible things as their main objectives in their lives . Concerning this, Jesus recommended: "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses" (Lucas 12.15).
If he has taken care of us, this is enough for us. The gospel is sufficient in our lives to supply us with which we need, there is no necessity of artifices, secrets, especial revelations; it is all very simple, it is the good news that Christ brought to us, nothing mysterious, nothing that everybody can not understand, it is not in the depths but it is on the surface, it is all very clear. This is what the apostle John in his first letter, chapter 5 and verse 14, teaches: Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.
Observe that the expressions this is the confidence / that we have are at a verbal tense, real present, which denotes factuality (certainty, reality, something that happens), showing that indeed He takes care of us. On the other hand, his care is according to his desire and not ours, which can be understood in the second part of the verse that states a condition in God’s caring of us: God’s will is manifested according to our petition nature and our petition has to be within God’s condition.
Thus:
That we have to have confidence in Him, it is unquestionable (without faith nobody can please God, Hebrew 11.6 *).
That He takes care of us is a truth Jesus stated and the contrary would be to say that the gospel is a lie, a farce.
That He knows what is better for us is something that we have do accept.
This is faith. It is to believe in the invisible hand of God guiding us. It is to rest in Him, it is not moving desperately to and fro for God’s favor, it doesn’t matter the price.
* This verse, before referring to the possibility of the occurrence of any sign (cure, gifts, prosperity) refers to the belief that God exists, that He is real, and in second place, only in second place, it refers to the fact that He is rewarder – because it belongs to God’s nature to bless. Thus, the true faith comes from the conviction that He is real; the results (the rewards) are consequence of this. The second aspect, according to the Bible, does not precede the first one; who put it first is trying to confirm God’s word to men’s theories, to self-interest, to the sight of those who walk based on what they see only.
Let’s think about this!
José Martins
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
He Takes Care Part III
The Old Testament is the most explored soil for proponents of the gospel of prosperity because in the New Testament there are few arguments for this, especially in Jesus’ teachings and in Paul’s letters.
Abraham, Job, Joseph, Ester, David and Salomon are the most used characters in the apology that in the Bible there is a secret, a scheme to achieve materially what we want, just because they succeeded well.
Abraham didn’t have anything and got everything, Job always had, Joseph came out of the inner country and was lifted up to the position of second Pharaoh, Ester became a queen out of nothing, David didn’t have anything e became rich, Salomon inherited his father’s riches and made them gigantic.
All of these were well successful people who demonstrated, without doubt, and I don’t disagree with this, that God brings prosperity, because He is the almighty God and everything belongs to him.
The preachers of prosperity have forgot to look at the life of Noah, a man whose material power is not mentioned in the Bible; they have forgot to look at Moses who was and had much but left all behind in behalf of God, they have forgot Samuel who never had too much, they have forgot Elijah, what was Elijah’s treasure? They have forgot Daniel who hadn’t anything, started to have, and again he didn’t have anything, they have forgot Jeremiah, Ezekiel and many other prophets that had little. They have forgot to look at the final part of the passage of the heroes of faith mentioned in the letter to the Hebrews, 11.36-38, that says:
Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.
They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented,
of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
What a contradiction these verses present in relation to what is seen today, a huge emphasis on riches, the best houses, the best cars, the best jobs, the best this and that, and too lithe emphasis on the best of the soul, of the heart, of the truth, of justice for God and for those who are around us, believers or not.
As I said before, this is a kind of gospel (not the GOSPEL) that has done that a great number of people, in my point of view, more than those that prosper, get frustrated and withdraw from churches when they notice the fallacy by which they were deceived.
A Gospel that does not firstly and primarily deals with the necessities of the soul, with the understanding of a world full of adversities, like the one we live in, generates people without existential reflection (they are not able to understand life), without interpretative perception of what they are being taught to believe in. This kind of gospel has created people who only applaud, and when they do not, there comes to their minds a false perception that they are omitting something and consequently they will miss God’s blessing (especially the material blessing). This behavior can be explained as being the result of the conditioning produced by lack of reflection, under God’s Word light, on what we hear and read.
Concerning the doctrine of prosperity, still, there are those who argue: Yeah, really the doctrine of prosperity is false, but we can not deny that the Bible speaks about prosperity; we cannot be against prosperity.
This is true, it would be nonsense to be against the prosperity of those who love God, it would be against God, because Jesus himself made clear that those who are of God can prosper, but it would happen as consequence of their living the kingdom of God as their priority, what I have already said before. Nevertheless, we have to notice that in the discourse that I don’t approve the doctrine of prosperity but I understand that prosperity exists is that the danger abides. This discourse tends to strengthen alienation, tends to avoid questions about what we see and hear in the church, and it makes prosperity doctrine to become more present in our meetings than we think. What started with some drops some years ago, today passed from drizzle to rain. We can say that we are not followers of such doctrine, but several practices of it have been part of our worship meetings nowadays; perhaps, in some cases, due to fear of erring and going against “what comes from God”.
