What makes a good minister?

Having completed one year of theological school, I have learned many many things. Sometimes the many things I've learned can seem unrelated to each other. I find it useful to try to think about how each thing I've learned, each class I've taken, each experience I've had could make me a better minister. So with that in mind I've made lists of each of the classes I've taken this past year, along with thoughts I've had from each class about what makes a good minister. This is a work in progress.

The Torah - A good minister is someone who is very familiar with the literal sense of the Bible; both the ‘forest’ and the ‘trees.’ A good minister is someone who appeals to people’s affections (represented by the Levitical priests cutting up animals), reads the Word to people (represented by reading the Law), and counsels people in determining what is healthy and unhealthy in their lives (represented by determining what is clean and unclean).

New Testament Themes - A good minister is someone who models their life and ministry on Jesus. A good minister is someone who preaches the Good News, tries to heal the spiritually sick, uses stories or parables to convey truth, and practices what they preach.

Instructional Design - A good minister is someone who can be the ‘guide on the side’ as well as the ‘sage on the stage.’ A good minister is a spiritual teacher who creates a safe learning environment and adapts to different learning styles.

Conversations on Marriage - A good minister is someone who forms good relationships with people, so that if trust is formed they can ask for help when it’s needed. A good minister is someone who does not spiritually judge other people. A good minister is someone who recognizes that past mistakes don’t condemn people, but rather a love of evil condemns people. A good minister is someone who conveys the reality of the Lord’s forgiveness and mercy.

Men’s Initiative - A good minister is someone who creates spaces where people feel comfortable sharing their deepest struggles and emotions. A good minister is someone who opens the door of the church for everyone. A good minister is someone who can lead meditations and small groups. A good minister is someone who doesn’t offer unsolicited advice. A good minister is someone who can share his own struggles. A good minister is someone who uses humor to connect with people.

Pastoral Business - A good minister is someone who is a good facilitator rather than a dictator. A good minister is someone who is good at being a manager and a leader, though not necessarily a self-proclaimed leader.

Systematic Theology - A good minister is someone who sees the big picture of doctrine; someone who sees and can explain how it all fits together. A good minister is someone who leads to the good of life by means of truths. A good minister is someone who encourages people to be regenerated on this earth, and to strive for the highest heaven.

Doctrine of Education - A good minister is someone who attempts to understand and meet the needs of multiple generations of people.

Latin - A good minister is someone who seeks to be accurate with the truths of the Lord’s Word. A good minister is someone who continually attempts to understand and convey the Lord’s truth despite the limitations of natural language.

Pastoral Orientation - A good minister is someone who is familiar with and competent at all the aspects of his responsibilities.

The Incarnation - A good minister is someone who is familiar with the life of the Lord, and exactly how it is a model for our spiritual growth. A good minister is someone who has thought about the mysteries of the Lord’s coming and is able to answer people’s questions, or point them in the right direction.

Human Development - A good minister is someone who has familiarity with the psychology of human development and can use it in their pastoral and ministerial duties. A good minister is someone who understands children.

New Church Live - A good minister is someone who is willing to think outside of the box when it comes to styles of worship, and is willing to try new things for the sake of his congregation. A good minister is someone who attempts to show how the truths and life of religion are accessible to everyone. A good minister is someone who attempts to bring religion into everyday modern life. A good minister is someone who attempts to encourage a community of people who give back. A good minister is someone who is not afraid to “make a joyful noise to the Lord!” A good minister is someone who does not see anyone as a stranger. A good minister is someone who can confidently articulate a clear vision. A good minister is someone who is approachable and has a calming un-anxious presence.

Frank Rose - A good minister is someone who supports people in their spiritual journey. A good minister is someone who reaches out to everyone. A good minister is someone who is a captivating preacher.

Tom Rose - A good minister is someone who speaks from the heart. A good minister is well prepared for extemporaneous preaching. A good minister is engaging. A good minister is pleasant, warm, knowledgable, affected, excited, real, genuine, loving, interesting, friendly, a servant of the Lord, conversational, and reverent. A good minister is a good storyteller.

The Last Judgment - A good minister is someone who is aware of the dangers of the doctrines of faith alone, and the trinity of Persons. A good minister is someone who is familiar with the history of Christianity, and is also familiar with the family of modern Christianity. A good minister is someone who is familiar with falsity for the sake of defusing falsity. A good minister is someone who believes the world is getting better not worse. A good minister is someone who is familiar with the storyline of the book of Revelation. A good minister is someone who encourages people to think of their lives as a process. A good minister is someone who reminds people that the Lord doesn’t judge us, we judge ourselves. A good minister is someone who encourages people to repent. A good minister is someone who discourages judgmental thinking about other churches and denominations.

Counseling - A good minister is someone who is sensitive to people’s internal state. A good minister is someone who respects confidentiality. A good minister is someone who is a good listener. A good minister is someone who respects people’s emotional boundaries, and teaches people to do the same. A good minister is someone who non-judgmentally confronts people with the potential consequences of their behavior. A good minister is someone who remembers that their understanding of the truth is not perfect. A good minister is someone who is comforting and offers people hope. A good minister is someone who inspires people with an affection to learn the truth for themselves. A good minister provides people with safety, humility, objectivity, compassion, good listening, understanding, hope.

Speech - A good minister is someone who is a good public speaker. A good minister is someone who makes the Word of God and sermons interesting to listen to. A good minister is someone who shares their excitement about the truth in the way that they read aloud. A good minister is someone who does not sound like they are reading.

Education - A good minister is someone who inspires affection for the stories of the Word. A good minister is someone with educational experience. A good minister is someone who uses visual aids. A good minister is someone who is warm and accessible but authoritative. A good minister is someone who believes in other people. A good minister is someone who respects other people. A good minister is someone who is flexible. A good minister is someone who inspires curiosity and is fun. A good minister is someone who encourages application to life. A good minister is someone who appeals to other people’s affections.

Evangelization - A good minister is someone who seeks to lead people to a relationship with the Lord God Jesus Christ. A good minister is someone who helps people feel the Lord’s presence. A good minister is someone who helps to define culture. A good minister is someone who encourages relationships, understanding, and spiritual growth. A good minister is someone who thinks of the truths of the church as the leaves of the Tree of Life, which are for the healing of all the nations. A good minister is someone who strives for church growth for the sake of serving others and spreading the Good News. A good minister is someone with a vision and a mission.

Cathedral Usher - A good minister is someone who greets people with a smile. A good minister is someone who can make small talk for the sake of 'big' talk.

Group Dynamics - A good minister is someone who gives people spiritual food, without expecting them to eat; gives people spiritual drink, without expecting them to drink; welcomes people, without expecting them to stay; gives them spiritual clothes, without expecting them to put them on; and visits them, without expecting to free them or cure them. (See Matt 25:44) A good minister is someone who can always be interrupted. A good minister is someone who is a good role model. A good minister is someone who understands group dynamics. A good minister is someone who builds a leadership team. A good minister is someone who helps people feel like they belong. A good minister is someone who seeks to build consensus. A good minister is someone who seeks to make people happy, but doesn’t depend on it. A good minister is someone who helps people move from disorder into order. A good minister is someone who doesn’t think of themselves as the ‘moral police.‘ A good minister is someone who seeks for win/win situations. A good minister is someone who is a good communicator and who knows when to respect transparency and when to respect confidentiality. A good minister is able to be a good mediator.

Homiletics (Sermon-Writing) - A good minister is someone who is a good scholar of all Divine Revelation. A good minister is someone who seeks to unlock the hidden meanings of Scripture. A good minister is someone who remembers that enlightenment comes from the Lord alone. A good minister is someone who provides the means for other people to be enlightened by the Lord. A good minister is someone who is thorough in their studies. A good minister is someone who leads people to the truth. A good minister is someone who clarifies misconceptions about doctrine. A good minister is someone who accommodates truth to the understanding of the receiver. A good minister is someone who thinks of themselves as a servant.

