Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Luke 14:26 and Luke 14: 33
I have found it useful to sometimes focus on general principles rather than specific and then applying the specifics to the general. For example, if detachment is taken as to be able to leave this world behind to gain eternal life (whether or not in a Christian sense). That Luke 14: 26 speaks to more of that people should not be consumed with human companionship. Luke 14, 33 states ‘…any of you who does not give everything he has cannot be my disciple”. These taken together it would seem to me it is all about detachment (or in other words as much it may seem to be painful for us, to be in a sense cold towards earthy-fondness unless risk being coming to close to them). I must admit that I have become increasing wary that the meaning of the Biblical phrases have been changed either because of language translation or intentional linguistically interpretation, which brings me back to my original point that unless a person wants to devote his/her life to Biblical studies including learning ancient Greek and possible Arabic, etc. then the best approach is to focus on the general principles an applying the specifics to the general (and even at this, we may have to accept some contradictions and to do our best to live with them unless risk going insane trying to get all the ‘ducks in a row’). Another thing that needs to be considered is assuming that Biblical words have kept their meaning through translation and interpretation is the absolute wording of things: i.e., an all or nothing approach such as “everything,” so I must ask myself is that I use translation and interpretation (and thus the focus on generality) as an excuse or is it valid that we have lost something overtime through written changes?