Reply #39: I would tend to let the reported words of Christ trump Luke's Acts...

[mikelewis]

Don't get me wrong, Acts is a fine piece of work but it has many failings. The spirit in which Luke (or whoever wrote it) approaches Acts is the right spirit but he fails in many respects to achieve the goals he set out to achieve in the beginning of the text. This is not a failure mind you... it's actually what happened to the initial Judeo-Christian church. Acts sets out to recreate the mind of the remaining Apostles... as Mark had done with Jesus. Only, what Mark did was a literary miracle that could only be expounded on and not easily replicated. Those expositions are the Gospels of Mathew (a mostly Jewish interpretation) and Luke (a work directed at the gentile's). Luke attempted to capitalize on his enormously successful interpretation by creating a new Gospel that would take up where where the others end. Only the tendrils of the story begin to expand way beyond what he is able to capture in the parabolic language in which Mark had written. Mark was using the code words and phrases of the "Jesus Movement", walking on water, sailing in ships, devils and swine, these were codes that the movement understood but strange and ridiculous tongues that outsiders just mocked and ignored. After the movement was destroyed and the remaining heirs to the dynasty of Jesus were hunted down and murdered, the language disappeared and Luke wasn't able to catch the same lightening in the bottle that Mark had and the others had capitalized upon. It wasn't until later that John was able to try to wrench the focus back into that "Christ-centered" and message driven format by his reinterpretation of Mark providing a new vernacular to the crazy tongues the Christians were speaking in their churches. Where Mark had Loaves and Fishes, John had Water and Wine... and many other examples that make John such an amazing piece of work and an equal to Mark in many ways. As I see it, Mark is the Body of Christ and John the soul... but I am way off topic...


But the point of Act's was to do the same for the Apostles as the Gospel of Mark had done for Christ but unfortunately it begins to stumble and ultimately the author gives up and finally recreates a quasi-Markan image of Paul which lacks the same majesty as the other gospels. To take Acts and treat it as an edict that supersedes or contradicts the message from the Messiah is to take those two pieces of work out of the context in which they were written. I guess the best way to look at it is that the words of Jesus is the main intent and Acts is the interpretations of those parabolic ideas espoused by Christ.

However, even supposing that these two phrases are divine edicts on the salvific intent of God is to make the same mistake the Jews had made in the time of Christ. Applying legalistic interpretations to every line of the Bible is to commit the same sin the Pharisaic and Sadducean Jews had committed by making the letter of the law more important than the spirit of the law. Had they understood what it meant that God demanded mercy and not sacrifice they would have never crucified the Lord of Hosts. It's not the letter of the law, it's the Holy spirit that is the law that is important. So when choosing which takes precedents, you must first find the spirit from which these words flow and then make the best interpretation that you can... always with the knowledge that we are imperfect prophets and often subject to egotistical and often fanciful errors. The Bible is not the Law... God is the Law... and if God is bound by the Bible, he can be no God. Take your questions to God and let him answer if he wills it... but in the meantime do the best you can with as much mercy as you can muster.

Also concerning the Triune nature of God, the Son and the Holy spirit... That relationship is a bit more complicated than Catholic dogma would have one believe. Jesus was not God, he was the articulation of God, the servant of God, the son of God but not God... but to know Jesus was to know God because he had sent him to give the world the message that was of God and Jesus emanated that Holy Spirit that was of God... to know one is to know the other, to hear one is to hear the other, to obey one is to obey the other... but that idea is so complicated I believe the Church decided that since it understood that relationship it wasn't really all that concerned with trying to explain that concept to others who did not. Over time, I'm not even sure if the Church we have today even understands that relationship any longer... I think they have become slaves to the dogmatic teachings that they believe must have had a good reason for existing but have lost the sense of that relationship. They instinctively understand it but lack the ability to explain it in terms most people will accept or understand and rely on the tradition and acceptance of that tradition to help them win theological arguments. How does one make this case? "Jesus was not God while on earth but he supplanted his will for the will of God and infused the Holy spirit into his spirit and became one with God so that when he passed from this realm into the realm of God he turned back into God from which he came... just as all of us must do if we are to dwell with God." To make that statement is to create a theological thunderstorm of... well Biblical proportions... and frankly most people really don't want God to be all that complicated.

It's easier to just say that Jesus was God and that any blaspheme against the name of Jesus is a blasphemy against God... which is ridiculous since for one... Jesus wasn't the name of the Messiah... his name was Joshua but since the name Joshua in Latin was a female name they changed it from Yeshua to Iesvs but the name of Christ was not Jesus.. the full name of Christ was Yeshua Ha-Nozri Wemelech Hajehudim which is interpreted as Yeshua (Jesus) Ha-Nozri (From Nazereth) we-melech (the King) Ha-Jehudim (of Jews) which if you take the first letters of each and put it on a sign on top of a crucifix you would have "YHWH" which is the secret name of God among Hebrews. The Latin interpretation would be INRI which would read Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm...

So to blaspheme the name Jesus isn't really a blasphemy against the Messiah since the Messiah had a much more complicated and "Jewish" name... to blaspheme the name of God wasn't such a big deal since most people wouldn't know Yahweh anyway but it was the spirits that those names were associated with... that Holy spirit that used those names... if you blasphemed that then you were in danger of damnation... but this was a time when telling your neighbor you'd spit on them would land you in court and calling them a coward would land you in hell... I think we've relaxed a bit on those interpretations over the years.

The point is that if you know that holy spirit that is God then there can be no greater sin than to blaspheme his name because you know him and he is precious and holy... but if you don't know God, say what you like because you are blaspheming something that you do not understand and are merely crucifying a name and not that spirit... just as the Roman's blasphemed the body and not the spirit. So ultimately, "God dammit" is only a sin if it's an order and not an expletive.