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View Full Version : 'What Is Required' (lessons in self reflection)



Barndog
01-23-03, 04:18 PM
Still aint there yet. Deepest apologies to any and all I may have p!**ed off openly. Rough days, Bros......... highly rough.

This is something I do on a regular basis, when i don't have a overwheming desire to k*#@ someone who needs it (lots of them recently - haven't yet) and thats an operative word (LMAO)

Use it and pass it on. I have the book here, if ya want the ISBN #'s to purchase it. Not for the meek reader, nor the idle thinker.

Semper Fidelis - Barndog

From ’Judge For Yourself’ - Soren Kierkegaard – “ What is Required “

…’Imagine Luther in our own generation (Luther – as in speaking of the Lutheran doctrine)…. aware of our condition… do you not think he would say as he says in a sermon, ‘the world is like a drunken peasant; if you help him up on one side….. he falls off the other side’. Do you not think he would say: ‘The Apostle James must be drawn forward a little, not for works against faith – no no….. that was not the Apostle’s meaning either- but FOR faith, in order, if possible, to cause the need for grace to be felt deeply in genuine humble inwardness, and, if possible, to prevent grace, faith and grace as the only redemption and salvation, from being taken totally in vain, from becoming a camoflage even for a refined worldliness. Luther – this man of God, this honest soul! – overlooked or perhaps….. really forgot what he himself was……… too honest to know, what an honest soul he himself was, something I must stress, a certain something that at a later age, especially ours, and not on account of my virtue, but for the sake of the truth.

I have become convinced, that I am not an honest soul, but a cunning fellow. Thus it certanly becomes most proper to pay a little more attention to the minor premise (works, existense, to witness and suffer for the truth, works of love, etc) the minor premise in the Luthern doctrine. Not that the minor premise should now be made the major premise , nor that faith and grace be abolished or disparaged – God forbid –no, it is precisely for the sake of the major premise, and because of the kind of fellow that I am, it certanly becomes most proper to pay more attention to the minor premise in Lutheran doctrine – for in relation to ‘honest souls’ - nothing needs to be done.

And, James says, ‘Be not only hearers of the Word, but doers of it.’

But, in order to become a doer of the Word one must first of all be a hearer or reader of it, which James does indeed say. And now we have come to our text : So we shall speak about ( he requests you read this part aloud)

“What is Required In Order to Look at Oneself with True Blessing in the Mirror of the Word “?

The FIRST requirement is that your must NOT look at the mirror………….

Observe the mirror, but you must see yourself in the mirror.

This seems so obvious that one might think that it would scarcely need be said. Yet it is certainly necessary; and what confirms me in this opinion is that this remark was not made by me, nor by someone we in these days call a pious man, the kind of man who has some pious sentements, but it was made by a witness to the truth, a martyr, and such glorious people are certainly informed. He warns against the error of observing the mirror instead of seeing oneself in the mirror. I merely make use of the remark and I ask you, my listener:

Does it not seemed to be coined for our times and our situation and in general for the later ages of Christendom?
‘God’s Word’ – is indeed the mirror – but but….. oh, how enormously complicated – strictly speaking, how much belongs to ‘God’s Word’????? Which books are authentic? Are they ‘really’ by the Apostles? And, are the Apostles, therefore, trustworthy?? Have they personally seen, everything?? Or……. Perhaps they have ‘only heard things about’ various ‘things’ – from others.

(He writes on however gets too…….)

That being alone with God’s Word is a dangerous matter is implicitly admitted also by more competent people. Possibly, there was someone (a competent and earnest person, even if we cannot land at his conclusion) who said to himself, “ I am no good at doing anything halfway – and this book, God’s Word, is an extremely dangerous book for me. And it is an imperious book - if one gives it a finger, it takes the whole hand, if one gives it the whole hand, it takes the whole man, and suddenly, and radically change my whole life on a prodigious scale.”

“No, without allowing myself one single derogatory or dispuraging word (something I abhorr) – about this book, I put it in some out-of-the-way place. I refuse to be alone with it.”

We do not approve of this, but nevertheless there is always something in this that we do approve of – a certain honesty.

The person who looks at themself in the mirror very much becomes vain and vainly loaquacious. And, a person who looks at theirself in the mirror of time becomes stridently noisy!!!!!!! Ah….. but the person who looks at themselves in the mirror of ‘The Word’ becomes silent!

And if they become silent, this perhaps is the strongest indication that they are not a forgetful reader or hearer. If one becomes talkative after looking at oneself in the mirror of the Word, this may be an indication of not having forgetfulness, perhaps, but the silence of the one who became silent is a sure sign.

You know, of course, the one who fell in love (with ‘The Word’) and became talkative – oh well!!!!!!!

But…. To become silent – that is the surer sign!

wrbones
01-23-03, 04:25 PM
That's some preaching worth listening to.

USMC0311
01-23-03, 04:31 PM
Haul yer big ass over to my CP Tony. The wire is secure and you can relax and chat with one of the hardest, meanest, hateful Muthers in the world.

I know yer life ain't been a rose garden Bro. and I know you keep on keepin on. You have my Respect Barndog. Almost Everyone gets a taste of hard-times and You have had more than most could handle. I'm proud of You for the apology, and for hanging in there to get yer **** squared-away.

You are a Outstanding Marine Bro. and I'm Proud to Know ya and Call ya Friend.

Stop by iffin ya got a hankerin. Got Crown and Heineken.

Semper Fidelis, Marine

thedrifter
01-23-03, 05:30 PM
Barndog it takes a Great Marine and Man to admit when he is wrong and apologize...........You have shown this to us all.
I'M PROUD TO CALL YOU MY BROTHER AND FRIEND.

Joe save some of that Crown and Heineken for me.......

Good words of Wisdom, you have Bones thinking......

Now Ellie and I expect to see you all in DC this year........

Sempers,

Roger