in 1611, Dr. Rainolds wrote a heartfelt letter about the importance of reading
the Bible, listening to God’s teachings, and living them. A review at the end of
a 1979 edition concludes with this excerpt from his letter:
“Divinity, the knowledge of God, is the water of life. God forbid that you
should think that divinity consists of words, as a wood doth of trees. True
divinity cannot be learned unless we frame our hearts and minds wholly to it.
The knowledge of God must be learned of God. We have to use two means,
prayers and the reading of the Holy Scriptures – prayers for ourselves to talk
with God, and reading to hear God talk with us. We must diligently give
ourselves to reading and meditating on the Holy Scriptures. I pray that you
may.”
Let us pray that as a church and as individuals we all may
“diligently read and meditate on the Word of God” and to take all of
that love and truth into our lives in serving the Lord and our neighbor.
(BMH)
new church virtues: masculinity and femininity
This editorial will conclude the series on New Church Virtues, though many
others might be mentioned. The point has been that all virtues, when viewed
in light of the Heavenly Doctrine, become New Church virtues. This is because
all the goodness and truth that make us human originate in the Lord’s Divine
Human, and the Divine Human is the main subject of New Church doctrine.
The doctrines also explain very fully what we must do in order to receive the
gift of human virtue from the Lord (in a word, regenerate).
“Virtue” has become a somewhat antiquated term; the word “values” is
more often used now. But as I said in a previous editorial, “values” are more
general and vague than “virtues.” People are happy to speak of “family values,”
for example, but many are less comfortable talking about the specific virtues
which actually go into making strong families – such as religious faith, obeying
the commandments (worshiping the Lord, honoring father and mother,
faithfulness in marriage, etc.), and being willing to make the self-sacrifice
involved in having children and caring for them.
True values become “virtues” when they are actually lived. And this
requires going through the combats of temptation – the inner, spiritual
struggles required to overcome the tendencies to evil and falsity in our natural
heredity and bring our lives under the rule of a conscience formed by spiritual
truth.
This brings us to the topic we want to consider in this editorial:
masculinity and femininity, the essential difference between them, and how
they complement each other. The biological fact of being male or female is not
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