A clear conscience….

[Not me]

1 Timothy 3:9 (NASB20)
but holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Holding onto the mystery of trusting God in life, it is a mystery because it cannot be seen with human eyes, but the eyes of the heart can taste one’s faith.. This is where faith becomes a substance, it becomes a thing, a real thing that the heart can taste… Holding onto this mysterious substance, knowing that sin, the works of self is that that causes the conscience to hide itself from faith… For only a clear conscience can hold onto this substance of faith that touches God…

It is this holding onto one’s faith in God when the tempers, passions and desires of this life would cloud and press into one… This holding on will produce this substance of faith the eyes of the heart can actually taste, for the heart will let one know when it has lost this tasting of faith by a deadness inside that can not be denied, or in other words, by the losing of one’s joy…

This losing of one’s joy is the instantaneous word of God to turn and repent… It matters not if it is a large or small thing, for the turning back to faith is the issue that causes one’s growth in this substance of faith…. For all things come from God through this mystery of faith..

Not when one has arrived or been made perfect, but the conscience is clear when it knows nothing against itself.. It is this clear conscience that can boldly come before the Throne of God and lay its petitions down.. It is this clear conscience that is met with the loving arms of God.. For faith is the substance of, this substance is met and embraced by the God of love.. But this substance must needs have a clear conscience to be of effect and receive from God…

So the question becomes how can one maintain this clear conscience as one’s tempers, passions, desires are on a rampage?

Die to them…

This constant clear conscience can be manifested and maintained by a constant reckoning oneself dead, for all truths come back to this truth, for without this truth no other truth can be made a living reality in life that will abide, that will not be at mercy of one of the tempers..

For experiencing the mysterious salvation from this life to the new, is the birth right of all that have been made partakers of the new birth….

Be blessed in the new birth as the mystery of faith grows….

A fellow follower of His, Not me

 

[I John 2:17]

It sounds like what you're saying could be valid, but there sure are a lot of mixed metaphors --

the eyes of the heart can taste one’s faith...

Why not see one's faith? Or why not "the tongue of the heart tastes one's faith"?

(Job 34:3) For the ear tests words as the tongue tastes food.

only a clear conscience can hold onto this substance of faith that touches God

So the eyes of the heart taste faith, a clear conscience holds on to faith, and faith touches God.

a clear conscience that is met with the loving arms of God.. For faith is the substance of, this substance is met and embraced by the God of love.. But this substance must needs have a clear conscience

So conscience holds onto faith, but conscience is actually a property or possession of faith. And conscience is met by the loving arms of God and faith is embraced by God.

---------------
So enough on mixed metaphors. Moving on --

So the question becomes how can one maintain this clear conscience as one’s tempers, passions, desires are on a rampage? Die to them…
This constant clear conscience can be manifested and maintained by a constant reckoning oneself dead

As an aside, do you or any Christian ever consider how closely such concepts as "dying to oneself" track with Buddhism?

As far as tempers and passions, how would you characterize Christ being filled with anger and driving people out of the temple with a whip who were buying and selling? Or say Paul (given the passage you excerpted was written by him) being filled with anger and saying in Galatians he wished people would castrate themselves and be accursed, if they told Gentiles they had to circumcised.

And a couple of final notes --

First, to the absolute best of my knowledge, when Paul, Jesus or anyone in the New Testament talk about the heart, they are in fact, in their own minds, literally referencing that thing that beats in your chest. The reconceptualizing of the heart as some esoteric nonphysical property of humans is a much more recent development.

Finally that excerpt you quoted from 1 Timothy 3:9,

holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience

is from a passage addressing the requirements for church deacons and elders. And it lists a bunch of vices -- greediness, drunkeness, being a brawler, etc -- and it says don't elect deacons/elders that are known for this. So iow, it has nothing to do with what traits will foster their personal fellowship with God, which is what your essay concerned. "Holding the mystery of the faith" would be an intrinsic function of their office.

Even so, I think you were saying something valid in this piece you wrote.

 

[Not me]

It sounds like what you're saying could be valid, but there sure are a lot of mixed metaphors --

the eyes of the heart can taste one’s faith...