José Martins
To be continued ...
Abraham, Job, Joseph, Ester, David and Salomon are the most used characters in the apology that in the Bible there is a secret, a scheme to achieve materially what we want, just because they succeeded well.
Abraham didn’t have anything and got everything, Job always had, Joseph came out of the inner country and was lifted up to the position of second Pharaoh, Ester became a queen out of nothing, David didn’t have anything e became rich, Salomon inherited his father’s riches and made them gigantic.
All of these were well successful people who demonstrated, without doubt, and I don’t disagree with this, that God brings prosperity, because He is the almighty God and everything belongs to him.
The preachers of prosperity have forgot to look at the life of Noah, a man whose material power is not mentioned in the Bible; they have forgot to look at Moses who was and had much but left all behind in behalf of God, they have forgot Samuel who never had too much, they have forgot Elijah, what was Elijah’s treasure? They have forgot Daniel who hadn’t anything, started to have, and again he didn’t have anything, they have forgot Jeremiah, Ezekiel and many other prophets that had little. They have forgot to look at the final part of the passage of the heroes of faith mentioned in the letter to the Hebrews, 11.36-38, that says:
Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.
They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented,
of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.
What a contradiction these verses present in relation to what is seen today, a huge emphasis on riches, the best houses, the best cars, the best jobs, the best this and that, and too lithe emphasis on the best of the soul, of the heart, of the truth, of justice for God and for those who are around us, believers or not.
As I said before, this is a kind of gospel (not the GOSPEL) that has done that a great number of people, in my point of view, more than those that prosper, get frustrated and withdraw from churches when they notice the fallacy by which they were deceived.
A Gospel that does not firstly and primarily deals with the necessities of the soul, with the understanding of a world full of adversities, like the one we live in, generates people without existential reflection (they are not able to understand life), without interpretative perception of what they are being taught to believe in. This kind of gospel has created people who only applaud, and when they do not, there comes to their minds a false perception that they are omitting something and consequently they will miss God’s blessing (especially the material blessing). This behavior can be explained as being the result of the conditioning produced by lack of reflection, under God’s Word light, on what we hear and read.
Concerning the doctrine of prosperity, still, there are those who argue: Yeah, really the doctrine of prosperity is false, but we can not deny that the Bible speaks about prosperity; we cannot be against prosperity.
This is true, it would be nonsense to be against the prosperity of those who love God, it would be against God, because Jesus himself made clear that those who are of God can prosper, but it would happen as consequence of their living the kingdom of God as their priority, what I have already said before. Nevertheless, we have to notice that in the discourse that I don’t approve the doctrine of prosperity but I understand that prosperity exists is that the danger abides. This discourse tends to strengthen alienation, tends to avoid questions about what we see and hear in the church, and it makes prosperity doctrine to become more present in our meetings than we think. What started with some drops some years ago, today passed from drizzle to rain. We can say that we are not followers of such doctrine, but several practices of it have been part of our worship meetings nowadays; perhaps, in some cases, due to fear of erring and going against “what comes from God”.
José Martins
To be continued ...
Saturday, June 30, 2007
HE TAKES CARE Part II
Today the gospel became for many Christians a channel for success only, success measured mainly by palpable prosperity.
The gospel most seen today, it is a gospel that absorbed the materialist trend, it is the competitive proposal of Christians being the best in everything, a thought that comes from positivist philosophy, from market theories (who is the best is the one that leads and possesses more). The motto is to be the head and not the tail. Get out of my way because I’m passing. If you don’t take care I’ll take your position, I’ll take your status, everything, I’ll absorb you – Is this not the way things happen in commercial markets, the wealthy swallowing up those who do not have how to compete?
Is this not the message that several preachers of the gospel are preaching in the house people come in to try to find rest for their souls and where this kind of thought and attitude should be deconstructed, aiming that people, after hearing the word of the gospel, could leave the place more humanized, sympathetic, taking with them something different than the way they live in the individualist battle in which they are involved everyday?
In the proposal of possessions, God became the great source of blessings to swollen egos, stimulated by preachers who merchandize the divine blessings with personal profitable goals. God is source of blessings, but I do not believe that He is if what we have and are going to have is not fruit of the teaching of Jesus: seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you (Mathew 6.33).
We don’t need get upset about showing to anybody that what we have is the proof of our faith, is the materialization of our faith. In fact we don’t need to prove anything to anyone.
seeking first the kingdom of God became a message of “non-aggressive”, “weak” Christians, “believers without guts”, uncertainty of God’s promises; the motto is to determine, to claim one’s rights, corner God on His promises because “He cannot deny Himself”.
