STAGES OF DISCIPLESHIP

Citizen of the Kingdom

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Got it - Thank-you.
We have different experience...
I have never seen God visiby...
Nor have I heard God audibly...
I have perceived Him noetically...
That is an inward 'seeing' that is without form...
Gentle words without sounds...

In the Way in which I walk, it is the person who is to deny his personality in the course of discipleship...
I did not try to keep God in great emotionality as you did...
My emotional life was already pretty much destroyed...
My experience of Him was alone and inwardly originated...
So to hold Him, I went inward in profound silence and stillness...
I like to think I slowed him down some...
But in that effort without words either inward or outward...
I learned what the nous 'looks like,' beneath all words and thoughts, in stillness of heart and soul...
I learned profound Peace...
Now always 'at hand'...

Thank-you

Arsenios
I have seen Him , once in vision (vaugely remember as a very small child) and once in a dream in young adulthood when 3 days following I was enveloped in love that was unmistakable. Once I heard Him audibly like out of the sky and many times has the still small voice spoken that was like a concept unfolded onto my consciousness.

You think I would have learnt from any of that but I didn't. I got worse and it wasn't until my brother (my partner in crime) (eta a grow-op was the involvement) was killed in a hit where I thought I was for sure next that I dived into the church. (previously having deep studies on my own on regular bases before that as I mentioned) (and yes I did forgive them) I would have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to go into complete silence of motion and sound (like a nunnery or monkery) but that was not my circumstances.

That's why I firmly believe that material/visable blessings are huge incentives (the milk but not the meat) to come within to be alone with Him in that invisable connection of knowing.

Peace that is when circumstances say otherwise is the permanant downpayment of His inheritance given to us that is really beyond understanding. And the joy of deep love for Him is my confidence given to me. So in that, peace and joy, is consistancy.
 
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.....
In the Way in which I walk, it is the person who is to deny his personality in the course of discipleship...
Arsenios
The soul, the personality connected to God, is the uniqueness of our walk imo. Impossible when the soul is not under submission to the spirit. Our human spirit needs to be submissive to the Holy Spirit. It's that part of the human anatomy that suffered death at the fall and that which is renewed at regeneration.
Our bodies need to be in submission to the mind (renewed in Christ) to overcome addictions. And our minds need to be in submission to the spirit to overcome sin.
God loves us because of who we are, not in spite of who we are. It's the nonsubmission of body to mind or mind to spirit that keeps us in the fallen path and that should not be.
 
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“Paisios”

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Got it - Thank-you.
We have different experience...
I have never seen God visiby...
Nor have I heard God audibly...
I have perceived Him noetically...
That is an inward 'seeing' that is without form...
Gentle words without sounds...

In the Way in which I walk, it is the person who is to deny his personality in the course of discipleship...
I did not try to keep God in great emotionality as you did...
My emotional life was already pretty much destroyed...
My experience of Him was alone and inwardly originated...
So to hold Him, I went inward in profound silence and stillness...
I like to think I slowed him down some...
But in that effort without words either inward or outward...
I learned what the nous 'looks like,' beneath all words and thoughts, in stillness of heart and soul...
I learned profound Peace...
Now always 'at hand'...

Thank-you

Arsenios
This sounds like that which I am seeking, if I understand you correctly...
 
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“Paisios”

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I have seen Him , once in vision (vaugely remember as a very small child) and once in a dream in young adulthood when 3 days following I was enveloped in love that was unmistakable. Once I heard Him audibly like out of the sky and many times has the still small voice spoken that was like a concept unfolded onto my consciousness.

You think I would have learnt from any of that but I didn't. I got worse and it wasn't until my brother (my partner in crime) (eta a grow-op was the involvement) was killed in a hit where I thought I was for sure next that I dived into the church. (previously having deep studies on my own on regular bases before that as I mentioned) (and yes I did forgive them) I would have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to go into complete silence of motion and sound (like a nunnery or monkery) but that was not my circumstances.

That's why I firmly believe that material/visable blessings are huge incentives (the milk but not the meat) to come within to be alone with Him in that invisable connection of knowing.

Peace that is when circumstances say otherwise is the permanant downpayment of His inheritance given to us that is really beyond understanding. And the joy of deep love for Him is my confidence given to me. So in that, peace and joy, is consistancy.
Thank you for sharing and for your thoughts and insight.
 
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Arsenios

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The soul,
the personality connected to God,
is the uniqueness of our walk imo.

