Unlike a crusader (religious, commercial, political or otherwise) I have no truth for sale here; only experiences, views, memories and dreams, none of which are intended to express anything but my own personal relationship with the truth and with reality.
The Fifth Nail blogs are essentially works of art. They "expose" the inner me, as a reflection of the world I live in. Like any artist, my hope is that others might find some reflection of themselves here. Perhaps my words seem ugly to you; perhaps beautiful. Either way, they speak of you more than they do of me. If you keep this in mind as you explore this gallery of personal reflections then you might be surprised by what you find.
(P.S. I do not fancy myself an artist except in the sense that we are all artist. I have no professional ambitions, or even any unusual talent in this regard. All I have is the desire and means to express myself, nothing more.)
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Faith Alone
„Faith alone will save our souls”, so say the Bible. But „faith alone” does not mean faith in one particular belief of other.
Faith alone means just that; faith, all by itself. We do not need to have „faith in Christ” or „faith in the Bible” in order to know the saving grace of „God”. In fact, having faith in anything that you can define, or even just imagine, is what the Bible warns us not to do, over and over.
This is called idol worship. Any time that you put your faith in something imagined, which can be (and usually is) an intellectual construct sometimes represented by a physical form (e.g. golden calf), then you are idol worshipping. It does not matter if the image you are worshipping has a physical form or not, if it is an idea, then it is an image, and it is a „false god.”
Now, I'm not saying „faith in God” or even „faith in Christ” is always a form of idol worship. As long as „God” or „Christ” are not imagined to be something ( i. e. a man from Nazareth, or an „old man in heaven”) then you have the kind of faith that saves. That is, formless or imageless faith, which is faith alone.
(Originally written by Joseph E. Duncan III - September 12, 2010 – 2 pm)
Faith alone means just that; faith, all by itself. We do not need to have „faith in Christ” or „faith in the Bible” in order to know the saving grace of „God”. In fact, having faith in anything that you can define, or even just imagine, is what the Bible warns us not to do, over and over.
This is called idol worship. Any time that you put your faith in something imagined, which can be (and usually is) an intellectual construct sometimes represented by a physical form (e.g. golden calf), then you are idol worshipping. It does not matter if the image you are worshipping has a physical form or not, if it is an idea, then it is an image, and it is a „false god.”
Now, I'm not saying „faith in God” or even „faith in Christ” is always a form of idol worship. As long as „God” or „Christ” are not imagined to be something ( i. e. a man from Nazareth, or an „old man in heaven”) then you have the kind of faith that saves. That is, formless or imageless faith, which is faith alone.
(Originally written by Joseph E. Duncan III - September 12, 2010 – 2 pm)
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