There are people who want to demonstrate their faith, that they are of God through their properties. How many of them have become frustrated when they did not get what they planed materially, when they did not achieve what was said to them they would achieve if they believe.
They got frustrated because what they confessed was not faith for eternal life, but for a present full of material things. They got frustrated because, perhaps, what they lived, they lived putting their trust in palpable things and not in the gospel that sees the future (but that also does not despise the present, just because he takes care of us as He does with the birds). They got frustrated because they believed in a gospel that does not reflect the dimension of Jesus’ work on the Calvary: God coming to us and setting us free of our incapacity of seeing ourselves, of our incapacity of understanding ourselves, who we were, are, and where we are going to, and why we exist.
Without Jesus Christ’s work on the cross, we would not have how to see this. Thus, now, we depend on Him and now we go to Him to have what we need, just because He has taken care of us.
They got frustrated because they believed in decontextualized triumphalist messages as the ones based on the words of Paul the apostle, for instance: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4.13).
The context of this verse is Paul knowing how to be in abundance and in necessity, full and hungry, encouraged and discouraged. It is not a context of invincibility, get out demon because I am a son of the King. Even the sons and daughters of the king were also called to suffer, to possess and do not possess, as He lived because they love Him, because they know that He gave them back life again, because they know that they were and are important to him in such a way that He wants them beside Him forever, because they were created in His image and resemblance, they are the crown of His creation, are His expression in their thinking, acting, having history, in their dreams, loving, planning, living, in their freedom to choose and judge.
The properties that we have and are going to have yet are consequence and not goals for the Christian that tries to live according to the example Jesus showed to His disciples.
Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Mathew 6.30)
Still in the text below:
1 Timothy 6.10-12
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
11 But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many.
The apostle is speaking that some in their strong interest of making money withdrew from faith. Love of money comes true in several ways and one of them is through strong emphasis on getting it , emphasis that creates in the mind of those influenced by the money message a mist that leads them astray of Christ’s compassion, that change them into indifferent, arrogant people, almost all that Jesus did not wish for those who were and are called by his name.
Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You (Psalm 73:25).
To be continued ...
Let’s think about this!
José Martins
The gospel most seen today, it is a gospel that absorbed the materialist trend, it is the competitive proposal of Christians being the best in everything, a thought that comes from positivist philosophy, from market theories (who is the best is the one that leads and possesses more). The motto is to be the head and not the tail. Get out of my way because I’m passing. If you don’t take care I’ll take your position, I’ll take your status, everything, I’ll absorb you – Is this not the way things happen in commercial markets, the wealthy swallowing up those who do not have how to compete?
Is this not the message that several preachers of the gospel are preaching in the house people come in to try to find rest for their souls and where this kind of thought and attitude should be deconstructed, aiming that people, after hearing the word of the gospel, could leave the place more humanized, sympathetic, taking with them something different than the way they live in the individualist battle in which they are involved everyday?
In the proposal of possessions, God became the great source of blessings to swollen egos, stimulated by preachers who merchandize the divine blessings with personal profitable goals. God is source of blessings, but I do not believe that He is if what we have and are going to have is not fruit of the teaching of Jesus: seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you (Mathew 6.33).
We don’t need get upset about showing to anybody that what we have is the proof of our faith, is the materialization of our faith. In fact we don’t need to prove anything to anyone.
seeking first the kingdom of God became a message of “non-aggressive”, “weak” Christians, “believers without guts”, uncertainty of God’s promises; the motto is to determine, to claim one’s rights, corner God on His promises because “He cannot deny Himself”.
There are people who want to demonstrate their faith, that they are of God through their properties. How many of them have become frustrated when they did not get what they planed materially, when they did not achieve what was said to them they would achieve if they believe.
They got frustrated because what they confessed was not faith for eternal life, but for a present full of material things. They got frustrated because, perhaps, what they lived, they lived putting their trust in palpable things and not in the gospel that sees the future (but that also does not despise the present, just because he takes care of us as He does with the birds). They got frustrated because they believed in a gospel that does not reflect the dimension of Jesus’ work on the Calvary: God coming to us and setting us free of our incapacity of seeing ourselves, of our incapacity of understanding ourselves, who we were, are, and where we are going to, and why we exist.
Without Jesus Christ’s work on the cross, we would not have how to see this. Thus, now, we depend on Him and now we go to Him to have what we need, just because He has taken care of us.
They got frustrated because they believed in decontextualized triumphalist messages as the ones based on the words of Paul the apostle, for instance: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4.13).