New Church History - A good minister is someone who knows the history of the church, for the sake of hopefully not repeating it’s mistakes. A good minister is someone who knows the history of the church so that they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. A good minister is someone who understands the origins of controversies in the church. A good minister is someone who understands the difference between doctrine and tradition. A good minister is someone who is a good judge of actions, but never judges a person’s will. A good minister is someone who points out the Lord for people to see themselves. A good minister is someone who has humility, and is open-minded. A good minister is someone who seeks unity in charity, rather than division because of doctrine.

Divine Providence - A good minister is someone who respects people’s freedom and rationality. A good minister is someone who doesn’t say anything unless it is kind, true, and useful, and encourages others to do the same. A good minister is someone who reminds people that the Lord never wants harm to come to anyone. A good minister is someone who has a love for the salvation of souls, no matter how that comes about. A good minister is someone who doesn’t think in absolutes, and remembers that everything is a matter of degrees. A good minister is someone who sees the good in all religions. A good minister is someone who is not worried about people’s salvation, but about their happiness. A good minister is someone who keeps the doors wide open, who doesn’t spiritually judge, who builds good relationships, who doesn’t try to change people without their consent, who always gives people hope and a way out, and who doesn’t micromanage people’s lives. A good minister is someone who teaches people the truth, not the truth to people. A good minister never seeks to punish. A good minister is empathetic and compassionate.

Liturgics (The Ritual of Worship) - A good minister is someone who leads, provides and explains meaningful religious rituals. A good minister is someone who offers instruction in the truths of the Word, and who encourage people to have humility, and to express praise to the Lord. A good minister encourages love to the neighbor through ritual. A good minister encourages internal worship as well as external worship.

Church Camps - A good minister is someone who tries to build a culture and community of people who love the Lord and their neighbor. A good minister is someone who encourages people to have spiritual practices. A good minister is someone who can offer spontaneous prayers. A good minister is someone who seeks to guide people to a better understanding of themselves, for the sake of serving others.

Trees and Perceptions

“Genesis 2:9. ‘And Jehovah God caused to sprout from the ground every tree desirable in appearance and good for food, and the tree of lives in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.‘ A tree symbolizes perception; a tree desirable in appearance, perception of truth, and a tree good for food, perceptions of goodness. The tree of lives symbolizes love and the faith it leads to; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolizes faith based on evidence from the senses, that is, on secular knowledge.... People today have no idea what perception is. It is an inner feeling for whether a thing is true and good - a feeling that can come only from the Lord - which was very familiar to the people of the earliest church. The sensation is so clear for angels that it gives them awareness and recognition of truth and goodness, of what comes from the Lord and what from themselves. In addition, it enables them to detect the character of anyone they meet simply from that person’s manner of approach or from a single one of his or her ideas.” (Secrets of Heaven 102,104)


I had a very enjoyable time at Laurel Camp this summer. The theme for this year was ‘trees’ and how they symbolize us, especially as to our perceptions. It’s not hard to see that trees in the Word represent us: “The trees once went out to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, 'Reign over us.' (Judges 9:8), “And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:12), “And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the LORD” (Ezekiel 17:24), “The tree you saw, which grew and became strong... it is you, O king, who have grown and become strong.” (Daniel 4:20,22), “He shall take root like the trees of Lebanon,” (Hosea 14:5), “What are these two olive trees on the right and left of the lampstand?... These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.” (Zechariah 4:11,14), “And he looked up and said, ‘I see men, but they look like trees, walking.’” (Mark 8:24). There are many more passages like those that illustrate the clear symbolism in the Word of trees representing us. It’s a little less obvious that trees represent us as to our perceptions, but a careful study and comparison of passages in the Bible brings that out as well. But the analogy comes out clearly when we take the time to think about the function of trees as compared with the function of perceptions. We spent a good deal of time exploring this analogy at Laurel, and I would like to share some of my thoughts, and other people’s thoughts on the subject.


First of all, what is perception? Perceive comes from the Latin word percipere which means to ‘understand, seize or grasp.’ Broken down, it actually means to ‘take entirely;’ per meaning ‘entirely,’ and capere meaning ‘to take.‘ (We can compare this to other words with that same root, like reception, conception and preconception. Receive literally means to ‘take back.‘ Conceive literally means to ‘take together.‘) So someone who is perceptive is someone who is open to taking in truth entirely. Taking truth in entirely means getting ourselves out of the way. Often times we think we already know something and so we hinder our ability to learn something new. Open yourself up, humbly admit that without the Lord you know nothing. Eat of the tree of life, not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil could be called the ‘tree of I’m really smart, and I know more than you.’ When reading the Word or talking with other people remove any preconceptions and listen entirely. This is perception.


Roots: Starting at the bottom of the tree with the roots. If we think of ourselves as trees, then what are our spiritual roots? What is it that grounds us in a spiritual way? It is our foundation in the Word, and in the church. Our roots reach deep into the Word and draw out truths represented by water. Our roots also reach deep in the church and find connection and stability in the common ground of shared ideas from the Word. I think of the Lord telling us to build our house on the rock in the Gospels, and I think about the idea of a tree being firmly planted in the solid ground, rather than loose sand. Also, if the ground is too wet, a tree is less stable. So there is a limit to how much truth we need for our foundation. Too much truth will be more than we can handle or remember, and we could be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of it. I think about the few large roots spreading out from the trunk.
What are the 5 or 7 main truths that you find foundation in? My 5 large roots are:

1. There is One Human God who is Love and Wisdom Itself. That God came to earth as Jesus Christ. The 2nd Coming of Jesus Christ has been, and is being achieved by the Lord being born again in our hearts and minds, based on an enlightened understanding of the truth in His Word.

2. We find happiness and become good people by acknowledging that all goodness comes from the Lord, by loving the people around us, by being useful, and by turning away from evil and selfishness, as described in the 10 commandments.


3. The Bible is the Word of God, and as such it was written symbolically in parables with deeper meanings, which are revealed and explained in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.

4. After we die, we are free to become angels in Heaven or devils in Hell depending on whether we chose to be good or bad people in this life.

5. True love - in the marriage of one man and one woman - can last forever in heaven. Marriage itself is a manifestation of the dual nature of what is good and true in the universe.

These are my roots; my perceptions of the truths of the Word and the church.


Trunk: The trunk is what gives the tree its structure and stability. It’s mostly dead; only a thin ring is actually living. Maybe this is a good way to remember that we are not life, we merely contain life from the Lord. By ourselves, we are dead. We have life only because of the Lord.


The trunk of the tree is hard and offers protection for the life inside. Swedenborg’s book Secrets of Heaven says that perceptions are like our conscience. (AC 104). Our conscience serves as our spiritual compass or guide. We rely on it as being the core that gives us stability. We may get confused by other people’s opinions, by conflicting ideas or misunderstandings; but our conscience that has grown from a tiny fragile sapling when we were babies, is now a strong trunk that we can depend on for keeping us upright when the spiritual storms of the world try to blow us over.

Our conscience is also something that continues to grow. The rings of a tree trunk offer evidence that growth is continual. Despite the fact that we need our trunk to be stable, we also need it to be flexible. We need to maintain the humility that allows us to learn new truths from the Lord; that allows us to bend and not break when the winds of change come; and that allows us to grow new wood when we have been broken.


