This blog will setup a COMPARISON to clarify and accentuate the meaning of a couple ‘used and abused’ RELIGIOUS ideas expressed by the terms BLASPHEMY and HERESY.
We briefly discussed BLASPHEMY in a previous blog (Love: Which Laws Apply?), and will discuss it more in detail in a future blog under the 10 Commandments. Suffice to say, we discovered in the Bible that BLASPHEMY, with respect to Christians, occurs when people CLAIM TO BE ‘CHRISTIAN’ BUT DISOBEY GOD’S LAW.
In a recent blog (You Hypocrite!), we discovered that HERESY occurs, with respect to Christians, when people SEPARATE FROM or LEAVE the Christian community, and then LIVE ACCORDING TO OTHER LAWS. We also discovered that HYPOCRISY = HERESY.
But wait! I’m CONFUSED! Isn’t HYPOCRISY the same as BLASPHEMY, by MODERN standards? Yup, it sure is. And isn’t HERESY, by modern standards, BELIEVING DIFFERENT IDEAS than promulgated by the CHURCH (giving rise to DENOMINATIONALISM)? Yup, right again! But MODERN standards and word meanings (definitions, semantics) are NOT to be imported into the Biblical text for interpretive purposes. In nearly all cases that I’ve been able to determine, MODERN IDEAS AND DEFINITIONS ARE THE OPPOSITE OF OR VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE ORIGINAL MEANINGS OF TERMS found in the Bible.
I consider this SEMANTICS DISCREPANCY a massive DECEPTION perpetrated upon the masses of humanity by world elitists in order to keep them STUPID and OBEDIENT to the state or some other governing power. But that’s the subject of a different blog. In any case, we learned a matching principle in the hermeneutics blog (Interpretation Method). The kind of interpretive ERROR or FALLACY mentioned above is called EISAGESIS. In other words, it’s BAD INTERPRETATION, which means you will NEVER arrive at the correct interpretation of the Bible using that method … that is, using MODERN DEFINITIONS of words in place of HISTORICALLY ACCURATE DEFINITIONS of words.
So, when using WRONG INTERPRETATION methods, we have been DECEIVED into believing that HYPOCRISY = BLASPHEMY and THINKING DIFFERENT FROM THE CHURCH = HERESY. But that is a gigantic LIE! Instead, New Testament HYPOCRISY = 2nd Temple HERESY, whereas Biblical BLASPHEMY = modern HYPOCRISY! Confused yet?! I sure WAS! But you can UN-BRAINWASH yourself using a simple method that I’ve used repeatedly over the years.
The first thing you MUST do is QUIT LETTING PEOPLE THINK FOR YOU, AND START THINKING FOR YOURSELF! This takes some time to master, and you make a lot of errors at the beginning, but after a while, you get pretty good at it. You even find yourself in agreement with people you never met before, because they too have begun thinking for themselves and have thus arrived at the TRUTH. So, in order to get the above concepts straightened out in your head, you first need to RECOGNIZE the lies and IDENTIFY the factual errors underlying them. Then you have to BURN THE TRUTH INTO YOUR MIND (memorize it!), and memorize the supporting HISTORICAL FACTS that give substance to it. Otherwise, you will NEVER know the truth, and will ALWAYS be wandering about life in a foggy state of deception, being MANIPULATED by the ‘staus quo’ (or whoever propagandizes it to control you). The Apostle Paul says it like this:
18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. (1 Corinthians 3)
An important note: You have to SHUT OFF YOUR EMOTIONS to do this, b/c your EMOTIONS will CLAMOR AGAINST YOU during your pursuit of UN-BRAINWASHING yourself. I found it helpful when this occurs to RECITE THE FACTS that support my pursuit of truth and compare them with the LACK OF FACTS AND REASON underlying the clamoring EMOTIONS. You can use this same method when people give you GRIEF for changing your mind and way of life, which DIFFERS from theirs. They do it because you THREATEN THEIR COMFORT ZONE by being DIFFERENT. It’s really a CHILDISH REACTION, truth be told! But if you persevere in this method of UN-BRAINWASHING YOURSELF, you will eventually discover that your emotions will obey your mind instead of vice versa. That’s when you know you’re on the right track and confirmed in your pursuit of TRUTH. That method of CHANGE is called REPENTANCE (which we discussed in the blog, Love: Which Laws Apply?), and lies at the heart of the SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE theologically known as SANCTIFICATION.
Now, there’s on CATCH in all of this: TRUTHFUL DISSENT, known in modern times as CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. You encounter this reality in the Apostle Paul’s First letter to the Corinthians, chapter 11:
17 But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it. 19 For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.
Therein lies another principle: When some Christians in a community SEPARATE from the rest of the group, it may be an indication that the rest of the group is CORRUPT or BECOMING CORRUPT. But that’s an entirely different subject on the POLITICS inherent in RELIGION vs. the PERSECUTION against true Christians.
To summarize:
BLASPHEMY occurs when people CLAIM to be ‘Christian’ yet DISOBEY GOD’S LAW (live by different VALUES).
HERESY occurs when people leave the Christian community and OBEY LAWS OTHER THAN GOD’S (live by different VALUES).
BOTH kinds of people DISOBEY GOD’S LAW (live by VALUES different from what God REQUIRES), while BLASPHEMERS retain their ‘Christian’ identity and affiliations, but HERETICS do not. The underlying THEME here is DISOBEYING GOD’S LAW, which both kinds of CONDEMNED-BY-GOD people do.
That’s it for now. Thanx for stopping by. See you in the next blog!
Reality Bible 