The context of this verse is Paul knowing how to be in abundance and in necessity, full and hungry, encouraged and discouraged. It is not a context of invincibility, get out demon because I am a son of the King. Even the sons and daughters of the king were also called to suffer, to possess and do not possess, as He lived because they love Him, because they know that He gave them back life again, because they know that they were and are important to him in such a way that He wants them beside Him forever, because they were created in His image and resemblance, they are the crown of His creation, are His expression in their thinking, acting, having history, in their dreams, loving, planning, living, in their freedom to choose and judge.
The properties that we have and are going to have yet are consequence and not goals for the Christian that tries to live according to the example Jesus showed to His disciples.
Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Mathew 6.30)
Still in the text below:
1 Timothy 6.10-12
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
11 But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many.
The apostle is speaking that some in their strong interest of making money withdrew from faith. Love of money comes true in several ways and one of them is through strong emphasis on getting it , emphasis that creates in the mind of those influenced by the money message a mist that leads them astray of Christ’s compassion, that change them into indifferent, arrogant people, almost all that Jesus did not wish for those who were and are called by his name.
Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You (Psalm 73:25).
To be continued ...
Let’s think about this!
José Martins
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
HE TAKES CARE Part I
Do not worry about material things is the message of Jesus.
Mathew 6. 25-30
25 Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;
29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
As we are constituted of matter, besides being soul and spirit, and we live in a physical-material world, our tendency is to see things much more from a physical perspective and that is the reason we so much valorize palpable things.
Jesus came down here to this world and showed us that what is material passes by quickly, and isn’t it true? Who among the mortals have lived through the centuries and is still alive, one, two, three hundred years and so forth?
The truth is that we will pass by as a fog which is now an then it is not.
Then, in the words of Jesus, it is not worth our trouble, our torture, doing of materiality, and for many of materialism, the core of our lives.
The words of Jesus, above, propose resting, hope and faith. We become men and women of little faith when we do of our faith a call to an existence primarily based on visible and tangible things. Visible and tangible things play their part in the short period of time we live here and we have to give attention to them too, but not as if visible and tangible things were the only ones worthy of importance. We can not miss the opportunity to prosper, but prosperity has to be understood as something that comes to us; we should always remember of the apostle Paul’s words: But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition (1 Timothy 6.9).
What can not be accepted is the standardization of God’s blessings as some people have tried to do when they say: God wants to give you the best car, God wants that you may have the best house of the city (a kind of discourse influenced by positivism without reflection). We have to ask how many “the best car(s)” will be necessary to fulfill this utterance (in a Brazilian context)? Which is the best car? What does this car have to have? This message is the sort of message of consumerism. We live in a country (Brazil) where the maximum speed allowed varies from 50 to 70 miles per hour.
What is the objective of having a car that reach 155 m/h but ostentation? How many “the best house(s)” of the city will be necessary? What does it mean to have the best house? How many believers have the best car or the best house? How many of them are the most successful in the city?
Real faith does not need inconsistent inductions to be exercised; it simply exists and then through it some will have more and other less, according the measure of faith that God gives to each one (Romans 12.3).
The same way that there are several levels of intelligence, perception, aptitude, physical strength, there are several levels of faith, of results of faith, of spirituality. There is no evidence in the Bible that God forcibly wants everybody spiritually in the same level, but rather he will try to make good use of each one according to their characteristics.
God is the owner of silver and gold, but this does not mean that He will have to bless us the way we want or how somebody prophesied to us.
Jesus, in the verses above, in my point of view, wants to say that those who see in the Father, see in Him the meaning to their lives, will be assisted by the Father and the Father will not forget their necessities. What we need of material things He has to give us, we have just to believe in Him.
It seems that today we are not able to bring out the kind of belief that Jesus proposed, which starts in God, subsists in God and in God rests, because He takes care of us. Our faith became a material faith, I think due to the fact that we started by the wrong front, the front of the results our faith can produce (I have seen too much emphasis on the results) and not on the faith itself that consequently will bring results; For many, the aims are the results and not faith in Jesus. Faith which is faith, according to the gospel, will produce results, results that we don’t need to insist with our brothers and sisters to show, because the things of the Holy Spirit are like the wind that blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes to (John 3.8).
There is no tricks, keys, secrets for His taking care of us, for the results of our faith happen; we have just to believe in Him and to live for Him, with our body, soul and spirit, with truth (Mark 12.30). It is like a plant that grows, becomes strong when the earth is watered. The faith revealed in Jesus’ gospel is faith that depends on the water He has to give. He knows what His plants need and the measure they need to be well.
To be continued ...
José Martins
Mathew 6. 25-30
25 Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;
29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
As we are constituted of matter, besides being soul and spirit, and we live in a physical-material world, our tendency is to see things much more from a physical perspective and that is the reason we so much valorize palpable things.