Branches: The branches of a tree literally reach upwards towards heaven. They mirror the spread of the roots. The symmetrical image of a whole tree is a great illustration of the fact that we exist in a duality. We live between two worlds: the ground and the sky, earth and heaven, the Lord’s external influence through the Word and people and the Lord’s internal influence through heaven and angels. We need our foundation in the cold hard facts of the Word. But we also need to reach towards heaven and be open to receiving direct enlightenment from the Lord. This is where true perception and understanding comes from. There are really two kinds of truth that enter us from different directions. The cold but nourishing water is the truth from the Word that we physically read, and commit to memory. But that is just a container. We also need the light that enters the leaves that combines with the water and creates the sugars that the tree needs to grow. Without light a tree will die. We can’t depend on water alone. We can’t depend solely on memorized knowledge of the truths of the Word. We need to constantly be reaching towards the Lord, praying, asking Him to tell us what it all means. And He will.
It won’t be constant enlightenment. There are days and nights, and seasons. But the Lord will always enlighten us if we continue to read His Word, and ask Him to explain it to us.

Sometimes a tree becomes unhealthy because there are too many branches vying for the light. The canopy becomes too crowded. Branches need to be pruned. Sometimes there are too many things we’re doing in life, or too many things we are thinking about, and we need to cut something out. “I really want to read that book, but if I do I will be ignoring my children.” It may be a good branch, but it’s keeping other branches from getting light.


Leaves: This is where we actually interface with the light; the truth of heaven. We are spiritual beings after all. We are built to understand spiritual truth, not just natural truth. But we are also designed so that we go through seasons. Our leaves turn colors, die, and fall to the ground in the Autumn. We go through cold times, dark times, where we get confused and lost, and feel disconnected with the Lord and heaven. But then the Spring comes and we get new leaves. Maybe this is because our perceptions have life-spans. Maybe a specific perception of truth that we have runs its course and needs to be replaced by a new updated perception of truth. Sometimes we get stuck in one way of thinking, and we need to go through cycles where we give up the old ideas and grow new ones.


In the last chapter of the Bible it says that the leaves of the Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations. The Lord’s ideas are truths that heal people. And because we are created in the Lord’s image, and especially when we consciously try to live in the Lord’s image, our leaves can also be for the healing of the nations. Our perceptions of truth are meant to serve us spiritually, but they are also designed to serve others. This comes about in many different ways. Leaves can literally be taken off of a tree and used to create medicine. We might share an idea with someone that can actually comfort them in their spiritual pain. But leaves also give off oxygen (another form of truth) that can affect other people. I think of this as being like a person’s sphere. We are affected by the sphere that other people put off. We shouldn’t underestimate the affect that our sphere can have on other people. Apparently, “the net cooling affect of a young, healthy tree is equivalent to ten room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.” (U.S. Department of Agriculture) Our sphere can have a large impact. What is the ‘oxygen’ that you are giving off to the world?

The other day I sat on my porch and “watched” a storm coming in. I noticed that the only way that I knew that a storm was coming at all was because of the trees. The trees were swaying in the strong wind. And I could only hear the wind because of the leaves in the trees. Before I could see the lightning and hear the thunder, the trees were the only way that I could “see” or “hear” the storm coming. Our perceptions serve us by letting us know what’s coming before we “know” what’s coming. My wife might not say she’s mad at me, but I can perceive that she is. There is more than one way to take in truth.

Flowers, Fruits and Seeds: There is a purpose for us being perceptive people. We are designed to give back. We are designed to grow flowers, fruits and seeds. Our fruits are the actual things we do to serve our neighbor. They are the kinds words we say, that helpful things we do, performing our jobs honestly, etc. And contained at the center of all of those things are seeds that have the potential to grow into a new tree. Every good deed contains within it the ability for someone else to see it and copy it.

Shelter: What kind of tree we grow into determines what kind of birds and animals will find shelter in us. Birds represent our thoughts, and animals represent our affections. Are my perceptions full, open, and well grounded, and therefore home to good thoughts and feelings? Or are my perceptions hard, turned inward, barren, and dead, and therefore home to bad thoughts and feelings? Are my perceptions likely to be a good home for beautiful birds, and shelter for pleasant animals, or are my perceptions likely to be the home of vultures, snakes, and bugs?

There were many other wonderful ideas about trees and perceptions that were shared during my week at Laurel. I wish I could remember them all. If anyone has any additional thoughts about trees and perceptions, feel free to leave a comment about them.

My World View

Based on the book Divine Providence, by Emanuel Swedenborg.

(If you would like to look up the references that appear throughout this paper, copy and paste them into Small Canon Search.)

Is there a God, and who is He?

There is one God, and He is Human. He is the Lord, Jesus Christ, who is Jehovah. He is the Trinity in one Person. He is Divine love and wisdom united. He is Life itself. He is the infinite and eternal. He is the Creator of the universe, and our own personal Savior. His hand is the hand of Divine Providence. He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. (see DP 3, 46)

What is creation, the world, the universe?

The universe was created by - and out of - the Lord, and not out of nothing. Because it was created out of the Lord, it is necessarily a reflection (an image and likeness) of His Divine love and wisdom. Because the Lord is life, and creation has no life of itself, everything in creation is a vessel or container for the Lord’s life and His Divine love and wisdom. Creation only has life because the Lord is in it. (see DP 1) We are closer to the Lord the more we reflect the conjunction of love and wisdom, and we are further from the Lord the more we reflects their separation. (see DP 7-9)
The Lord created the sun of the spiritual world out of Himself, and by means of the substance of that sun He created everything in the universe. This means that the spiritual sun is the first and only true substance, which all things in creation come from. It is the “particles” of that sun that we would see if we could use a spiritual microscope on matter. But contrary to what might be believed, this basic substance is not more simple than the creation that is made from it, but rather it is more full and complex, since it is closer to God who is infinite. (see DP 5, 6)
This natural universe is governed by the laws of time and space. Time and space are the finite versions of eternity and infinity. Eternity and infinity are properties of God and not of creation. Our understanding of the natural world is based on time and space, but our understanding of God cannot be based on time and space because He is outside of them and bigger than them. (Even the terms ‘outside’ and ‘bigger’ imply spatial thought which we humans have a hard time breaking from) (see DP 48-51)

What is humanity?

Humans were created by the Lord, in the image and likeness of the Lord. (see DP 27) “In short, we are because God is.” (DP 46) Spiritually we are a ‘will and understanding,‘ which means that we have the ability to intend things, and we have the ability to know things. (see DP 15). Another way of describing this human duality is that we are ‘freedom and rationality.’ (see DP 72) We are the ability to choose, and the ability to figure things out with our minds. Ultimately these abilities mean that we can be vessels for the Lord’s love and wisdom. It is possible (and necessary) for our will and understanding to be at odds with each other; for us to know what is right, and intend what is evil, or to think what is false, and intend what is good. This is when our will and understanding are separated. This is necessary for our freedom. But when we know what is right, and intend what is good, our will and understanding become conjoined and we become closer to God. (see DP 16)
We are born into a sort of paradoxical life. We are given the ability to feel like life is our own, while at the same time we are given the ability to know that life is not our own, but is the Lord’s. Because we are born into the feeling that life is our own, without any knowledge that life is the Lord’s, we begin life focussed on ourselves and on what we know only from our senses. This means that our ‘will’ is not born heavenly, but earthly. As we learn about heaven with our understanding, we can be given a new ‘will’ which is heavenly, and which is truly capable of loving others and the Lord.
Humans are alive because “love is what constitutes our life.” (DP 13) The Lord’s love is what gives us life in general, and our specific loves are what drive our life. Without love, we would not be alive, and we would not be driven to live our lives. Our life therefore is defined by our thoughts and feelings. (see DP 50) And yet, we are not the source of our own thoughts and feelings. Our thoughts and feelings come from either heaven (goodness) or hell (evil), and we have the ability to choose to make them our own. (see DP 308) We are also immortal beings because since we are vessels capable of holding God’s life, our spirits can live forever after the death of our bodies. (see DP 324:3) But despite that fact that we are vessels for God’s life, we will never become God. We are, and always will be finite, and the Lord is, was, and always will be infinite. (see DP 32, 57) We will never completely comprehend the infinite wisdom and love of God, but we can begin to, and we can continue to grow in love and wisdom forever.

