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NASB | Matthew 5:44 "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 5:44 "But I say to you, love [that is, unselfishly seek the best or higher good for] your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, [Prov 25:21, 22] |
Subject: Praying for the 'World'. |
Bible Note: Dear Sonlit, The topic had me digging around in my notes. :-) I really appreciated what Abraham Kuyper wrote on this very notion regarding a "discomfort" with the truths we wrestle with in Scripture. He goes even farther to suggest that it is sinful to place such high value on our comfort. He wrote, "When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith." It is interesting that we do never see Christ more concerned with people being at ease with their perspectives. Think about how he knocked the legs out from under the comfortable theories of people like Nicodemus, Peter, Thomas, Phillip, the woman at the well, the rich young ruler, to just a few. Indeed, I'd even venture to state that the times of least comfort as we wrestle over the truths of Scripture, are the most critical moments of our minds being transformed. Such transformation is not simply a matter of knowledge, but reflects the beginning of the changing of our deep, inner, heart knowledge -- what Paul called "epignosis" (Colossians 1:9) with which we are to be filled. I say "beginning" because such knowledge always manifests itself in a changed life. Anyway, thanks for bringing up the subject. I stuck a few more quotes in here for good measure. :-) In Him, Doc "No one truth is rightly held till it is clearly conceived and stated, and no single truth is adequately comprehended till it is viewed in harmonious relations to all the other truths of the system of which Christ is the center." --A. A. Hodge "A 'presupposition' is not just any assumption in an argument, but a personal commitment that is held at the most basic level of one's network of beliefs. Presuppositions form a wide-ranging, foundational perspective (or starting point) in terms of which everything else is interpreted and evaluated. As such, presuppositions have the greatest authority in one's thinking, being treated as one's least negotiable beliefs and being granted the highest immunity to revision." --Greg Bahnsen (The presupposition that, as believers, we most dearly hold, is the authority of the Scripture.) "It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy's clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily 'true' or 'false', but as 'academic' or 'practical', 'outworn' or 'contemporary', 'conventional' or 'ruthless'. Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church." --Screwtape to Wormwood (C. S. Lewis) |