Jesus came down here to this world and showed us that what is material passes by quickly, and isn’t it true? Who among the mortals have lived through the centuries and is still alive, one, two, three hundred years and so forth?
The truth is that we will pass by as a fog which is now an then it is not.
Then, in the words of Jesus, it is not worth our trouble, our torture, doing of materiality, and for many of materialism, the core of our lives.
The words of Jesus, above, propose resting, hope and faith. We become men and women of little faith when we do of our faith a call to an existence primarily based on visible and tangible things. Visible and tangible things play their part in the short period of time we live here and we have to give attention to them too, but not as if visible and tangible things were the only ones worthy of importance. We can not miss the opportunity to prosper, but prosperity has to be understood as something that comes to us; we should always remember of the apostle Paul’s words: But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition (1 Timothy 6.9).
What can not be accepted is the standardization of God’s blessings as some people have tried to do when they say: God wants to give you the best car, God wants that you may have the best house of the city (a kind of discourse influenced by positivism without reflection). We have to ask how many “the best car(s)” will be necessary to fulfill this utterance (in a Brazilian context)? Which is the best car? What does this car have to have? This message is the sort of message of consumerism. We live in a country (Brazil) where the maximum speed allowed varies from 50 to 70 miles per hour.
What is the objective of having a car that reach 155 m/h but ostentation? How many “the best house(s)” of the city will be necessary? What does it mean to have the best house? How many believers have the best car or the best house? How many of them are the most successful in the city?
Real faith does not need inconsistent inductions to be exercised; it simply exists and then through it some will have more and other less, according the measure of faith that God gives to each one (Romans 12.3).
The same way that there are several levels of intelligence, perception, aptitude, physical strength, there are several levels of faith, of results of faith, of spirituality. There is no evidence in the Bible that God forcibly wants everybody spiritually in the same level, but rather he will try to make good use of each one according to their characteristics.
God is the owner of silver and gold, but this does not mean that He will have to bless us the way we want or how somebody prophesied to us.
Jesus, in the verses above, in my point of view, wants to say that those who see in the Father, see in Him the meaning to their lives, will be assisted by the Father and the Father will not forget their necessities. What we need of material things He has to give us, we have just to believe in Him.
It seems that today we are not able to bring out the kind of belief that Jesus proposed, which starts in God, subsists in God and in God rests, because He takes care of us. Our faith became a material faith, I think due to the fact that we started by the wrong front, the front of the results our faith can produce (I have seen too much emphasis on the results) and not on the faith itself that consequently will bring results; For many, the aims are the results and not faith in Jesus. Faith which is faith, according to the gospel, will produce results, results that we don’t need to insist with our brothers and sisters to show, because the things of the Holy Spirit are like the wind that blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes to (John 3.8).
There is no tricks, keys, secrets for His taking care of us, for the results of our faith happen; we have just to believe in Him and to live for Him, with our body, soul and spirit, with truth (Mark 12.30). It is like a plant that grows, becomes strong when the earth is watered. The faith revealed in Jesus’ gospel is faith that depends on the water He has to give. He knows what His plants need and the measure they need to be well.
To be continued ...
José Martins
Sunday, June 24, 2007
ABOUT THE FILM THE SECRET
The film The Secret, which has already sold almost two millions of DVD copies and more than the same figure of books, reveals itself as a real treat for the critical discourse analyst (that tries to find out what is going behind texts, their persuasions, inductions, oppressions and so forth).
In my point of view, The Secret movie shows simplistically a religious philosophic positivism based on factuality and assertion (there is no chance for hypothesis, possibilities as if the reality of our lives were exactly as described in the film – possibilities and hypothesis would bring out ideas of uncertainty, which would interfere in reader’s or viewer’s decision to accept what is proposed by The Secret as truth) that tries to convince viewers that the solution for everything is in the way we see things around us. If we see them positively, that is, creating mental images that would project what we desire (a car, a house, money etc) or what we want to modify in terms of behavior (eating, relation, love etc) without doubt we would get it– it is the law of attraction. The Secret is a supposed law of attraction present in the universe involving everybody, everything. Who thinks of good things will attract them, who thinks of bad things will be caught by them.
Newsweek Magazine says the following about The Secret
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17314883/site/newsweek/):
On an ethical level, "The Secret" appears deplorable. It concerns itself almost entirely with a narrow range of middle-class concerns—houses, cars and vacations, followed by health and relationships, with the rest of humanity a very distant sixth. Even some of the major figures in the film confess to uneasiness with its relentless materialism. "I love 'The Secret' but I also think it's missing a couple things," says "metaphysician" Joe Vitale.
The factual and assertive characteristic of the film is also verified in the words that can be found in the site of “The Secret”:
This is The Secret to everything ... the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted.