Why are we here? What is the meaning of life?

Because God is pure love, He naturally wants to love others. So, the reason we are here is so that we can become angels in heaven, and experience the Lord’s love forever. This means that if we accept the Lord’s love, we will become wiser, happier and more fully alive to eternity in heaven. This relationship with God is what heaven is. (see DP 27) The reason we are here on earth is because we can’t truly be happy in heaven unless we’ve freely chosen the Lord’s love for ourselves. And we can’t freely choose it for ourselves unless we have freedom, and are given the opportunity to refuse the Lord’s love. And we won’t have that opportunity unless we live in a world where good and evil seem equally desirable, and the existence of God is not provable. (see DP 129)
This earthly life is the training ground for heaven. Hell exists because people truly are free to reject God’s love. But heaven is the Lord’s goal for everyone, because He is love itself, and we are created in His image. (see DP 322) We become trained for heaven when our ‘understanding’ accepts that there is a God, and our ‘will’ accepts that we should love other people. The Lord provides that every religion and culture is capable of teaching people these basic things, so that everyone has the opportunity of getting to heaven. (see DP 322)

How do we attain our goals? How to we achieve happiness?

We are born with a will that tends to love ourselves and believe only our five senses. Because of this it takes some major changes to become people who have a will to love others and a belief in spiritual ‘unseen’ things. Mercifully, the Lord gives us the whole span of this early life to make those changes. We can’t be changed into angels instantly. We have to gradually become angels. (see DP 331). We do this by a process called regeneration (see DP 83, 92). ‘Regeneration’ means our spiritual rebirth. We are ‘born again’ when we have been given a new will to love other people and the Lord. This transformation is accomplished by the Lord alone, but it can only be done if we cooperate with the Lord. Our part of this process comes in two parts. First: we need to choose to have the Lord in our lives (often called ‘faith’). Second: we need to resist evil thoughts, feelings and actions because they are opposed to the heavenly life we wish to receive from the Lord (often called ‘charity’). This resisting is often called repentance, and it is possible because we have the ability to feel like life is our own, the freedom to choose between good or evil, and the rationality to see why evils are bad for our spiritual health. (see DP 102) When we begin this process, the Lord can reform and regenerate us.

What is knowledge? How do we acquire it?

All knowledge comes from the Lord. The Lord places knowledge in the world by means of Divine revelation. This revelation has been available to everyone to varying degrees depending on the freedom of the people who use it and pass it on. But the basic knowledge that allows us to get to heaven - the belief in a God and a belief in a life of love and not evil - is available to everyone. (see DP 325-328) The Lord’s divine truth comes to us both externally through the knowledge in the world that stems from the Word (Divine revelation), and also internally, directly from the Lord by enlightenment. (see DP 154). In both cases we receive truth directly from the Lord, because the Divine truth everywhere is the Lord.
Since we are free beings, we are capable of taking a truth from the Lord and twisting it into falsity. Because of this, we can be misled by the false understandings of ourselves and other people. For this reason, we should use our freedom and rationality to only accept truth from the Lord by means of what we see as His revelation, and what we see as enlightenment directly from Him. We should not accept truth from other people, unless it agrees with our understanding of truth from revelation and enlightenment. (see DP 129)

Where do good and evil come from?

The Lord is the source of all goodness, because He is Love itself. The Lord is not the source of evil. (see DP 286) Evil comes about because we are free to reject the Lord’s goodness. When we reject goodness, evil is created. Evil is really just the absence of the Lord’s goodness. Evil appears to have power on its own because when people and spirits around us choose evil (or when we choose evil for ourselves), that can have an effect on us. However it can never harm our souls, because our souls belong to the Lord alone. (see DP 19) People who are able to maintain happiness and love throughout something horrible - like suffering from cancer, or losing a loved one in an accident - are people who recognize this truth.

How much can we know of the future?

We can’t ever know the future for certain, because everyone is free to make their own decisions. And the Lord will never tell us the future, because He doesn’t want us to feel boxed in by a sense of predestination. (see DP 175) If we had true foresight, we would lose the abilities to hope and trust, which are essential driving forces in our spiritual growth. (see DP 178)

How much does the Lord know of the future?

The Lord knows the future; He has Divine foresight of everything. But this does not mean that we are predestined to Heaven or Hell. (If we were to be considered ‘predestined’ to anywhere it would be to Heaven, because the Lord wants us to be happy. See DP 329) We do actually have free will, and we are able to choose our spiritual path. But the Lord also knows what choices we will make. This may sound paradoxical. How can the Lord know where we will end up, and yet we are not predestined? Part of the problem is that we tend to think of God in the context of time. And yet God is outside of time. For Him, all time is the present. So it’s not that He knows what we will choose in the future, it’s that He sees all the choices that we make from a perspective outside of time, and therefore He is omniscient. (see DP 333)

Why do things happen the way they happen? Why do bad things happen to good people?

Every tiniest detail of our lives, and in all of creation, is governed by the Lord’s Divine Providence. (see DP 287) Nothing that happens is outside of the Lord’s jurisdiction. Everything that happens, happens for a reason that fits into God’s plan. We just don’t always see what that Divine eternal plan is. (see DP 175) But we can begin to get a sense of it, when we remember that the Lord’s goal is: a heaven from the human race. (see DP 27) Sometimes we can look back on something bad that happened in our life, and see the good that came out of it; the way that we learned a hard lesson, or the surprising benefits that came from going through a really hard time of life. This is all part of the Lord’s providence.
The Lord governs the world by means of five basic laws: 1. We have the spiritual ability to act from freedom according to reason. 2. We have the ability to resist evil in us, because we have been given the feeling that our life is our own. 3. The existence of God can’t be proven, because that would take away our freedom. 4. The Lord has provided that the truths of the Word, the means of salvation, are available to everyone. 5. We can’t see or understand the workings of Divine Providence, except in hindsight. (see DP 71-190)
Bad things can happen to good people because everyone is free to choose evil. So when some people choose evil, other people can get hurt. We might ask: ‘If the Lord is pure love, why doesn’t He stop that evil from happening?’ The Lord never wants bad things to happen. But if He didn’t allow them to happen, He would be removing people’s freedom. But the good thing is that the Lord only allows bad things to happen if good can come out of it. (see DP 296:8)
Our goal tends to be: ‘What will make me happy now?’ The Lord’s goal is: ‘What will make people eternally happy?‘ The Lord will allow our (often selfish) natural happiness to be sacrificed for our eternal happiness. (see DP 234) It’s like a parent that prevents their child from running out into the street. The child thinks that they will only be free and happy if they can run out into the street. The parent is thinking of their long-term freedom and happiness. But the child doesn’t understand that, and they feel like their parent is restricting their freedom and making them unhappy. Similarly we often don’t understand the Lord’s providence. The Lord also allows bad things to happen because unless we were free to see evils in ourselves and others, we would not be free to choose to reject it. (see DP 276)

Is There Such a Thing as Luck or Chance?

Because the world is governed in such a way as to preserve our freedom, it can often appear like things happen by chance or luck. But even what appears to be chance or luck, is really Divine Providence. (see DP 212)

Conclusion:

God is Love. The Universe was created by that God. All life is from God. God is “outside” of time and space. Humans were created by God so that they could become angels in Heaven and experience His love eternity. Humans have free will, and the ability to reason. Humans are vessels made for God’s life and love. We get closer to God, love, and happiness through a process of freely rejecting evil and choosing good. Everyone is capable of finding the knowledge they need for this process. God is the source of all goodness, but is not the source of evil. Evil was created by humans. The potential for evil was allowed by God in order for us to be free. God always intends good for everyone, and only allows evil if good can be brought out of it.

