The Pagan Path

Those who wonder are not lost; they are trying to awaken! 'The Sleeper must awaken!'

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Modern Love, Pt 2

Words have meaning!

Did you know that 'nice', according to some older dictionaries, means, 'foolish'? Makes sense, really, with all the nice people out there these days! Look even at the modern definition of a nice person; a nice person today is usually one that doesn't cause trouble, likes everybody, doesn't judge anyone, and more or less is happy with the status quo, 'a nice guy' ( or 'girl' ), one of the sheeple!

There is much verbiage out there that has lost its original meaning, and the blame can only be laid out our own feet ( collectively )! Actually, Christians ( corporately ), I believe, must bear the brunt, because, not have we been influenced overmuch by a puritanical, even pharisaical legalism, we have gone so far as to allow an unbelieving world to define such terms as 'love', and 'truth'!

We've covered this territory numerous times, and it's probably getting kinda annoying by now, but 'love is an action, not a feeling'!

Yes, feelings are nothing to sneeze at, we all have them; it's only natural, God gave them to us! Our feelings are simply one of the senses that enables us to interact with our neighbor ( or not ). There is nothing wrong with feelings, but the Scriptures really say nothing much about them in connection with the act of love! ( okay, The Song of Solomon, et al. may be an exception ) Parts of Paul's sermonette to the Corinthian Church, in I Corinthians 13, seem to connect the two, but even in his terms, the feelings are contrary to ordinary human nature. As Jesus said, 'it is hard to kick against the goads'!

When someone tells you that they 'love you', the natural response is to return in kind ( I'm guilty of this, though I doubt I'm the only one ). Most people will, and do love those that 'love' them, but and I'm not saying that this love based on feelings is not real, but that kind of love is subject to change! When the other person, whether it's simply an acquaintance, or that 'special someone', doesn't 'love you' anymore, it's not only very difficult, but when it's based in feelings, well-nigh impossible to love that person, or persons any longer! It's easy ( believe me, I know ) to have those warm feelings that we call 'love' toward someone that has those same, or similar, warm feelings toward us!

Feelings, as we all know well, can change like the seasons! We may have those warm feelings toward our spouse, or 'significant other' for years, and then all of a sudden, either one or both of those involved doesn't 'love' the other one anymore, and the relationship falls apart! How many marriages, even Christian marriages, have you noted, where the couple lives happily together for years, seemingly anyway, and then, the 'love' just isn't there anymore, and there is a divorce, sometimes fairly amicable, but often with hard feelings left behind?

‘This Modern Love is Not Enough’

‘They send me love songs, with store-bought words’
‘They make promises, like politicians’
‘We stumble and disconnect’
‘Over and over again’
‘This modern love is not enough’

Again, ‘words have meaning’, but in the truest sense, if they’re not followed by action, they are rendered meaningless! We’ve been here before, as well, but one person can tell the other ‘I love you’ till they’re blue in the face ( I’m sure this happens more than we’d like to admit ), but if we do nothing to prove that love, it is worse than meaningless, it sows the seeds of doubt as to whether they can trust anything else that person says!


‘Whatever shall we do?’, you might ask, ‘wherever shall we go?’ Well, frankly my dear, we DO give a damn! 

There is One to Whom we may turn to remedy, not only ‘this modern love’, but the false, pharisaical ‘love’ that has plagued us for thousands of years; that One is Love Himself! Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God embodied that love when He divested Himself of His Glory and took upon Himself human nature, living in inglorious hovels all His Life and finally stripped of even that divesture and cruelly tortured and crucified upon a Roman cross with all His ingloriousness on display for all the world to see!

This is Love, says the apostle John ( 15:13 ) ‘that He lay down His Life for His friends’! This is perhaps, other than the genesis of Creation, and the forming of Covenant with His people, the greatest act of Love ever witnessed!

‘This modern love’, as Matt Nathanson sings, ‘is not enough’; it’s mere words! Scriptural love is not mere words, and it’s not based on feelings! The apostle Paul wrote, ‘husbands, love your wives’ ( Ephesians 5:25 ). He did not give us an ‘out’, whereas if our spouse does not love us anymore, we are within our rights to divorce her, or anything similar. In fact, the reason he gave for this imperative was, ‘just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for Her’!