I used to agree with you, thinking that I was creating my soul in my choices and actions that established the uniqueness of my walk, understanding, as you do, that this comprised my personality... I was an atheist at that time, and had no idea of the connecting of this fallen personality to God, and calling it a God-blessed life... And having made an approach to the unapproachable God through the total failure of my own choices and actions and efforts of self-creation and self correction, and having done so unto death, I knew prior to the God-Meet that all of that was a big fail... Utterly broken and utterly humbled... Looking only to death, and even that very indifferently...

"A heart that is broken and humbled is not despised..." [Ps 51 - Ps 50 lxx]

But the Greek understands the soul not as personality, but as life, the life of any organism... The personality is the RESULT of the FALLEN soul, indeed the Old Man, and it is this personality that we are discipled to crucify, because it is the part of us that developed under the aegis of sin and death... And as we are discipled in the overcoming of the old man in us, in the mortification of the flesh, in preparation for our encounter with God, we come to ourselves, as did the Prodigal Son, and we find the person we are, the very one who established the prior personality under death and apart from God, and our rebirth when we are Baptized INTO Christ establishes this New Creation, this New Person in Christ, and having found out who we are, we discover who we are to become... The "I" of the old man, [Greek = EGO] becoming more and more directed to and directed by God, such that at the end, in full maturity of this Faith of Christ, we can say with Paul: "Not I, but Christ WITHIN me..."

So that in reply to you, in this matter, I must say that the distinction between person and personality in the Christian Faith is one of conflict and war, unto the result that is perhaps well attested by the term "genuineness of person"... Being genuine is, normally, the hallmark of a Christian person... And a genuine person is not a 'personality', which is a personna, a 'face' we present to the world, but is a spiritually active and vital movement of a God-focused, and sometimes God-bearing, soul (Life) in the world... But the personality is but a mask we put on to cover our sin, and is thus a blockage to our overcoming it...

Arsenios
 
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Arsenios

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This sounds like that which I am seeking, if I understand you correctly...
It is a major feature of Orthodoxy - Nepsis, and hesychia... The Hesychasts comprise most if not all of the Orthodox Saints... It is why the monks flee to the deep silence of the monasteries... And it is why these monasteries are often so majestically remote.

If you go to the site below, you will see what has been built across so many centuries [indeed it's entire 2000 year history] in the Christian faith - I mean, we look at these magnificent edifices on craggy hill-tops and mountain outcroppings with awe and perhaps trepidation, but they are all simply the external means of fully dedicated Christians attaining to inner silence and peace in their ascent in God...

Meteora-2.jpg


Meteora-Holy-Trinity-Agia-Triada-monastery.jpg


Here's the link...
Meteora Monasteries Pictures & Photos. Photography, Fotos & Images - Images | Photos Gallery

Living a quiet and peaceful and loving interior and God-focused life of labors and prayer and vigil is the Christian Way of living...

Arsenios
pixel.gif
 
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“Paisios”

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It is a major feature of Orthodoxy - Nepsis, and hesychia... The Hesychasts comprise most if not all of the Orthodox Saints... It is why the monks flee to the deep silence of the monasteries... And it is why these monasteries are often so majestically remote.

If you go to the site below, you will see what has been built across so many centuries [indeed it's entire 2000 year history] in the Christian faith - I mean, we look at these magnificent edifices on craggy hill-tops and mountain outcroppings with awe and perhaps trepidation, but they are all simply the external means of fully dedicated Christians attaining to inner silence and peace in their ascent in God...

Meteora-2.jpg


Meteora-Holy-Trinity-Agia-Triada-monastery.jpg


Here's the link...
Meteora Monasteries Pictures & Photos. Photography, Fotos & Images - Images | Photos Gallery

Living a quiet and peaceful and loving interior and God-focused life of labors and prayer and vigil is the Christian Way of living...

Arsenios
pixel.gif

I can definately relate to those places of silence and remoteness. Nice to compare notes. God bless

Yes, I can relate to remote, silent places, and mountains.

It seems we all share similar goals, but perhaps have different ideas on the means of their attainment. No one comes to the Father except through the Son...but are there different ways to the Son?
 
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Arsenios

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Yes, I can relate to remote, silent places, and mountains.

Monastics are those who go to such places to entirely consecrate their lives to inner silence...

It is that important...

Forsaking the world for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven...