What not see ones faith?

only a clear conscience can hold onto this substance of faith that touches God

So the eyes of the heart taste faith, a clear conscience holds on to faith, and faith touches God.

a clear conscience that is met with the loving arms of God.. For faith is the substance of, this substance is met and embraced by the God of love.. But this substance must needs have a clear conscience

So conscience holds onto faith, but conscience is actually a property or possession of faith. And conscience is met by the loving arms of God and faith is embraced by God.

---------------
So enough on mixed metaphors. Moving on --

So the question becomes how can one maintain this clear conscience as one’s tempers, passions, desires are on a rampage? Die to them…
This constant clear conscience can be manifested and maintained by a constant reckoning oneself dead

As an aside, do you or any Christian ever consider how closely such concepts as "dying to oneself" track with Buddhism?

As far as tempers and passions, how would you characterize Christ being filled with anger and driving people out of the temple with a whip who were buying and selling? Or say Paul (given the passage you excerpted was written by him) being filled with anger and saying in Galatians he wished people would castrate themselves and be accursed, if they told Gentiles they had to circumcised.

And a couple of final notes --

First, to the absolute best of my knowledge, when Paul, Jesus or anyone in the New Testament talk about the heart, they are in fact, in their own minds, literally referencing that thing that beats in your chest. The reconceptualizing of the heart as some esoteric nonphysical property of humans is a much more recent development.

Finally that excerpt you quoted from 1 Timothy 3:9,

holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience

is from a passage addressing the requirements for church deacons and elders. And it lists a bunch of vices -- greediness, drunkeness, being a brawler, etc -- and it says don't elect deacons/elders that are known for this. So iow, it has nothing to do with what traits will foster their personal fellowship with God, which is what your essay concerned. "Holding the mystery of the faith" would be an intrinsic function of their office.

Even so, I think you were saying something valid in this piece you wrote.

As your heart so teaches you Christ be blessed…

A follower of His, Not me

 

[I John 2:17]

As far as my point about hearts -- you or someone can go do a word search on it, but I don't think that the New Testament rhapsodizes about the heart in the highly metaphorical way we tend to do in our era. For example, without belaboring this, when Christ says, ".What enters a man cannot defile him for it passes through the stomach and is eliminated, but what proceedeth out of the heart -- evil thoughts [etc.] -- that is what defileth a man..." he is absolutely positively talking about the literal heart. Likewise when Paul says, "God will take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh..."

So my thinking is, we can replace "heart" with "brain" or really just the entire physiological system which comprises us -- e.g. the brain plus the various endorphins and chemical impulses that drive us, etc. I think the implication is we have to be redeemed physically.

I don't want to split hairs but I just cannot abide anymore baptist pastors or whomever, rhapsodizing about "the heart" in an esoteric way.

I do absolutely believe though that the Holy Spirit does indeed dwell "in" us in some meaningful sense.

Anyway, I did grasp the gist of what you were saying in the OP and think its food for thought, "spiritually discerned" and so forth.

 

[Not me]

As far as my point about hearts -- you or someone can go do a word search on it, but I don't think that the New Testament rhapsodizes about the heart in the highly metaphorical way we tend to do in our era. For example, without belaboring this, when Christ says, ".What enters a man cannot defile him for it passes through the stomach and is eliminated, but what proceedeth out of the heart -- evil thoughts [etc.] -- that is what defileth a man..." he is absolutely positively talking about the literal heart. Likewise when Paul says, "God will take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh..."

So my thinking is, we can replace "heart" with "brain" or really just the entire physiological system which comprises us -- e.g. the brain plus the various endorphins and chemical impulses that drive us, etc. I think the implication is we have to be redeemed physically.

I don't want to split hairs but I just cannot abide anymore baptist pastors or whomever, rhapsodizing about "the heart" in an esoteric way.

I do absolutely believe though that the Holy Spirit does indeed dwell "in" us in some meaningful sense.

Anyway, I did grasp the gist of what you were saying in the OP and think its food for thought, "spiritually discerned" and so forth.

As the peace of Christ in your heart bears witness, or not, be blessed…

In the Beloved, Not me