We, as the Body of Christ, now embody that Love! Sadly, we have not shown that very well to a watching and hurting world; we have spread hatred in the name of Love instead, and have sown the seeds of bigotry, so that now the Body of Christ is seen as a laughing-stock, purveyors of mere thoughts, words, and ideas.

It is only by returning to the One who defines and embodies Love that this world will ever know True and Lasting Love! We must show the world that we are Love, as sons and daughters of the King of Love, not by accepting every belief system out there as equal and true, but in showing Love to every individual creature of God, for we are all His Creation, and we are ALL worthy of His Love!

As His Love,
Charles Haddon Shank

Friday, November 22, 2013

The Natural Use of Women; Au Naturel

 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
Romans 1:26 & 27

It's doubtful that there are many women, and even some men, today, who would not shudder inwardly if a statement like that were made! 'The natural use of the woman'?!What a sexist statement! The nerve; like women are there just to be used by men! Sadly, this is the notion that many men in our society have, and was prevalent even in the Hebrew culture that the apostle Paul came from and lived in!

The Bible, however, does seem to plainly state, especially in the passage above, that there is a certain specific use for women in a Godly society! For years, and by tradition, this 'use' seems to have been a merely physical one, the act of sexual intercourse in copulation for the purpose of producing heirs and offspring. ( this is probably one reason that the subject of masturbation is taboo, both for men and women, in Christian circles )

As we've discussed before, and this should be obvious; it is not biologically possible for two men to copulate together, or for two women to do the same! We all, probably, are at least somewhat familiar with the biblical story of Sodom & Gomorrah in Genesis 19. This is where the act gets its name wherein men masturbate with each other, and sometimes even with women.

As with all biblical principles, though, I believe that this condemnation of the physical act of sodomy is not so much a prohibition of the physical act, as it is a reference to the greater spiritual sin of adultery towards Yahweh!

Is it wrong for a man to commit sodomy, whether with men or women? We as heterosexuals, for the most part look with disdain, if not outright abhorrence at this act, which is called 'unnatural' by the apostle, and this is the reason, we are told, that Sodom & Gomorrah were destroyed by fire. Is that the extent of it, though; is that why those cities were destroyed? Going back to the previous chapter, in verse 20, 'Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave', therefore Yahweh Himself went down and destroyed it for that wickedness, which is not here named.

In reading these Scriptures, we must remember to take them in the greater context of the depraved history of Israel. Though Israel, per se, was never accused of the same depravity for which Sodom is infamous, though it was known to happen ( Judges 19:22 ), they were compared numerous times to these wicked cities throughout the prophets ( Deuteronomy 32:32, Isaiah 1:10, Jeremiah 23:14, Amos 4:11 ). We read in places like II Peter 2:6 and Jude 7, that these cities were destroyed, not for any certain and specific sexual immorality, but simply for sexual immorality, and what Jude calls going 'after strange flesh'!


What is this 'strange flesh'?

Young's Literal Translation ( YLT ) uses the words 'other flesh', rather than 'strange flesh'. This is not only probably a truer translation; it makes more sense, given the adulterous history of the Israelites! Although they no doubt were guilty of physical adultery with and without the borders of the Land, they were, more importantly, guilty of spiritual adultery against Yahweh, if not only for the condemningly singular fact that they looked to other nations for help and aid, rather than to Yahweh!

So, getting back to 'the natural use of the woman', while still keeping in mind this adulterous history ( Genesis 6:2, et all ), it's fairly plain to see that it is not simply an issue of 'using' their women incorrectly; it was an issue of rebellion against Yahweh, the one who had made them and instituted His Covenant with them. 

By lusting after flesh other than what Yahweh had blessed them with through His Covenant, they committed spiritual adultery and sexual immorality against Him!

The Most Wise God ( along with the wisest man ever ) said that '[ It is ] not good that man should be alone' ( Genesis 2:18 ( Ecclesiastes 4:8 ). Women were made to physically complement men, women do not complement women, nor men men; this is a biological fact, they do not mesh, physically ( sexually ) speaking!

As we have seen though, it is not merely about biology; the biology is merely a symptom of a greater spiritual problem, that of rebellion against Yahweh and His created order!

Can a man 'mesh' spiritually with another man, or a woman with a woman? This seems to increasingly be the case; however, I will allow the reader to draw his or her own conclusions!

Charles Haddon Shank


Thursday, November 21, 2013

The Six Days of Creation

'The six days of creation', theologically speaking, has been a matter of some controversy for centuries! The question of whether the days were strict 24 hour periods or whether they referred to epochs, to long periods of time ( ages ) is still heartily and often heatedly debated as a matter of utmost importance! One might very well ask the question, though, 'is it really all that important?' 'Yes', some will say, 'it IS all that important; the Bible says that God created the heavens and earth in six days, and rested the seventh, thereby setting the pattern whereby we work six days and rest on the seventh!' Well, okay, but there are several problems with this statement, especially for traditional orthodoxy; most blatantly, if the creation week set the pattern for our work week, why aren't we resting on Saturday, the seventh day? 'The Sabbath was changed to the first day of the week', these will say, citing Acts 20:7, as well as other assorted passages as proof that it was switched to Sunday. 'Because the Resurrection of Jesus occurred on the first day of the week', you might also hear . All the 'evidence' aside, though, it is really only speculation that our Heavenly Father intended for us to gather for corporate worship on Sunday rather than Saturday ( by the way, I am not advocating a return to Saturday worship! )!

Whether you trust in 'Creation Science' or have moved 'Beyond Creation Science', it should be obvious to even the most casual reader that  the account is not about the creation of the known universe ( no mention of planets, for one thing )! By 'moving Beyond Creation Science' I am not only shamelessly 'plugging' a book written by a good friend of mine a few years ago, but to the fact that the creation account in Genesis 1, instead of referring to a creation ( out of nothing ), instead refers to a forming, fattening, and the cutting of a covenant; to see why we say this, look up the Hebrew word for 'created' in Genesis 1:1!

'So, why does it not really matter', you ask, ' whether the 'days of creation' were literal 24 hour periods or ages ( hundreds, even thousands of years ) for each recorded day?' Well, besides the facts that the day-age theory is really rather ridiculous, even to our western ears, and that the Books of Moses were written by an Ancient Near Eastern writer to a group of Ancient Near Eastern people, it really doesn't matter because the account is written in such a way as to foreshadow a greater spiritual Truth! The account tells us that on the first 'day', Light was revealed, although the Sun is not mentioned as being formed for three more days! The point here was that the Sun, our closest star, and giver of light, is not the True Giver of Light, but only physically foreshadowed Him Who Was To Come!

The 'pattern' set by our Heavenly Father, that we should work six days, and rest the seventh, whether we start with our labors on Sunday or Monday, physiologically speaking, has been proven over and over to be a good idea! The human body can only work 24/7 for so long; we need, not only that 6-8 hours every night ( although some 'skate' by on much less ), but our body needs that period of rest, at least one day of the week, or at least, that's the theory! Psychically speaking, we need that period of time where our mind can rest from our normal day-to-day activities as well. Traditionally speaking, we have set aside one day of the week to gather together, as The Body of Christ for corporate worship and fellowship in order to 'recharge' spiritually. Spiritually speaking, we are in that Rest, or that Sabbath, that our Heavenly Father commanded in Exodus 20:8!

One might argue, even after or in spite of all this, that interpreting our Heavenly Father's 'clear commands' in this way naturally leads to a false and heretical interpretation of other patterns that have been laid out for us in the hallowed pages of Scripture; this is true, it could! Maybe it needs to!

This calls for a thoughtful and prayerful examination of numerous key passages in Scripture, some of which are clearly culture-based, some which are not so clearly based on that Ancient Near Eastern culture, and others which are based, not upon any certain biological culture, but are truly patterns by which God's people, of all ages and cultures, are to lead their lives!

As the people of God, the Body of His Son, we should live according to the basic pattern that Jesus the Christ, God Himself, set for His people in Matthew 22:37-40, 'Love God and your neighbor'; we can do no less, we need do nothing more!