The Dread Parent Roberts

When parenting, sometimes it seems that there are two people inside of us, fighting for control. Using the brilliant archetypes of The Princess Bride, we’ll call one “the Parent Buttercup,” and one “the Dread Parent Roberts.” ‘Buttercup’ is our unconditional patient love, and the ‘Dread Parent Roberts’ is our authoritarian need for control, which lashes out when our boundaries are crossed. ‘Buttercup’ is that sensitive part of us that gets pushed around and bullied by our children’s irrational self-centered behavior. The ‘Dread Parent Roberts’ is the part of us that gets calloused and tough as a matter of sheer survival. Sometimes ‘Buttercup’ gets captured by bandits or even the ‘Dread Parent Roberts’ himself. Sometimes the ‘Dread Parent Roberts’ gets so angry that he forgets that he is face to face with the ones he loves the most. I image a conversation between them (inside of me) going something like this:

Parent Buttercup: “I know who you are. Your cruelty reveals everything. You’re the Dread Parent Roberts, admit it!”

The Dread Parent Roberts: “With pride! What can I do for you?”

Parent Buttercup: “You can die slowly, cut into a thousand pieces.”

The Dread Parent Roberts: “Hardly complimentary, Your Highness. Why loose your venom on me?”

Parent Buttercup: “You killed my love.”

The Dread Parent Roberts: “It’s possible, I kill a lot of things. What was this ‘love’ of yours?”

Parent Buttercup: “My ability to love my children no matter how impossible they are. But when the kids are behaving badly your ship attacked, and the Dread Parent Roberts never takes prisoners!”

The Dread Parent Roberts: “I can’t afford to make exceptions. I mean once word leaks out that a parent has gone soft, children begin to disobey, and it’s nothing but work, work, work all the time!”

Parent Buttercup: “You mock my pain!”

The Dread Parent Roberts: “Parenting is pain, Highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

Often times I feel like the Dread Parent Roberts has kidnapped my love. Often times I believe what he tells me; that parenting is pain. It may be that the Buttercup in me needs to push the Dread Parent Roberts down the hill. And strangely enough, the Dread Parent Roberts is really just a twisted form of the Parent Wesley, who is supposed to be married to the Parent Buttercup. We do need something that will protect our love for our children; something that looks at the Fire Swamp of parenting and says, “The trees are actually quite lovely.” As parents, there is a strange and adventuresome relationship between love and authority is us. Love without authority is like a princess captured by bandits. Not a very effective parent. Authority without love is like a cruel pirate. Not a very compassionate parent. We need both in the proper balance; the proper marriage. But getting to that marriage is often harder than we first think. Sometimes we have to go through periods of internal fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases and escapes. Sometimes it seems inconceivable that we could find peace and joy in parenting. But in the end there is the hope of getting to the true love and miracle of that wonderful relationship between a parent and child. And ultimately we need to remember to always look to our Divine Parent as a model, and ask for His help. And when we do, He’ll say, “As you wish.”

- Solomon Keal

Eve: The Feeling That Life Is Our Own

Lessons:
Genesis chapter 2
Divine Providence 116

(If you would like to look up the references that appear throughout this sermon, copy and paste them into Small Canon Search.)

We all live in what seems to be a paradox. We all live in two distinguishable realities. On the one hand we know that our life is completely from the Lord... actually it’s the Lord’s life. This is represented in the Bible by 'Adam.' On the other hand, it feels like life is our own. This is represented in the Bible by 'Eve.' Two distinguishable realities. On the one hand we know that our thoughts and feelings are not really our’s, and so we can’t take credit for the good ones or blame for the bad ones (DP 308), but on the other hand we know that our life is defined by the thoughts and feelings that we choose. (DP 50, 196) Two distinguishable realities. Adam and Eve.

A physical example of this is that our breathing is both involuntary and voluntary. If we stop thinking about our breathing, we’ll still keep breathing. We don’t have to think about breathing in order to stay alive. Our life is the Lord’s. But if we want to, we can control our breathing and that can affect our heartbeat and mental state, and our quality of life. So are we in control of our breathing? Yes and no. It is a very real appearance that our life is our own.

Another analogy for this is that just this morning my 1-year-old daughter was walking while I held on to her hands. To her she felt like she was walking and she was very proud of that. But without that connection between her hands and my fingers, she would have fallen over and maybe even hurt herself. This is like the fact that we feel like we govern our own lives and accomplish things on our own, but it’s really the Lord who is holding us up from falling.

The purpose of creation is a heaven from the human race. As it says in Divine Providence, “The Lord did not create the universe for His own sake but for the sake of people He would be with in heaven. By its very nature, spiritual love wants to share what it has with others.” (DP 27) But the Lord’s life and love can’t be shared with us, unless we can actually experience that life and love. The success of the Lord’s goal for us depends on our sense of autonomy; our ability to feel life. And so the Lord said in Genesis, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” The end-goal for Divine Providence depends on the creation of Eve; our ability to feel the Lord’s life as our own.

So the Lord created Eve out of the rib of Adam. In Secrets of Heaven it says that “human selfhood, viewed from heaven, looks completely bony, lifeless, and hideous - inherently dead. But once the Lord gives it life, it appears to have flesh.” (AC 149) On the next page it says that not only does it come alive, but it looks “lovely and beautiful.” (AC 154) And so the Lord said in Genesis, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) The Lord wants these two paradoxical realities to be married in us... which often seems contradictory to us: ‘How can I acknowledge that the Lord is really in control, when I still have to get out of bed, and get myself to do things?’ ‘How is it possible that I could feel more alive, if I acknowledged that my life isn’t really mine?’ It doesn’t seem to make sense. Much like the difference between the sexes, these two realities see life from very different points of view. But the Lord intended that they should be complimentary, and that, “the masculine element and feminine element united by truly conjugial love produce one life that is fully human.” (CL 316) It says in Divine Providence that, "People do not know how two things can act in unison if they are different from each other.... [And yet] a form makes a whole more perfectly as its constituents are distinguishably different and yet united." (DP 4) We can’t acknowledge the Lord as the source of our life, unless we can experience that life as our own. Adam must be married to Eve. But we also can’t truly experience life in its fullness, unless we acknowledge that that life is the Lord’s. Eve must come from, and be married to Adam. In Divine Providence it says that “Love is the life of each one of us, and... the quality of that life depends on the quality of our love’s union with wisdom.” (DP 193) So the quality of our life depends on our sense of self being married to the knowledge that life is the Lord’s.

This law of Divine Providence is important in understanding how we should live our everyday lives. We need to acknowledge that the Lord is the one who regenerates us, while at the same time acknowledging that we need to do the work of repentance and reformation. The marriage of Adam and Eve is like the marriage of Faith and Charity, or the marriage of Freedom and Reason. If we believe in ‘Faith Alone’ or ‘Reason Alone’ then the Writings say we are like statues, standing still, doing nothing, waiting for salvation. (DP 321) And if we believe in ‘Charity Alone’ or ‘Freedom Alone’ - or the belief that we can regenerate ourselves - then the Writings say we are like animals (maybe even like serpents. DP 310, 321) and we become people who believe only in our own intelligence and prudence, and our own ability to accomplish good.

It’s also important that we remember that our sense of self is not just an appearance. It’s very real. Eve may have been created out of Adam, but she was just as much flesh and bone as he was. If our ability to make choices really was just an appearance, then we would all be doomed to predestination. But that’s not part of the Lord’s Divine Providence. We are truly free to make spiritual choices, thanks to the creation of Eve.