Meanwhile, Psalm 82 - I have yet to see a decent commentary by anyone on it - Not Jewish nor Patristic... So I got out my trusty Psalter translated by Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston, and read their LXX English Translation... Here it is, and it seems to make a lot of sense... These guys are Greeks who translated it, and they are LXX qualified... If you care to, please comment:

Ps. 81 (lxx)

God stood in the Congregation of the gods,
and in the midst He shall stand out among the gods:


"How long will ye judge unrighteously
and accept the person of sinners?
Judge for the orphan and the poor man;
do justice to the humble and the pauper.
Rescue the poor man and the needy;
from the hand of the sinner deliver him.
They have not known nor understood;
They walk in darkness.
Let all the foundations of the earth be shaken.
I said: 'Ye are gods',
and all of you the sons of the Most High.
But like men are ye dying,
and like one of the rulers do ye fall."


Arise, O God, judge the earth,
for Thou shalt have an inheritance
among all the nations!


This Psalm has always been enigmatic for me...

Any takers on interpretation?

Arsenios
 
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Citizen of the Kingdom

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Yes, I can relate to remote, silent places, and mountains.

It seems we all share similar goals, but perhaps have different ideas on the means of their attainment. No one comes to the Father except through the Son...but are there different ways to the Son?
The only attainment is the attainment. I think that's what got me questioning the means but it's been an interesting conversation:)
 
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I used to agree with you, thinking that I was creating my soul in my choices and actions that established the uniqueness of my walk, understanding, as you do, that this comprised my personality... I was an atheist at that time, and had no idea of the connecting of this fallen personality to God, and calling it a God-blessed life... And having made an approach to the unapproachable God through the total failure of my own choices and actions and efforts of self-creation and self correction, and having done so unto death, I knew prior to the God-Meet that all of that was a big fail... Utterly broken and utterly humbled... Looking only to death, and even that very indifferently...

"A heart that is broken and humbled is not despised..." [Ps 51 - Ps 50 lxx]

But the Greek understands the soul not as personality, but as life, the life of any organism... The personality is the RESULT of the FALLEN soul, indeed the Old Man, and it is this personality that we are discipled to crucify, because it is the part of us that developed under the aegis of sin and death... And as we are discipled in the overcoming of the old man in us, in the mortification of the flesh, in preparation for our encounter with God, we come to ourselves, as did the Prodigal Son, and we find the person we are, the very one who established the prior personality under death and apart from God, and our rebirth when we are Baptized INTO Christ establishes this New Creation, this New Person in Christ, and having found out who we are, we discover who we are to become... The "I" of the old man, [Greek = EGO] becoming more and more directed to and directed by God, such that at the end, in full maturity of this Faith of Christ, we can say with Paul: "Not I, but Christ WITHIN me..."

So that in reply to you, in this matter, I must say that the distinction between person and personality in the Christian Faith is one of conflict and war, unto the result that is perhaps well attested by the term "genuineness of person"... Being genuine is, normally, the hallmark of a Christian person... And a genuine person is not a 'personality', which is a personna, a 'face' we present to the world, but is a spiritually active and vital movement of a God-focused, and sometimes God-bearing, soul (Life) in the world... But the personality is but a mask we put on to cover our sin, and is thus a blockage to our overcoming it...

Arsenios
Personality was probably the wrong use of terms.
 
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Arsenios

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Personality was probably the wrong use of terms.
Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos [my Avatar] wrote a book called:
"The Person in the Orthodox Tradition"
Person = Hypostasis

It stands under everything...
An irreducible primary...

Arsenios
 
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Citizen of the Kingdom

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Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos [my Avatar] wrote a book called:
"The Person in the Orthodox Tradition"
Person = Hypostasis

It stands under everything...
An irreducible primary...

Arsenios
And confessedly the mystery of piety is great.
 
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“Paisios”

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Nobody seems to want to take on that Psalm...
Is there some other forum where it might be more appropriate?

A.
Sorry, I've been away at the Soulfest for the last few days with little time to spend here (although lots of time speaking with Christians of various stripes - very surreal, but fascinating to attend a Roman Catholic mass, a Salvation Army worship service, and have a conversation about "living in community" with the Bruderhof community all within the space of two hours...).

I'll try to look at it and think about it soon.
 
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Arsenios

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Sorry, I've been away at the Soulfest for the last few days with little time to spend here (although lots of time speaking with Christians of various stripes - very surreal, but fascinating to attend a Roman Catholic mass, a Salvation Army worship service, and have a conversation about "living in community" with the Bruderhof community all within the space of two hours...).

I'll try to look at it and think about it soon.
I opened a thread on Praying the Psalms...

Haven't brought this one up yet...

Could be a great thread...