In this astonishing program are ALL the resources you will ever need to understand and live The Secret. For the first time in history, the world's leading scientists, authors, and philosophers will reveal The Secret that utterly transformed the lives of every person who ever knew it ... Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein.
Now YOU will know The Secret.
And it will change your life forever.
Observe the expressions below in red:
This is The Secret (the process (the verb) is expressing reality).
are ALL the resources (also expressing reality).
For the first time in history (an appealing sentence in order to try to impress viewers as if many other people had already not said this before. Paul Young Cho, an evangelical pastor from South Korea, more than 20 years ago, had already spoken about the idea of creating images of desired things that “through faith in Jesus” could be materialized).
the world's leading scientists, authors, and philosophers (it is an attempt to validate the discourse of the film, presenting supposed authorities who were classified as the best ones, but who knows what were the criteria used?).
Plato, Newton … (historical characters are used in an attempt to validate which is presented in the film as if they reached what they reached following the path of “The Secret” – This is a strategy of persuasion by means of testimony impact; these kinds of stories normally are decontextualized - see what follows).
An I-can-do-whatever-I-want guides the plot of the film. And to strengthen this idea world history characters are used such as Martin Luther King, Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Plato …
The presence of Abraham Lincoln in the movie imagery, I understand, is decontextualized since Lincoln was one of those called believers in God and on God he depended, he was a man of kneeling to pray and ask God’s direction before making decisions, an attitude of submission and humbleness which does not match the positivist philosophy that emphasizes man and woman as the ones responsible for what happens around them. Lincoln lost elections before reaching the presidency; he was criticized by many; in his time his country was divided between those who supported him and those who wished his end. He was recognized as a great leader only after his death.
The same happened to Martin Luther King who was an evangelical pastor and activist for racial equal rights. He also was a man whose belief was based on God’s will dependency. His achievements were results of his efforts and struggle and not of the simplistic creation of mental images.
Concerning the presence of Martin Luther King in the film, the Newsweek Magazine says:
Martin Luther King Jr. is enlisted as author of an epigram about taking a staircase one step at a time. King certainly could visualize. But he also knew better than to sit back and wait for the law of attraction to send down justice; he went out and worked for it. And there's no secret to that.
What these men reached in their lives was fruit of much struggle, pain, affliction, confidence in the God they believed in, perseverance (which is more than mere imagery positivism), because to believe without perseverance is recipe for giving up.
The film, still, in a teaching of selfishness, individuality and prejudice suggests that we must not look at (literally) undesirable things. Fat people should not be looked at, because, by the law of attraction, we would attract their fat to us. It resembles the kind of popular superstition that a pregnant woman should not look at ugly things: “don’t look at a toad; the baby is going to be born ugly”.
It would be asked whether the secret of The Secret is not the bucks the production tries to make and is making, what has happened much more by the uneasiness of the human soul than by truths the film may hold.
For the psychologist Carol Kauffman from Harvard University
"Basically, it's chaos theory," she says. "I don't think you can actually attract things to you. But if you're profoundly open to opportunity, then when ambiguous events occur, you notice them. I think what positive thinking does is raise your consciousness to possibilities so they can snag your attention. We're starting to see some empirical studies on that now."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17314883/site/newsweek/page/5/
Byrne who appears speaking in the film answering a question about the massacre of Rwanda says:
"If we are in fear, if we're feeling in our lives that we're victims and feeling powerless, then we are on a frequency of attracting those things to us ... totally unconsciously, totally innocently [...]"
Following this thread, if we think of the Tsunami that stroke Asia in 2004, we would explain the tragedy as a result of thousands and thousands of people attracting the catastrophe!
If The Secret is the secret, why has it to be sold? How many people could have their lives changed, saved from several problems and destructions through the knowledge of The Secret? Is it not a law of the universe? If the secret has come from the universe, thus it belongs specifically to nobody. Why are they making the kind of promotion they have made in order to sell the book and DVDs of this “truth” that belongs to nobody that belongs to the universe? Here, it pops up to my mind a word of the Gospel that says that what we have received freely, we freely have to give away.
I prefer the secret of Jesus Christ, which is not any secret indeed; it is very clear, something that everybody can understand; it is on the surface, in a way that everyone can reach it and take it home. It is open to everyone who wishes to get it. But I do not refer to that Gospel sold, alike The Secret, by “televangelists and ministers of the Gospel” (saving those who really are true) of promises of new cars, new houses, top jobs, preachers of another gospel, the gospel centered on prosperity, preachers that indeed are not of the GOSPEL.
People who criticize these preachers (I do not disagree that their fallacies have to be criticized) and easily accept The Secret as something awesome should stop criticizing them because the preachers and The Secret do not have a different message, it is the same formula of palpable and tangible interests.
