Tweets - January 9th - Liberty

"Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you." ~ 1 Corinthians 9. One thing I will say about Paul (being a Pharisee yet called by God through Christ), is that Paul could set right and bring to light many things in the church that the disciples and other apostles were ignoring and hiding (and therefore, setting wrong). "But if I still proclaim circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?" ~ Galatians 5. Though it doesn't appear the disciples were teaching that following the law was a requirement for salvation, they weren't teaching that it wasn't either. This then explains why Peter and James could travel around with their wives and converse with Jews and Jewish leaders throughout Asia and Europe whereas Paul had the shit kicked out of him every time he stepped foot in Israel. What the church needed was truth and confidence in God's power and mercy (which would have been interpreted as boldness), and Christ knew this faithfulness in Paul before Paul knew it in himself.

Lifting someone up in order for them to be humbled can be a very risky endeavor; they may not let go of that which they once fully clung to. In Paul's case, he was brought up as a religious Jew, to know and follow and understand the Laws of Moses through and through; then he encountered Christ on the road and was humbled. "Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law." ~ Romans 3. Paul clung to the law and was convinced the law came from God as the covenant between God and Israel. And he, whether intentionally or inadvertently, required the Church to obey parts of law (as a requirement for salvation), especially those parts which dealt with "sexual immorality". This was hypocrisy that no one in the Church would stand up to Paul and point out - not for thousands of years. Paul expected the Churches to live according to some of the ideals set by the law (so the Churches would display themselves a certain way before God, men, and other Churches), which led him to be controlling. This was Paul's grave error that he could not overcome - not even after decades - and so he perished and left behind a Church that would never see nor understand the True Liberty found in the Living God (this side of the grave).

Paul - like billions of others - would need to be destroyed in order to be saved, and Paul is being saved. I imagine he will be among the first to be raised up.

I do see Paul's concern with all the issues that can surround sex in a monogamous/marital-centric culture, especially among people who are coming to know God and God's mercy. If you are jealous because your neighbor likes the girl you like, then how will you love your neighbor? For Paul, it made sense to him for people to just refrain from sex altogether - and if they couldn't resist their urges, then get married. In suggesting these things over and over, he ignored human nature, calling it "sin", and encouraged entire generations to follow suit. It never occurred to him that liberty and neighborly loving care could be found in sex too, even among multiple partners.

As for me, I haven't had sex in maybe 6 or 7 years. My reasons for not doing so are not physical or emotional (I'm in a good headspace, my body functions normally, and my orgasms are powerful). Sex in this place comes with a lot of expectations - quite a bit of selfishness and sometimes carelessness - it's noticeable in a lot of porn as well.

When I was a kid, I had a wooden baseball bat, and I would sometimes go out to the basketball court at the apartment complex I lived in at the time, and I would sit down by myself, find rocks, and grind them with my baseball bat (rotating the bat on the rocks over and over). What was left was a powdered sand that amazed me as a child - turning rocks into sand - I discovered it by accident just by playing around. Now, this didn't work for all rocks, but I learned which rocks I could grind into sand and which ones I couldn't. Eventually other kids took notice and they sat down and ground up rocks with me. Sometimes other kids in the complex would come, knock on my door, and ask me, "Kelvin, do you want to go grind up some rocks?"

None of this was the expected or conventional use of a wooden baseball bat and a basketball court. I didn't like playing baseball or basketball or even the idea of sports, I just liked the simplicity of grinding rocks by myself or with my neighbors.

I don't think I'll be sleeping with anyone who isn't being saved by God alongside me. To me, this is fair. Should I only request from the beautiful (who are dying) and ignore the ugly, wrinkled, or disfigured (who are dying)? This sounds so very unfair to me - especially knowing the power of God. I am completely OK with waiting for them all to fall under grace and lean on God, even if it takes several more decades.