Storeroom
Two Views
Daj!
English Competition
Stroll Among Fresh Graves
Circumcision and the Bible, Part 2
Suddenly spring arrives in full force. The snow has just about all disappeared—all that remains is the big mountains of it. Birds are singing outside, and I’d forgotten how the first birds of spring sound. I just lay in bed this morning for a little while listening to them.
Returning to the quote from Romans above: “The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.” When I read that, I think, “You know, Armstrongites have a point: it wasn’t just all love this love that.” And further I wonder if Christians (Catholics included) don’t just pick and choose the things they want to obey.
The problem is in the Bible itself, for after having made such a big deal out of keeping the law, Paul writes in Romans:
Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to men who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man. So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God (7.1–3).
This is the kind of stuff that the new WCG points out to the old Armstrongites and says, “See, the law doesn’t count now!” And yet the author of this had just finished going on and on about the law. So the problems arise from people trying to interpret a faulty book that contradicts itself at every turn.
Later, we find this:
What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.
Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.
So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
All I can say is, “What the hell is he trying to say?!” Paul is supposes to be this erudite but this is just nonsense. “Through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful?” Has he personified sin, like he personifies death sometimes? That’s like saying, “So that black might become utterly black.”
I swear, I try to read the Bible with an open mind, I try not to take preconceptions to it, but it continually shows itself to be nonsense.
Bar After Dance Class
Circumcision and the Bible
I was reading this morning, of all things, the Bible. I found an interesting passage in Romans:
Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.
A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.
What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way!
First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God (2.25–3.2).
It is very clear here that Paul is not talking about starting a new religion but expanding an old one. Judaism is a religion passed on by blood with the surrounding culture—there aren’t many converts and there’s no effort at proselytizing. But here’s Paul, out converting people not to anything called Christianity (when did they get that name, anyway?) but to be Jews!
Second, he mentions that Jews are the ones who “have been entrusted with the very words of God.” No mention of anything that would eventually become the New Testament “words of God,” and here is a good opportunity at least to mention the oral traditions, if not the gospels if they were being circulated in some fashion. Proof? Of course not—and proof of what? That the gospels were written later? That’s widely acknowledged. It’s simply indications of the ordinariness of Christianity, of it’s non-divine nature.
And I didn’t set out looking for this—I just decided to read for a while, as I drank my coffee.
Walk with the Dog
Marriage and Faith
“Efekt konicowy.” That’s what Kinga’s dad is always talking about, and I’m starting to wonder if there’s any way I can get baptized without lying and saying I believe this and that.
And I find myself asking, “Why does anyone believe in the first place?” What does it give them? Then this morning I read something I’d taken from the internet some time ago:
Once I learned this way of making an examination of conscience. At the end of the day ask, What things did Jesus and I do together? For example, when I called that person who needed to hear from me, it was Jesus acting with me and thru me. But then later, I brushed someone off. Face it, I was acting on my own. Our life is a constant struggle to allow Jesus to take more authority, to extend his rule further in our hearts. (Secularism and the Authority of Jesus)
In this case, Jesus is simply—or even “just”—an ethical ideal. And I think, “Why not just ask yourself, ‘What good things did I do?’” And the answer from this priest would clearly be that “I, of my own accord, did nothing good. The good comes from Jesus.” I find such an attitude insulting to all those people who are not Christian and yet manage to be decent people.
A Little Party for a Little Girl
Ice and Snow
Last Night at Quattro
Last night was the last night ever at Quattro. Strange. I sat there with Johnny at our usual seat—though at first it was taken and the suggestion that we go fight the occupants for it was met by Johnny growling, “Don’t provoke me.”—and wondered how many hours I’d spent in that place. Probably way too many.
So it’s all over and I have a “Q” to show from it, as well as forty megs of pictures, and a lot of memories.
Naked Kitchen
Here and There in Centrum
We went to talk to the vicar that night, and everything is okay, it seems. In the end, we decided to have the civil ceremony as soon as possible, which will accomplish a few things. First of all, it will be added incentive, the priest said, for the curia to approve quickly the mixed marriage, because we’ll technically already be married. Second, we won’t have to make the public declaration three months before the wedding, which gives us a little more leeway. And lastly, though he didn’t say it, it will save him a bit of work.
The surprise came at the end of the end. First of all, he didn’t accept any money. Well, not then. He said, “No, no, just wait until I’ve done something! Wait until we have all the documents signed from the curia!” And at end, he was very reassuring, actually. He told us that in the end, there’s nothing that can’t be arranged, and that the most important thing was that we love each other completely and that everything else will work itself out.
Yesterday I meet Łysy on the way to Jabłonka and we went for a beer. He told me what those six magic letters before people’s name really stand for: mgr inż = “Można gówno robić i nieżle żyć”
And that’s about all I have to write now. I’m not writing so much lately because this stupid keyboard makes typing like riding with a flat tire — like the time I rode back from Slovakia and pumped up my tire every few kilometers.