Let me repeat it: I prefer Jesus Christ’s Gospel which is that one of “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
Jesus is saying that nobody is going to lack (maybe you are not going to get rich) if their lives are centered, from the bottom of their hearts, in things that come from heaven, things that He taught, that is, not living for earthly stuff only.
And that is enough. Seeing that it is not enough is what has lead many intelligent people to adhere persuasive an appellative book and film discourses like The Secret which fatten sellers’ bank accounts, discourses that reveal the empty soul, maybe the majority, of people of our society.
For many people, the lack of perception of whom they are and of the value of their existence for those who surround them lead them to perceive themselves only from a perspective of tangible things, material things, a perception which is manifested parting from their properties, where they can travel to, what they can do, clothe, eat … a permanent struggle for the best and to be the best. This kind of individuality manifests itself in the desire of having more and more.
You can do and have whatever you want is the proposal of The Secret. A fallacy. Who of the proponents of The Secret would be able to give back the natural color to his or her gray hair without hair ink? Who of them would be able to add a hand span to his or her height without science help?
Who of them could stop time to prevent wrinkles from appearing on their faces without the physician’s scalpel or the use of botox?
To say that we human beings can do everything, and that there is no limits to achieve goals, can only be strategy to sell books and movies, which the Newsweek, in my point of view, expresses well in the following utterance: “But this 'new thought' may just be new marketing”.
People are more human when they naturally and spontaneously do not try to be; this naturalness of being makes of them people that are, and consequently achievements will follow them.
Let's think about this!
José Martins
In my point of view, The Secret movie shows simplistically a religious philosophic positivism based on factuality and assertion (there is no chance for hypothesis, possibilities as if the reality of our lives were exactly as described in the film – possibilities and hypothesis would bring out ideas of uncertainty, which would interfere in reader’s or viewer’s decision to accept what is proposed by The Secret as truth) that tries to convince viewers that the solution for everything is in the way we see things around us. If we see them positively, that is, creating mental images that would project what we desire (a car, a house, money etc) or what we want to modify in terms of behavior (eating, relation, love etc) without doubt we would get it– it is the law of attraction. The Secret is a supposed law of attraction present in the universe involving everybody, everything. Who thinks of good things will attract them, who thinks of bad things will be caught by them.
Newsweek Magazine says the following about The Secret
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17314883/site/newsweek/):
On an ethical level, "The Secret" appears deplorable. It concerns itself almost entirely with a narrow range of middle-class concerns—houses, cars and vacations, followed by health and relationships, with the rest of humanity a very distant sixth. Even some of the major figures in the film confess to uneasiness with its relentless materialism. "I love 'The Secret' but I also think it's missing a couple things," says "metaphysician" Joe Vitale.
The factual and assertive characteristic of the film is also verified in the words that can be found in the site of “The Secret”:
This is The Secret to everything ... the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted.
In this astonishing program are ALL the resources you will ever need to understand and live The Secret. For the first time in history, the world's leading scientists, authors, and philosophers will reveal The Secret that utterly transformed the lives of every person who ever knew it ... Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein.
Now YOU will know The Secret.
And it will change your life forever.
Observe the expressions below in red:
This is The Secret (the process (the verb) is expressing reality).
are ALL the resources (also expressing reality).
For the first time in history (an appealing sentence in order to try to impress viewers as if many other people had already not said this before. Paul Young Cho, an evangelical pastor from South Korea, more than 20 years ago, had already spoken about the idea of creating images of desired things that “through faith in Jesus” could be materialized).
the world's leading scientists, authors, and philosophers (it is an attempt to validate the discourse of the film, presenting supposed authorities who were classified as the best ones, but who knows what were the criteria used?).
Plato, Newton … (historical characters are used in an attempt to validate which is presented in the film as if they reached what they reached following the path of “The Secret” – This is a strategy of persuasion by means of testimony impact; these kinds of stories normally are decontextualized - see what follows).
An I-can-do-whatever-I-want guides the plot of the film. And to strengthen this idea world history characters are used such as Martin Luther King, Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Plato …
The presence of Abraham Lincoln in the movie imagery, I understand, is decontextualized since Lincoln was one of those called believers in God and on God he depended, he was a man of kneeling to pray and ask God’s direction before making decisions, an attitude of submission and humbleness which does not match the positivist philosophy that emphasizes man and woman as the ones responsible for what happens around them. Lincoln lost elections before reaching the presidency; he was criticized by many; in his time his country was divided between those who supported him and those who wished his end. He was recognized as a great leader only after his death.
