A few weeks ago, I decided that I was going to start posting digestions of biblical verses on this site. Every time I read through the Bible, I focus on something different. The last time through the New Testament, I wrote down verses which I found particularly useful, for the sake of pseudo-memorizing them. In an attempt to further ingrain them in my head, I have begun to write page long anti-summaries of these verses. They aren’t exciting or funny, as I’ve tried to remove myself from them as much as possible thus far, leaving nothing but the text and an objective reading of it. I don’t anticipate that trend will continue, as it is opposed to my nature.
In any case, these are just my interpretations, without any external research. They are not meant to be taken as Gospel, merely as a re-writing of God inspired text.
I’ll continue to update this page with the additional links as they become available. I’ll go once or twice a week, depending on what my output is. There are probably about 50 verses currently in my collection.
Hey, I’m fine with giving away both my tunic and my cloak… but ain’t nobody gonna swipe my pashmina.
I’m pretty sure that Matt will provide some sort of witty commentary on the Japanese Stripclub bit, but I just have to ask: Did you get that scenario out of a Jehovah’s Witness pamphlet or an episode of Degrassi?
Also, I think it’s kind of pompous — or, as you might say, “prideful” — to goad somebody on when they’re punching you, telling them, smilingly, to keep it coming. If it really does hurt and you want them to stop, what’s wrong with acting like you’re in pain and telling them so? Trying to come across as invincible or whatever — at least to me — illustrates a bit of a god complex. This is where the “Christ living on through man” thing gets a little blurry for me. I don’t think it was ever meant to mean that you should *actually* crucify yourself like that.
Haven’t you ever seen Rocky III? If it weren’t for requesting another punch then Rocky would’ve never beaten Clubber Lang! What about Animal House, or any other fratty initiation. How are people supposed to be hazed?! “Thank you sir may I have another!”
Rocky and hazing in the manner you are using them have little to do with Jesus and the picture you are painting of loving your enemies, Carl.
The point is to bounce back and continue to maintain your standard of right and wrong despite being consistently wronged. If I had said, “take the first 5, then bounce back and beat the piss out of him so that everyone will know what a bad-ass you are”, then it would have been opposed to the Christian ethic. Jesus shows us being wronged for doing right, and tells us to keep doing right over and over again until people get tired of being evil in the face of that which is good.
I work for a multi-national corporation, and my specific project is in conjunction with the Japanese. While I never went to Japan, I may be closer to this particular story than you give me credit.
what’s wrong with a little humor?
In what manner would one need to use Rocky and hazing so that they did have to do with Jesus?
You’ve obviously never seen Rocky IV.
Rocky IV is partially responsible for the end of the cold war, the tearing down of the berlin wall, the collapse of communism in eastern europe, etc.
I have no comment on the strip club, but I’d like re-iterate for people who have missed this simple point in the past — that I am NOT the same “Matthew” as the one who wrote what Furst is writing about. You’d be amazed at how many people get this basic fact wrong.
I can’t believe you posted that, AE. I was going to say the exact same thing but decided I didn’t want to confront Carl with another point of major contention.
Ignore my previous post. Apparently I did push post. My sleep deprivation is catching up with me.
I don’t undestand what is going on. I never realized I ever had a “major point of contention” with you, Lara. What was it about? Do we have one currently that I’m not aware of? This is a serious question.
Bess asked Eric a question and I responded with a silly argument, namely that if Rocky did it and they do it in fraternities then it must be a great idea. It was very sarcastic. I thought that was obvious. I was making fun of frats and Rocky III because of the ridiculous situatons that arise concerning them. I was trying to be funny by subtely pointing that out. Sorry if I hit a nerve.
Oh Carl, c’etait toi. You are the cyberglue that holds this web site together. What would we do without you? Tres, tres diplomatique.
Fine, I’ll bite on this.
I simply can’t see what going with your boss to the strip club has to do with relating to the customer…
I mean, I’m assuming that your boss is not ALSO the customer, so it’s not like the actual relating that you’re failing to do would be happening at the strip club. Are you saying that your boss is going to -teach- you to relate to the customer while in the strip club? ie- he is going to make you fishers of men? or in this case, women?
Or are you in the business of selling nipple tassles? In that case I think that your boss has a legitimate gripe with your unwillingness to go to the strip club- and I think Jesus would agree. