Terry Dashner……………….Faith Fellowship Church PO Box 1586 Broken Arrow, OK 74013

Does title look strange? It should unless you are a first year graduate student, taking New Testament Greek. Why title? No, it’s not to impress you with my limited knowledge of Biblical languages. You need to recognize this word, though. It is translated, according to Kenneth S. Wuest in his book entitled, Word Studies in Greek New Testament Volume II (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Reprinted, 1981): ‘edification.’

But, as is true of most words taken from one language and translated into another, much of meaning is lost by single translation: “edification.” Let me explain. If you’ve studied languages, you know that words common to one culture, tribe, or nation, can lose their richness when taken out of its culture. You know those idioms, cultural context, history, poetry, a culture’s literary history, and so on and so forth are all wrapped up in languages, and they are difficult to bring forth in another tongue. Since you know that, you will certainly appreciate oikodomian.

According to Wuest (a real scholar) word is correctly rendered, ‘household economy.’ It is rendered this way in “the sense of administration of affairs of a household. The word here refers to scheme or order of salvation as devised and administered by God [referring to its use in I Timothy 1:3-4], method of operation of God’s salvation in life of believing sinner.” Very good. But it’s used other places in New Testament, meaning “stewardship.” In Luke 16: 1 Jesus tells a parable about a rich man who had a dishonest “steward.” The overseer of rich man’s property or household was called on carpet by his boss to give an account of his mishandling of household affairs.

Revelations 6:9 - 11 (KJV)

9 And when he had opened fifth seal, I saw under alter souls of them that were slain for word of God, and for testimony which they held:

10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on earth?"

11 And white robes were given unto every one of them...

If spirit of God is in any part of you, you will not want to become thirsty for blood and vengeance and you would neither request nor expect God to agree with you about having earned right to kill other people. If spirit of God is in any part of you, you will not want to judge, but will want to embrace love and forgiveness. If spirit of God is in any part of you, you will always and forever want what is best for earth and all who exist there.

world and punish us. Absolute love casts out all fear...so God cannot be Love and then do things that create fear." ALIGN=RIGHT HSPACE=10 VSPACE=10 GALLERYIMG="no" style="border-style: inset; border-color: #E1E1E1; border-width: 3px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px;">The spirit of God is in every part of you. If you open your heart to hear his voice, you will see that verse above, and thousands of similar verses, have nothing to do with loving and forgiving God that is part of you. You can find his love and forgiveness and really feel it...deep, deep inside that part of you that has never totally forgotten goodness of our creator.

How can same God, same Jesus, who looked upon his attackers while hanging from cross, feel such compassion and forgiveness for those people and then later desire to kill them? Only a god that can change and only a god that reacts way man does, could act this way. Only a god without capacity to forgive can be this way...and that god is not God that was part of Jesus, but a god made by man and embellished by stories of self-rightousness aimed to control by fear through threat of punishment and death.

If it was my destiny to die for sake of spreading Gods word, and then after dyeing, if I were to cry out for vengeance and death of my attackers, then it would be very clear that I never understood word of God in first place. Love and forgiveness is not temporary or set aside here and there to accomplish ungodly things. In Book of Revelation, John's vision of these angry martyrs only represents his own anger and feelings of revenge he wanted and this has nothing to do with anything God would ever fathom to pursue. It's what he felt was his right to demand upon God for having lived self-righteously and having sacrificed. The reality is that God does not require nor demand these things from us and therefore there is no real grounds for having a right to punish those who did not follow any of rules and regulations created and interpreted by man.

The Book of Revelation may possibly be based upon John having actually seen some future events, just like Nostradamus or any other psychic...but his perception of what these events were, what they meant and spirit in which God was involved...these are all clearly John's own personal gloom and doom depictions of who he felt God was and how he felt God would interact and how he felt man should be punished. There is no New Testament forgiveness here, but only Old Testament's angry, vengeful and unforgiving god. The Book of Revelations has nothing to do with God.

As with John, many may wish to push their version of God upon us and will march on capital city with posters and chants to end abortion...while also having accepted concept that God should kill all non believers in a bloody massacre at end of times. The pursuit of life or death cannot be placed on same plate. Only one is true...the other is not. Your god is either a god that cherishes life or a god that destroys life...he cannot be both because his own words indicate that a house divided against itself cannot stand. None of this adds up in religions eyes which is why religion does not work, because God is a God of love and not of fear and death. Man has added stories and perceptions of fear and death to attract and control by fear, but that has nothing to do with who God is.

Many who are followers of end times are anxiously waiting for tragic events of Book of Revelations to unfold... so can it also be said that they are looking forward to people being tortured and killed? Their desired future of Gods kingdom on earth depends upon it. Jesus said is was just as sinful to have lusted after your neighbors wife as is was to have actually been with her. By same token, would it be just as sinful to desire and condone mass murder of all non-believers as to having performed mass murder of millions yourself?

My thought is this...if God is such an angry and vengeful entity, why would anyone want to be with him? This explains, of course, why he has to threaten us to force us to obey him and love him and worship him. Doesn't any of this sound like a story of Zeus gone bad with hints of a modern day dictatorship? Even within your own lives, haven't we all learned that love is only really worth it when it is given freely and unconditionally...and without threat of repercussion? Have we somehow surpassed Gods own capacity to understand love...or has our past so terribly misinterpreted and underestimated Gods capacity to love and we are only now just starting to fathom how much more glorious, beautiful, peaceful and loving he is?

If God is not behind tragic events of day, what then is responsible for worlds condition? We are. On so many levels, both spiritual and physical, we have created and continue to support hostile man-made and natural environments that exists here. We have accepted, eerily enjoy and also look forward to both man-made and natural tragic events. These events serve to both justify our religious positions and to provide entertainment in predicting them and watching then again afterwards. Even though it is often not apparent, we are very powerful spiritual beings. We have, are, and will continue to manifest things upon this earth based upon what we think we want...regardless of pain and suffering that comes along with it. When we stop accepting tragedies as inevitable and stop desiring they occur to justify our beliefs and provide entertainment, they will stop...in just same way Jesus stopped storm. Jesus saw storm as neither necessary nor desirable and it simply ceased to exist.