The same happened to Martin Luther King who was an evangelical pastor and activist for racial equal rights. He also was a man whose belief was based on God’s will dependency. His achievements were results of his efforts and struggle and not of the simplistic creation of mental images.
Concerning the presence of Martin Luther King in the film, the Newsweek Magazine says:
Martin Luther King Jr. is enlisted as author of an epigram about taking a staircase one step at a time. King certainly could visualize. But he also knew better than to sit back and wait for the law of attraction to send down justice; he went out and worked for it. And there's no secret to that.
What these men reached in their lives was fruit of much struggle, pain, affliction, confidence in the God they believed in, perseverance (which is more than mere imagery positivism), because to believe without perseverance is recipe for giving up.
The film, still, in a teaching of selfishness, individuality and prejudice suggests that we must not look at (literally) undesirable things. Fat people should not be looked at, because, by the law of attraction, we would attract their fat to us. It resembles the kind of popular superstition that a pregnant woman should not look at ugly things: “don’t look at a toad; the baby is going to be born ugly”.
It would be asked whether the secret of The Secret is not the bucks the production tries to make and is making, what has happened much more by the uneasiness of the human soul than by truths the film may hold.
For the psychologist Carol Kauffman from Harvard University
"Basically, it's chaos theory," she says. "I don't think you can actually attract things to you. But if you're profoundly open to opportunity, then when ambiguous events occur, you notice them. I think what positive thinking does is raise your consciousness to possibilities so they can snag your attention. We're starting to see some empirical studies on that now."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17314883/site/newsweek/page/5/
Byrne who appears speaking in the film answering a question about the massacre of Rwanda says:
"If we are in fear, if we're feeling in our lives that we're victims and feeling powerless, then we are on a frequency of attracting those things to us ... totally unconsciously, totally innocently [...]"
Following this thread, if we think of the Tsunami that stroke Asia in 2004, we would explain the tragedy as a result of thousands and thousands of people attracting the catastrophe!
If The Secret is the secret, why has it to be sold? How many people could have their lives changed, saved from several problems and destructions through the knowledge of The Secret? Is it not a law of the universe? If the secret has come from the universe, thus it belongs specifically to nobody. Why are they making the kind of promotion they have made in order to sell the book and DVDs of this “truth” that belongs to nobody that belongs to the universe? Here, it pops up to my mind a word of the Gospel that says that what we have received freely, we freely have to give away.
I prefer the secret of Jesus Christ, which is not any secret indeed; it is very clear, something that everybody can understand; it is on the surface, in a way that everyone can reach it and take it home. It is open to everyone who wishes to get it. But I do not refer to that Gospel sold, alike The Secret, by “televangelists and ministers of the Gospel” (saving those who really are true) of promises of new cars, new houses, top jobs, preachers of another gospel, the gospel centered on prosperity, preachers that indeed are not of the GOSPEL.
People who criticize these preachers (I do not disagree that their fallacies have to be criticized) and easily accept The Secret as something awesome should stop criticizing them because the preachers and The Secret do not have a different message, it is the same formula of palpable and tangible interests.
Let me repeat it: I prefer Jesus Christ’s Gospel which is that one of “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
Jesus is saying that nobody is going to lack (maybe you are not going to get rich) if their lives are centered, from the bottom of their hearts, in things that come from heaven, things that He taught, that is, not living for earthly stuff only.
And that is enough. Seeing that it is not enough is what has lead many intelligent people to adhere persuasive an appellative book and film discourses like The Secret which fatten sellers’ bank accounts, discourses that reveal the empty soul, maybe the majority, of people of our society.
For many people, the lack of perception of whom they are and of the value of their existence for those who surround them lead them to perceive themselves only from a perspective of tangible things, material things, a perception which is manifested parting from their properties, where they can travel to, what they can do, clothe, eat … a permanent struggle for the best and to be the best. This kind of individuality manifests itself in the desire of having more and more.
You can do and have whatever you want is the proposal of The Secret. A fallacy. Who of the proponents of The Secret would be able to give back the natural color to his or her gray hair without hair ink? Who of them would be able to add a hand span to his or her height without science help?
Who of them could stop time to prevent wrinkles from appearing on their faces without the physician’s scalpel or the use of botox?
To say that we human beings can do everything, and that there is no limits to achieve goals, can only be strategy to sell books and movies, which the Newsweek, in my point of view, expresses well in the following utterance: “But this 'new thought' may just be new marketing”.
People are more human when they naturally and spontaneously do not try to be; this naturalness of being makes of them people that are, and consequently achievements will follow them.
Let's think about this!
José Martins
Starting
This blog is the version the blog I have in Portuguese and it is dedicated to discuss spiritual things and other subjects of course. My first post is about the film The Secret, a film (and book) that has influenced many people including people who say they have the Bible as their spiritual guide.
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