PRAYING THE PSALMS

Arsenios
 
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Marilyn C

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Monastics are those who go to such places to entirely consecrate their lives to inner silence...

It is that important...

Forsaking the world for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven...

Meanwhile, Psalm 82 - I have yet to see a decent commentary by anyone on it - Not Jewish nor Patristic... So I got out my trusty Psalter translated by Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston, and read their LXX English Translation... Here it is, and it seems to make a lot of sense... These guys are Greeks who translated it, and they are LXX qualified... If you care to, please comment:

Ps. 81 (lxx)

God stood in the Congregation of the gods,
and in the midst He shall stand out among the gods:


"How long will ye judge unrighteously
and accept the person of sinners?
Judge for the orphan and the poor man;
do justice to the humble and the pauper.
Rescue the poor man and the needy;
from the hand of the sinner deliver him.
They have not known nor understood;
They walk in darkness.
Let all the foundations of the earth be shaken.
I said: 'Ye are gods',
and all of you the sons of the Most High.
But like men are ye dying,
and like one of the rulers do ye fall."


Arise, O God, judge the earth,
for Thou shalt have an inheritance
among all the nations!


This Psalm has always been enigmatic for me...

Any takers on interpretation?

Arsenios

Hello Arsenios,

Pleased to meet you and read through your very interesting thread. Now my understanding of Psalm 81 or 82 in my NKJ, is that it is God who is speaking to magistrates of Israel.

gods - Heb. word `elohiym,` meaning gods in the ordinary sense, but spec. used of the supreme God, occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates, judges.

Thus we can see that it makes sense that God is talking to magistrates, judges, saying -

`How long will you judge unjustly......` (v. 2) and the cry for God to Judge the earth. (v. 8)

What do you think?

regards, Marilyn.
 
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Arsenios

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Hello Arsenios,

Pleased to meet you and read through your very interesting thread. Now my understanding of Psalm 81 or 82 in my NKJ, is that it is God who is speaking to magistrates of Israel.

gods - Heb. word `elohiym,` meaning gods in the ordinary sense, but spec. used of the supreme God, occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates, judges.

Thus we can see that it makes sense that God is talking to magistrates, judges, saying -

`How long will you judge unjustly......` (v. 2) and the cry for God to Judge the earth. (v. 8)

What do you think?

regards, Marilyn.

The when and where of the event which this Psalm transcribes to my mind is perhaps one of the most dramatic passages of the entire Bible - Right up there with Pharoah getting drowned in the Red Sea... I mean, there is a lot of drama in the Bible, no question...

The event to which this Psalm refers in the past tense - "God STOOD in the Synagogue of the gods..." did not happen PRIOR to the writing of the Psalm... It happened AFTER it was written... This Psalm is prophetic... It just came to me, visiting a preacher friend of mine, and I ran the problem by him, and we dug through it with his associate Pastor... He began by saying that "A lot of people THINK they are gods and are delusional..." Then I told him I had been working on this Psalm some three years, and it went way deeper... And in the middle of sorting out tenses of verbs, it came to me: This Psalm is prophetic, and it is describing Jesus addressing the rulership of the Jews in John 10... (esp vs 34)

In fact, I would venture, since these talks by Jesus were done as a part of the worship services in the Synagogue, that this Psalm was a prescribed Psalm for that very day's Service in the Synagogue, and that everyone there had been praying that Psalm on a regularly assigned basis for their entire lifetimes... And that they did not know its meaning because they could not because until that very day the event of the Psalm had not yet happened... It was a passage of Holy Writ they had to ignore... Either that or they had to trivialize it... Yet it was written for them for the very day in which Christ addressed them and referred to it for their sakes...

Here is the nub of Christ's taunt:

"Is it not written in your law, 'I said, Ye are gods'?

If He called them gods,
unto whom the word of God came,
and the scripture cannot be broken;
Say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world,
'Thou blasphemest'; because I said,
I am the Son of God?"


God is like that...
He does not play fair...
He cheats scandalously...
For the sake of the salvation of our souls...
And not without success!

John 10:42 And many believed unto him there.

So you are right, Marilyn, and perhaps more right than you might have imagined...


Arsenios
 
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Marilyn C

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God is like that...
He does not play fair...
He cheats scandalously...
For the sake of the salvation of our souls...
And not without success!

Arsenios

Hi Arsenios,

Great pictures there bro. And thank you for your thoughts, quite interesting. Now this last part I cannot agree with as it paints God as `unjust,` don`t you think?

Marilyn.
 
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