Charles Haddon Shank

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Modern Love, Pt. 1

'Here we go again!'

'A divorced man is gonna tell us what love is?!'

Well, yes and no. I've written a number of times before that love is not a feeling, but an action, and still, we are bombarded by the notion, from all sides, that love is just an 'ooey-gooey' feeling. I'm divorced because my ex-wife thought it was this sort of feeling, and she 'just didn't love me anymore'! ( well, that's part of the reason, anyway ) Acting in love toward someone can certainly lead to those 'ooey-gooey' feelings, and in fact, in some haphazard way are sometimes a result of them, don't get me wrong!

However, as we've discussed previously, feelings can change, so when your love is based upon those warm and changeable feelings, guess what happens to the love? It dries up and blows away!

Love in action, based upon God's Word ( and here I'm speaking of God's Incarnate Word, not the Bible, or even Scripture ) will last through the changing of the seasons, and usually even prevents the seasons from changing, because, as we mentioned, active love usually leads to that warm feeling that is more commonly and popularly known as love!

Sometimes love, even active love, seems to have a breaking point. In the case of divorce, especially, we'd like to believe that we tried to love our ex-spouse, but that we could only love so far before we reached the breaking point, and stopped loving that person. One might question though, if the professed love in action was genuine, or if it too, was based on feelings.

Our English Bible tells us that 'love suffers long, and is kind; love does not envy.....................does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil.............' ( I Corinthians 13:4 & 5 ) Further on in this same chapter, we read that 'love is the fulfillment of the Law' The same author, in his letter to the Galatians ( 5:14 ) wrote, 'all the Law is fulfilled in one word, even this, 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself'.

To learn what this means, 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself', we must go back to the Hebrew Scriptures, or the Old Testament of our English Bible. It is here where Jesus drew His famous summation of the Law in Matthew 22:37-40. When the Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, Jesus responded that the first was to love God 'with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind ( Mark adds here, 'and with all your strength' )', and that a second was like it, 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself'. These words are further expanded in the famous 'Ten Commandments', found in Exodus 20. The first half of these 'Ten Words' are about how to properly show our love for God, and the second half is about showing love to our neighbor. As Jesus said at the end of the parallel passage in Mark's Gospel ( 12:29-31 ), 'there is no other commandment greater than these'!

With these words hidden in our heart, we should see that love needs to be active or it is not love at all!  'Is it enough, though to hide these words in our heart'? How many men like me and women out there have lost their love toward their spouse because, for whatever reason, their feelings changed, they 'just don't love him/her anymore', and a divorce occurs?

As we have sat under the ministrations of the two teaching elders in our congregation over the past number of years, 'The Abiding Love of God' has ever been impressed upon our minds! God set the pattern for us as spouses. In the prophecy of Hosea, we read abut the wife that the prophet was commanded to take, and then how she left him for a time, after which he eventually reconciled with her, even though she had defiled herself with other men. It's really quite an inspiring story!

We often feel  very warmly towards those we love, and sometimes we're downright passionate about it! I'm not saying that we shouldn't admit these feelings, or that we should stifle them in any way! All I'm saying, as I've said before, is that these feelings shouldn't rule our love for that person, because there are times that we would rather not even be around the one we love.

Feelings are kind of funny that way, they seem to change like the weather!

Charles Haddon Shank

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

The Hand of God

When you're faced with a wicked man like Barack Hussein Obama, and are dealing with his unlawful and un-constitutional policies, it's hard to se why you should be thankful, even as a Christian! Why should we be thankful when his ungodliness is forcing us to either shape up ( according to his policies ) or ship out, to pay up or pay the penalty.

The thing that most or many Christians have not considered, is that we are being chastised for bowing to other gods!

The writer to the Hebrews, quoting Proverbs 3:12, wrote to his brethren, 'For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son He receives'. We see in Job 5:17 that a man should count himself blessed when he is chastened by the Lord. Just as any good father, our Heavenly Father has need to discipline His errant children at times, and more often than not.

At this point, some Christians may object, saying anything from, 'Well, I sure didn't vote for him', to 'he's gotta be THE anti-Christ: Jesus is coming soon!'