But then the snake enters the scene. “The serpent was more crafty than any other beast.” (Genesis 3:1) The snake represents our prudence, which is the part of us that trusts only our own sense of what is the right thing to do. (AC 194, DP 310, 313). The snake is the part of us that says, ‘I don’t just feel like life is my own, I believe that life is my own, and I can change myself!’ When we let the snake get to the Eve in us, then our sense of autonomy is deceived by the idea that we can govern ourselves. Eve is the access point for the hells, because it is the place where we can begin to love ourselves.

It’s interesting to note here that Adam doesn’t put up much of a fight. He’s pretty passive in this story. In Divine Providence it says that “we need to dismiss the evils of this [hellish] love with what seems to be our own strength. To the extent that we do this, the Lord draws near and unites us to Himself.” (DP 33) We can’t just expect that because we have ‘Adam’, we will be saved. That’s a life of faith alone. We need our ‘Eve’ to resist the fruit offered by the snake. That’s the only way to truly be conjoined with the Lord. But on the other hand maybe if the conversation hadn’t between just between Eve and the snake, but between both Adam and Eve and the snake, then maybe the two of them together would have been able to resist the snake, and the story would’ve ended differently.

So who is to blame in this story: Adam, Eve, or the serpent? It’s important to recognize that our sense of self (Eve) is different from our love of self (Serpent). Our sense of self is a truly human gift from God, but the love of self is from hell. Actually, Adam, Eve, and the serpent all ended up getting cursed in this story, and part of Eve’s curse is that her husband would rule over her. (Genesis 3:16) Our sense of autonomy - the feeling that life is our own - should be ruled by our acknowledgment that life is from the Lord. Contrary to what many Christians, including Paul, have thought, this doesn’t mean that husbands should literally rule over their wives. It’s talking about a marriage inside each of us. But even thought Paul’s understanding may have been somewhat flawed, his words to the Ephesians still capture this idea very nicely. “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:22) Our sense of autonomy should submit to our belief that our life is from the Lord. And Paul goes on to acknowledge the other side of it as well: “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.” (Ephesians 5:28) We should love and cherish this sense of autonomy that the Lord has given to us. This is what allows us to feel the joy of the Lord as joy in ourselves, and thus to truly experience His love. (see DLW 47) And this is also why “the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” (Genesis 3:20)

Now the downside of having ‘Eve’ in us, is that along with being able to feel happiness and joy, we can also feel sadness and pain. This is the other part of Eve’s curse. “In pain you shall bring forth children.” (Genesis 3:16) But this is only what happens when we forget about Adam. We might sometimes say to ourselves, “Life is hard!” It’s hard work to resist evils that we are inclined to from birth. If we listen to our own prudence, as Eve listened to the snake, then life does feel hard, the way does seem narrow (see Matt 7:13), and it even seems as impossible as trying to fit a camel through the eye of a needle (see Mark 10:25) . But if we remember to keep Eve married to Adam, then the yoke is easy (see Matt 11:30) . “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27). When Eve and Adam are married in us, then we are more likely to say, “Life is Good!” because we recognize that the Lord is good, and life is the Lord’s.

So what do we do? We do need to resist evils with what seems to be our own strength. We do need to repent of bad habits, and try to start good habits. We do need Eve. But when that feels really hard, and even impossible; we need to remember Adam: we need to pray to the Lord, ask for His help, find His wisdom in His Word, and cast our cares on Him. This is the marriage of Adam and Eve. Our ultimate union with the Lord is represented by a marriage, because our sense of self must be married to an acknowledgment that all life if from the Lord. Regeneration is a lot like marriage. It involves two very different points of view making one life together. And just like with the marriage of a man and woman, it may be difficult and feel impossible at times, but in the end, if we trust in the Lord, we can actually experience the heaven of feeling the Lord’s joy. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

Amen.

My 2nd Sermon

The Centurion’s Faith in Jesus: The Healing Power of Love

Lessons:
Matthew 4:13-17, 23-25
Matthew 8:5-13
DP 330:5-7

(If you would like to look up the references that appear throughout this sermon, copy and paste them into Small Canon Search.)

