Philosophy Archives - Jeff's Insight

I’m sitting here on a Tuesday night with a monumental case of writer’s block. After I reviewed a possible blog I realized it was a thesaurus of my blog on Monday. A while of banging my head against the wall, metaphorically of course, I realized that I’m not editorializing as much on our culture. My blog isn’t as relevant as what I want it to be. Even though I’m happy with the content I don’t think I’m necessarily expanding on what I should do.

When you click on the culture link it is incredibly bleak. Unfortunately, there is a reason as to why that may be. There is some fear into making opinions. Issues in Christianity are culturally relevant more then they ever been. Therefore, issues become naturally political. Taking a chance on opining on issues of the day become risky, but the level of importance of diving into cultural issues cannot be ignored. My fear of getting political or offending should take a back seat.

1 Peter 3:13-16 (NASB):

“Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;”

We are living in a culture where our feelings are labelled as truth. This concept unfortunately stems from an idea. This idea is that everyone is inherently good. This is a lie. Everyone can make evil choices that contradict the will of God. Instead of appeasing fiction we should stand true to what is biblical. There are false equivalencies that many ideas have the capacity for righteousness. If an idea is opposing the Word of God, then it is false. These topics will be a primary driver for my future post.

We are too timid to combat false teachings within the church and in our society. Also we give evil a foothold when we should be opposing it always. We should speak in love while always speaking the truth. A lie we tell each other is that offending someone is not speaking in love. You can say the truth in love but because it isn’t what they believe they would be offended. Eventually my political beliefs will show itself organically. It will only be done in reverence to what is biblical and truthful. I close with my favorite passage of the bible and my guiding light for my blog.

John 3:19-21 (NASB):

“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Delusion of Grandeur occurs from a mental disorder inside someone’s head while an illusion is a perception interpreted by the senses different from that of reality. Our reality is perceived thru famous people, news, culture, and politics. My spin on this topic is that the famous people within our culture give us an illusion of what is truth. You start to perceive that if you follow in their footsteps you are morally superior. These celebrities or wealthy people within Christianity specifically is perceived to done it well due to their name recognition and wealth.

This topic is problem due to being very closely tied to idolatry. In an earlier blog I discussed in detail how idolatry is discussed in our culture with referencing scripture to back up those claims. The specific form of idolatry is believing that this person got their status by righteous means alone. This illusion is created from overgeneralizing. We attribute success to personal attributes instead of personal actions.

An example of a person action would be branding. Branding is not a moral action. It also isn’t amoral either. When you successfully set yourself apart you stand out in the crowd. When you are not wearing the red stripped outfit that waldo wears it would be even harder to find him. Just because Waldo wears that stripped shirt doesn’t mean that shirt gives him value or morality.

Many leaders in the Christian religious community wear stripped outfits. Those stripped outfits are outlandish claims that go against scripture. They have wealth, fans, and prominence within the Christian sphere of influence, but their teachings are without value. Essentially, they are false teachers. My next blog is going to be about how outlandish claims can get people noticed. Because of their newfound success we follow every word they say even though they are leading us into a path of damnation.

Another Illusion is that people equate crowd size to spiritual growth. This trap is easy to fall into. Also, the opposite is used. Small crowd equals spiritual shrinkage. We should evaluate a church on whether they preach the truth from the word of God. We look at a church’s gimmicks with awe. Praising the gimmicks with wonder and amusement. If the gimmicks don’t further God’s kingdom and only create more church goers, then the gimmicks are pointless. If a church elevates the gimmicks above the bible, then the church becomes pointless.

Many times, people and churches gain their recognition from righteous means. At this point in our reasoning we should slam on the breaks. We should isolate these actions by themselves. After that we should ask why was it righteous? If the answer is “following God’s commandments” we should resume our line of thought. It seems redundant but extremely important. If we don’t get in this habit it becomes very easy to skip this process. Then we assume that the action is right because they are righteous. Therefore, idolatry insures.

If we don’t evaluate actions without the word of God, it becomes very easy to create an Illusion of someone. Beware of the stripped outfit. Well, not literally because that would be silly. If we don’t evaluate every single action or motive with the word of God, our church will be doomed to fail. All we have left is Illusions of Grandeur. God is the only one who should resemble grandeur.