You may well object yourself, but when you sit down and really think about it, isn't Obama and his ilk just what this country has been asking for?  Obama is the people's choice, and he is by no means the peoples's worst choice, he is simply the latest. We have but only to wait for the next presidential election to see the next contender for 'worst president ever'; the people's choice just keeps getting worse and worse!

Why would I say that Obama is just what this country has been asking fo? Well, not only is Obama the people's choice ( however he got them to vote for him ), there are many evils that have been perpetrated in this country for the past century or so, that it's almost a wonder that we've made the progress we have, and enjoyed so many blessings on top of it!

Maybe the most blatant and dastartedly crime that this country is guilty of is 'the murder of the innocents'! Some 55,000,000 innocent and helpless babies have been mudered in this country since the Supreme Court handed down its infamous decision in 1973, opening the floodgates for all kinds of evil! Sure, there are many churches that have picketed abortion clinic, and there have even been organizations like 'Operation Rescue' that have taken steps in the past to do a bit more than simply protest. For the most part though, most pulpits are silent on the issue ( for whatever reason ), except to 'poo-poo' it or even to preach that it's 'the woman's choice'. So many pulpits out there are silenced by their 501 (c) 3 status, that pretty much all they'll preach anymore is relativity and 'feel-goodism'!

This is barely scratching the surface of the evils that America is being judged for, and the reason why evil men like Obama ( remember, he's just the latest ) are and have been in power for the past century. If America's Church would hearken unto these chastening prophets that God is sending, and repent of their harlotry, then we may see once more the blessings of God on this great nation! The way things are going in this country ( 'hell in a handbasket' comes to mind ), if some drastic change doesn't occur soon ( likely it's already too late ), this country may not make it to the next recession!

There is hope, however; this is God's Kingdom, God's Empire, and He rules it with an 'iron fist'! Just as He used the Assyrians and the Babylonians ( to name a few ) to bring His people back to Him, so He is using the wicked rulers of this 'world' to bring His people to their knees, to make them realize that it is harlotry to bow before any other god, or the Husband to Whom they are covenanted!

This being the Season of Thanksgiving, we should thank our Heavenly Father for all the blessings He has bestowed on us, especially the chastenings!

Charles Haddon Shank

Saturday, November 09, 2013

Bibliolatry; the Law and the Temple

‘He removed the high places and broke the [sacred ] pillars, cut down the wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days, 
the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan. 
II Kings 18:4

‘Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery [serpent], and set it on a pole; 
and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks on it shall live.’ 
Numbers 21:8

As we can see from the example above, it is quite possible for people to take something that God had anointed for a certain purpose and make an idol out of it!! Under the Old Covenant, which was mediated by the man, Moses, maybe the most noted example was that of Israel’s idolatry of the Law and later, the Temple. In the New Covenant, which is mediated by God Himself, many still have a tendency to ascribe too much glory and honor to something which simply gives the account of the Law and the History of God’s Covenant people. Too many Christians today revere the pages of Scripture almost as highly as they do God Himself, almost as if they were God Incarnate, or the Very Word of God!

The Scriptures as we have in our Bibles today are undoubtedly the written record of the Revelation of the Word of God; we can read this in places like II Timothy 3:16, and we have faith that what the Bible, or Scripture says about itself is true. Though it is the Revelation of God’s Word ( His Son ); it is not that Word itself; that Word dwells in His People! The Scriptures, as given up to the first century, were what we call the Old Testament Scriptures. These were the available Scriptures of that time, being written on scrolls and handed down from generation to generation. As Jesus’ ministry expanded and the apostles began to plant His Seed, writing their letters to the various established congregations throughout the Empire, these letters came to be on par with the Scriptures, as they taught nothing new or different from what had been given in the Law & the Prophets!

What we call the New Testament, though, really only covers ‘the terminal generation’, the generation that witnessed the Advent of the long-promised, and long-awaited Messiah! As we see in these storied pages, it was ‘this generation’ as well that killed their Messiah! Though Jesus Himself taught nothing but what the Law & Prophets had foreshadowed, these Jews, or the majority of them, could not see this ‘Living Law’ as the True Law, and missed the blessing of God’s Presence because the Law written in stone cast too great a shadow on their stubborn hearts!