I’ve often found it seemingly paradoxical that our church teaches that: ‘faith that saves is to believe in Jesus Christ’ (see TCR 3), while at the same time it teaches that: ‘people of all religions can be saved’ (see DP 330). If a Muslim or Buddhist who doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ can be saved, then why does our church teach that: ‘faith that saves is to believe in Jesus Christ’? How does this work? A comprehensive understanding of the Heavenly Doctrines as revealed by Emanuel Swedenborg explains how this works. But rather than seeking to answer this question purely by doctrinal study, let’s first look at a story in the Gospels. A great story that illustrates this concept can be found in the story we just read of the centurion’s faith in Jesus, in Matthew chapter 8.
After the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, Jesus came down from the mountain and healed all kinds of people. In Capernaum, a Roman centurion came up to Jesus and asked Him to heal his servant. The Lord said He would come and do so. The centurion then said, ‘You don’t need to come; just say the word and he will be healed.’ And Jesus responded by saying in amazement to His disciples:
“Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 8:10-12)
The servant was then healed at that very moment because of the faith of the centurion.
It’s not hard to grasp the basic moral of this story: The Lord is telling us that mere membership in the church does not imply true faith, and that mere non-membership in the church does not imply a lack of true faith. The simple moral of the story is tolerance. This centurion was a Gentile Roman and not a Jew, and yet the Lord was implying that he had a greater faith than some of the Jews who were considered ‘sons of the kingdom.‘ Translated into modern times, the Lord is telling us that we should remember that a Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Catholic, Protestant and Swedenborgian are all just as capable of being saved and ‘reclining at table in the kingdom of heaven.’ This is one of the well-loved teachings of our church. Not many churches teach such universal religious tolerance. If we were to ask ourselves ‘What Would Jesus Do?‘ in this story, we could answer, ‘He would want everyone to be healed and saved,’ and so should we.
But that’s the easy moral of this story. Let’s ask ourselves a less obvious question: ‘What Would the Centurion Do?’ All the characters in the Bible represent us. So I can ask myself: Am I being like the ‘sons of the kingdom’ and ‘gnashing my teeth’ at people? Or am I being like the Gentile centurion with his amazing faith in the Lord. And what was it that made this centurion’s faith so amazing, so true, and so effective? What was it that was lacking in the faith of some of the Jews that put them at risk for being ‘thrown into the outer darkness’? In the end, this story gets us asking the question, ‘What is faith that saves after all? And do I have it?‘ We should not assume that simply because you are sitting there, and I am standing here, that we automatically have faith that saves.
In order to get at the answer to this question, let’s pick apart the details of this story. We know from the story as it is told in Luke, that this centurion was a good man. The Jews told Jesus that, “he is worthy to have You do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” (Luke 7:4,5) We might imagine this being like a German officer in occupied France, helping the French people repair a bombed church. This was a person who went out of his way to help his immediate neighbor. This was a person who had every opportunity to abuse his power over his neighbor, and instead he helped them. This was a person who truly practiced love to the neighbor; which really just means: love towards everyone.
But why did this Roman centurion have so much faith in Jesus? He wasn’t a Jew, so he probably wouldn’t have believed in any prophesies of the Messiah. If he was a religious man at all, he very likely worshiped Jupiter or Mars, or even the emperor in Rome. What was his faith in Jesus based on? Well, we know that both Jesus and this centurion lived in Capernaum (Matt. 4:13), so very likely this centurion had heard of, and probably even seen many of the healings and miracles of Jesus. After all, Jesus was literally famous for the power He had to heal disease and cast out demons (Matt. 4:24). So the centurion’s faith was quite simply based on the fact that he knew Jesus could heal his boy. True Christianity number 2 says, “To believe in Him is to have confidence that He saves.” The centurion had confidence that Jesus could save his servant. The name ‘Jesus’ actually means Savior, as we know from the Heavenly Doctrines (see AC 3004 and TCR 298) and from the literal sense of the Word where it says: “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” (Matt 1:21). Jesus saves us from hell, which in the Word is represented by sickness, demon-possession and death.
As was said before, we also know from the Luke version of the story, that the centurion was a good man. The number from True Christianity goes on to say that “...and because only those who live good lives can have such confidence, this too is meant by believing in Him.” The centurion had true faith because he had confidence that Jesus could save his servant, and because he was a good man. So for us, the test of whether our faith is true or not could be: Do I have confidence that the Lord can and wants to save me spiritually? And, am I loving towards people? When I’m doing those things, I have true faith. When I’m not, I don’t have true faith.
Now lets look at some other details of this story. The centurion had a paralyzed servant at home. If we are the centurion, then what is our ‘paralyzed servant at home’? Apocalypse Revealed number 3 says that in the Word ‘servants’ represent truths, because true ideas serve goodness, as a servant serves his master. Also, a person’s ‘home’ represents his mind or his life. So as the centurion, we might recognize that we often want to do what is good, but we don’t always now how. We lack the truths that serve our desire to be good. Our servant is lying paralyzed at home.
Another detail is that the centurion lived in Capernaum. In a good sense, ‘Capernaum’ represents “the establishment of the church with the Gentiles that are in the good of life and that receive truths.” (AE 447:5) Earlier in Matthew, Capernaum is associated with this quote from Isaiah: “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” (Matt 4:16) Jesus fulfilled this prophesy by living in Capernaum; by bringing light into the darkness. So it’s important for us to recognize that without the Lord living in our ‘town’, we too will live in darkness and falsity. When we find that our ‘servant at home’ is sick, we need to remember that the Lord lives right here in our ‘home town’, and we just need to turn to Him for help. That is part of faith that saves.
The Lord then tells His disciples that “many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” What is meant by the people from the ‘east and west’? This makes me think about how even today we refer to people of ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ philosophies. Often times these people don’t see eye to eye on things. But the Heavenly Doctrines tell us that, whatever the doctrine or philosophy, if a person is living a good life, they can get into heaven. In Secrets of Heaven it say that “‘many from the east and the west’ denote those who are in the knowledges and the life of good, and those who are in obscurity and ignorance; thus those who are within the church and those who are without it.” (AC 3708:13) Apocalypse Explained says that people from the east and west also represent “all who are in the good of love to the Lord and in the good of charity towards the neighbor” (AE 422:6). And that number goes on to say that “all who are in good are also in truths,” because as it says in the Doctrine of Life, “good loves truth.” (Life 65). What this means is that people who want to do good and love their neighbor tend to seek out philosophies that support that. Apparently, whether that is a Buddhist philosophy or a Christian philosophy is less important than whether or not they are loving God and loving the people around them.
“Many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” The Writings tell us that ‘Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ represent “the celestial things of love” (AC 2187:4), and also the Lord Himself (see AE 252:3, AE 768:13, AC 10442). So ‘to recline at table with them’ represents to be conjoined with the Lord, to make His love a part of us, and to have heaven within us (see AC 3832, 9527, 10442, AE 252:3), because as the Lord taught us in Luke, “the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) So just like when we take the Holy Supper, ‘reclining at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ represents bringing the Lord’s love and wisdom into us so that heaven lives in us, and we live in heaven. The Lord is the “bread of life” (John 6:35) and we should be eating that bread. This isn’t just describing the process of getting to a place called ‘heaven’ after we die, this is describing the process of bringing heaven into our current natural lives. And the way we do that is by having faith like the centurion. The ‘faith that saves’ is a life of love towards others.
Sometimes it can also be useful to understand what we should be doing by looking at what we shouldn’t be doing. Sort of a ‘10 Commandments’ mentality. This is where we get into the last part of the Lord’s words to his disciples, “...while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” In Apocalypse Explained is says that: "‘kingdom’ in the Word signifies heaven and the church in respect to truths.” (AE 48:2) So the ‘sons of the kingdom’ are people who have the truths and therefore should have heaven in them, but in this case they don’t. These ‘sons of the kingdom’ get thrown into the ‘outer darkness.‘ In the Word ‘darkness’ symbolizes “falsity arising either from ignorance of truth, or from some false tenet of religion, or from a life of evil.” (AR 413:3) So how does somebody get from having the truth, to being in falsity? The key is in the last thing Jesus says: “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” In Secrets of Heaven, we are told that ‘gnashing of teeth’ represents the “collision of falsities with the truths of faith.” (AC 9052:3) The Writings also say that people represented by the phrase ‘gnashing of teeth’ are people who engage in: contempt for others, hostility, derision, mockery, enmity, and jeering because a person who is like this “fights for his [or her] own falsity from love of self, [love] of learning, and [love] of fame.” (AE 556:18. See also HH 575) And that people who spiritually ‘gnash their teeth’ “appear to themselves to have power over everything.... and argue about everything.” (AR 435) When we have the truth, and at the same time no love for the people around us, then those truths get twisted into falsities. When we engage in doctrinal arguments and battles with other people in which we get nasty and mean, then we are like the ‘sons of the kingdom’ being thrown into outer darkness.
The centurion was not a ‘son of the kingdom.’ He didn’t know anything doctrinal about the Lord. But what he did know was that Jesus was a good Man who could save people from sickness and death. The centurion called Jesus ‘Lord,’ not because he had necessarily read the Scriptures and recognized the Messiah, but because he recognized that Jesus was the Master of healing and salvation. It is possible that he actually believed that Jesus was God (Jupiter) Himself (see AE 815:3). But more importantly, he recognized that Jesus represented the healing power of love, and that is what he had faith in. That is why people of all religions can be saved, because everyone can recognize and know the healing power of love. And since that is who the Lord is, then everyone can know the Lord. Swedenborg’s book Divine Providence states that “no one is saved because of knowing about the Lord. We are saved because we live by His commandments. Further, the Lord is known to everyone who believes in God because the Lord is the God of heaven and earth.” (DP 330:6)
So as you go into your week, ask yourself if you are ‘gnashing your teeth’ at people, or if you are ‘reclining at table‘ with the Lord’s love. Because what really matters in the church is that we live our lives with an acknowledgment of the Lord’s power to heal, and a love for the people around us, like the centurion did. This was the faith that Jesus marveled over. Because in the end, love is the faith that saves. And the salvation of the Lord’s healing love comes to us when we have a faith and life of love. “And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed at that very moment.”
Amen.

My First Sermon

"The Uncut Stones of the Temple"

Readings:
1 Kings 6:1-7
Matthew 7:24-27
Swedenborg's True Christianity, number 221