Like many Christians today, they could not, or would not believe that God would ever stoop so low as to make His people His Temple. They revered Him so highly, in fact, that they destroyed His Temple, even though, as He claimed, He raised it again in three days! ‘Yahweh must only dwell in a beautiful structure, built perfectly straight, with no flaw’, they might have said. Today, you might hear something like, ‘until humanity is sufficiently beautiful and incorruptible, without sin, we will never be fit to be the Temple of God ( the Holy Spirit, maybe, but not God )’!

The fact of the matter is, that according to the record of Scripture, the People of God have been presented to Himself as a glorious new Temple, perfect and faultless!

As there are many different versions of the Bible, there are many Christians out there who claim to say ‘thus saith the Lord’. Some are right! Although there are many different versions of the Bible out there, as someone once said, in most of them you can read the Gospel. Slightly different wording, perhaps, more words in some than others, but the same basic Gospel! By comparing what these say, whether about God, or how to live Godly, with what Scripture has to say about God and how to live Godly, we can establish in our own minds whether they speak truth or whether they prophesy falsely

We, as the Temple of God, have His Word etched on our hearts, and while Scripture is useful as a tool or measuring line to gauge our lives upon, I believe that many of us too often forget that we are His Dwelling, and trust, as the Jews of Old did, in the word or Law written in stone!

Are we trying to pour Old Wine into New Wineskins?

Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary [ principles ] of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,  of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.  And this we will[a] do if God permits.
Hebrews 6:1-3

The Church today, even those who have moved past those elementary principles that the writer to the Hebrews spoke of, is still enamored, for the most part, with discussing those doctrines of baptisms, the resurrection, and the final judgment. 'Should we or shouldn't we, will we be or are we now ( not to mention, the nature of the resurrection- 'How will we come?' ), is it in the past, or do we look for one to come?' Are these things important to affirm? Yes and no. We should be clear on whether or not we believe that these occurred in the past, even the nature of them, but more importantly, we should be affirming them in our lives, living out the effects of our baptism and resurrection, and living without fear, knowing that judgment has been passed!

Our English Bibles today are man's translation of the Scriptures, which were originally given to the people of God in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. As such, they can, for the most part, I believe, be trusted to convey the history of God's dealings with His Covenant People in the past, and we can and should glean instructions from them on how we should live as His People today. We should not, however, view them as the inerrant Word of God! Are they the words of which Peter & Paul spoke ( I Peter 1:21, II Timothy 3:16 )? Not necessarily, although as I intimated earlier, most of the versions out there agree on the main points, and contain the most necessary truths!

God said, through His prophet Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 31:31-34 ) that the New Covenant which He would establish with His people would not be like that first [ covenant ]; this time, since they would not, could not circumcise their hearts, He Himself would inscribe His Law on their hearts, in their Spirit. Rather than a Law that was written in stone or on paper, this would be an incorruptible Record, inscribed indelibly on their ( our ) hearts!

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law,
 these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves.
Romans 2:14

The people of God, like those Gentiles, have the Law written on their hearts, and so, in that sense, are a Law unto themselves, as we do not need a written Law to tell us that this is wrong, and that is right! As Partakers of the Divine Nature, we are assured by our own cleansed conscience that we are right with our Creator, even though we are still pricked by its goad when we would do what is contrary to that Nature. 

Again, this is not to say that everyone out there who bears the Name of Christ can do whatever is right in his own eyes ( we are not moral relativists ), for comparing Scripture with Scripture, we can ascertain whether or not their words, and more importantly actions are true.

As a People who represent an immutably unchanging and Living God, we know that as God was in the Old Testament Scriptures, so He was in the New, and so He remains now! It is His People who have changed, for we are His Creation. We can change, corrupt or destroy what we have written, whether on stone ( new tablets? ) or on paper, but we cannot do any harm to what God has etched in our inmost Being!

This is where the Word of God resides, not in Temples made with hands, or printed on paper!

May we realize this Truth, and see Scripture for what it is, not something to be overly revered, but respected as a record of the Revelation of the Word of God.

WE are the Revelation of the Son of God!

Charles Haddon Shank