Today we are going to focus on the meaning of the whole uncut stones used in constructing the walls of the temple in Jerusalem, and how that applies to our life. The specific text that we will be focusing on is 1 Kings chapter 6 vs. 7 which says that “...the house itself...was built with unhewn stone, and no hammer or ax or any iron tool was heard in the house while it was being built.” (1 Kings 6:7)
There is some disagreement among Biblical scholars over whether these stones that were brought to build the temple were whole uncut stones, or whether they were simply cut to size and squared off-site at the quarry before arriving at the temple construction site. It makes a big difference in how we picture the temple in out minds, or in artwork. Many artists paint Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem as being built out of large square blocks of stone, much like the construction of the Bryn Athyn cathedral. But this may not be an accurate portrayal of the temple. It may be more accurate to portray the temple as being built of large irregularly-shaped stones, fitted together with mortar. Or maybe the temple was built of whole stones that were carefully fit together like puzzle pieces without mortar, like the dry-stone-wall construction of Machu Picchu in Peru. Whether it’s a difference between source texts, or because the Hebrew is simply unclear, there are differing opinions on this point. Fortunately we know from the Heavenly Doctrines as revealed by Emanuel Swedenborg that the temple was indeed made of unhewn or uncut stones, and that this was for a very specific and important reason.
But before we get to that reason, let’s place this passage in context. How does this story of the temple being built have meaning in our life? What is the spiritual meaning of the temple? Jesus Himself answered this question in John:
So the Jews said to him, "What sign do you show us for doing these things?" Jesus answered them, "Break this temple in pieces and I will raise it in three days." The Jews then said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?" But He was speaking about the temple of His body. When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:18-22)
It is widely recognized in the Christian world that the body of Christ means the Church (see TCR 372), and that we should abide in the Lord and the Lord in us. (see John 15:4). We also know from John chapter one that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Word. So from all of these passages we can see that the temple represents the Lord, the Word, the Church or religion, and that we should live our spiritual lives in that temple, and that we should build a house in us for the Lord to live.
So the construction of that temple refers to the construction of our religion; the place in us where the Lord can dwell. And King Solomon in this story represents the Lord in His first advent, or in the case of our current lives, he represents the first advent of the Lord into our hearts and minds. Once we have received the Lord into our lives, He can begin to regenerate us, which is the construction of the temple. The construction of the temple took seven years to accomplish, much like the seven days of creation that we know represents our spiritual rebirth. And though the entire project was overseen by Solomon (representing the Lord), we know that in the Word, "the builders are the people of the church” (HH 534). In other words: we are employed by the Lord to build our own religion.
When a building is being constructed, first the outside is constructed, then the inside is constructed. This is true for us too. First we need create external structures in our life, by developing good habits and spiritual practices. In time, those external structures can be filled with the actual goods of religion. In other words, we first have to force ourselves in a very mechanical and structured way to follow the truths of religion; such as obeying the 10 commandments. After that is accomplished we can begin to love to do those things. That external structure can only be founded on truths. That is why the exterior of the temple was built of hard stone (representing truths), and the interior of the temple was built of soft wood (representing good).
The Lord has told us in His Word that, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” (Psalm 127:1), and also that “Everyone then who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” (Matt 7:24-25) We also know that the Lord Himself is called “The Stone of Israel” (Genesis 49:24), and that as it says in John; the Lord is the Word (John 1:1,14).
These passages explain that we need to construct our religion based on the truths of the Lord’s Word. In the Word, truths are represented by rocks or stones, such as the two tablets of stone on which the 10 commandments were written. But these passages from the literal sense of the Word also illustrate the process of how we should construct our religion; namely by using the literal sense of the Word. Passages from the Word can be placed together to form spiritual ideas that we can live by, much like stones can be placed together to form a building that we can live in.
The Writings of Swedenborg tell us that whole unhewn stones represent the truths of the literal sense of the Lord’s Word (see AC 8940, 8941; AE 585). Hewn stones by contrast represent “what is artificial, and thus what is fictitious in worship; that is, what is of man's own or of the figment of his thought and heart.” (AC 1298:2) and also “whatever of doctrine, religion, and worship is from self-intelligence” (AE 585:11). Because everything can have both a good and bad correspondence, rocks or stones can represent either truth or falsity; and in this case a hewn stone represents falsity from our own intelligence. (see AR 847) Taken to the extreme we can see how evil comes out of this when we think about how an intricately hewn stone could become an idol, and could achieve the complete opposite result from the one intended by building the temple.
A religious fabrication, produced out of self-intelligence and not derived from the Word, is meant in the internal sense by 'idols' and 'strange gods', by 'molten images' and 'graven images'. Products of the self are nothing else; for in themselves they are dead, even though venerated as living. (AC 8941)

The reason why hewn stones represent this, is because of what iron tools represent. “By these instruments are signified such things as are of self-intelligence, and which devise.” (AC 8942) Iron tools are an extension of our hands which are extensions of our own will and our own understanding, and when these stem from love of one's self above all else, it is dangerous to apply them to the Lord’s Word. (see AC 10406:11) The Writings say that, "‘iron’ signifies truth in ultimates, which is called sensual truth, which when separated from rational and spiritual truth, is turned into falsity.” (AR 847) When we take truth only at it’s sensual, literal level, we can be tempted to abuse it. We could take one truth out of context and repeatedly hit someone over the head with it to drive home a point we want to make, much like chiseling at a stone with sharp iron. That is not what the Lord wants us to do with His truths. His truths are meant to be gently, quietly placed together to build a house suitable for worship which is the life of charity.
As was said earlier, the stones in the walls of the temple specifically represent the truths of the literal sense of the Word. Like rocks these truths can be very irregular at times. They can be bulky. They can be heavy and hard to carry. They can have sharp points and rough edges. When we’re trying to fit them into the philosophy of how we live our lives, it can be very tempting to take the iron tools of our limited selfish intellect and shave off some corners. For example ‘This statement about the Lord wanting the children of Israel to kill Midianites in the book of Numbers, doesn’t fit with Jesus telling us to love our enemies in Matthew. I think I’ll just trim the corner off so they fit together better. Or maybe I’ll just leave this stone out; it really doesn’t seem to fit.’ In the past, the Christian church fell into the error of splitting God into three persons, almost like splitting what should have been one whole stone into three stones to make them fit better in the walls of the temple.
Despite the fact that the Lord warns us not to use our limited selfish intellect to change the stones of the literal sense of the Word, He still wants us to work with these stones. We still need to do the work of actually piecing them together into the walls of a temple that will hold the life of charity. The Lord does not do this for us. And so we are told in the Writings,
That by "'a worker in stone' is signified the good of love, or the will of one who is regenerate, [and that this] is because the good of love works in a person while they are being regenerated, and disposes the truths with them into order; and afterward, when they have been regenerated, it keeps them in their order." (AC 9846)
If we have a love for the Lord and a love for the neighbor in our hearts, then that will guide us in knowing how these strangely shaped stones of the Lord’s Word can be pieced together to form a beautiful temple; the life of religion.
Our job as good workers of stone, is to trust that the whole stones of the literal sense of the Lord’s Word do fit together to form the walls of the church in us. Whether they fit because of the conjunctive power of mortar (which represents the good of charity (see AC 1300)), or because the Lord gives us the spiritual enlightenment to see how the puzzle-like stones fit together, the important thing is that we do not attempt to change or modify the truths of the literal sense of the Word with our own intellect. We need to trust that our religion can be based on those truths.
When we do this, we will develop a good trusting relationship with the Lord. We will also gain a sense of contentment. This is why the building of the temple was relatively silent, because of “the meaning of 'being silent' as resting content and... refusing to think or believe that [we] achieve anything by [our] own powers” (AC 8176)
Once the external structure of our religion has been constructed out of the truths of the literal sense of the Word, we can begin the interior decoration of that temple. Strangely enough, though the external walls of the temple had to be built from unhewn stones, the interior walls of the temple were built out of intricately carved wood. Iron tools must have been used on that wood! So how do we reconcile this? The Lord does not want us to be robots, blindly obeying His will. He wants us to use our understanding, and our sense of self, for good. A common saying in our church, taken from the book True Christianity, is that ‘Now it is permitted to enter with understanding into the mysteries of faith.” (TCR 508) The Lord permits the use of our 'iron tools' on the rational and good things of the interiors of the temple. But those things must first be given structure and stability by the unhewn stones of the exterior walls: the truths of the literal sense of the Word. Without that structure and protection, the beautifully and delicately carved wood of the interior of the temple would be destroyed by the elements of nature, and simply fall to pieces.
So think about your own religion. Is it constructed out of whole unhewn stones? Is it constructed out of a knowledge of the literal sense of the Word? Are you a good worker in stone? Is your construction design based on love to the Lord and love to the neighbor? Think about these things the next time you see a stone wall, and remember the Lord’s words in Matthew: “Everyone then who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.” (Matt 7:24-25)
Amen.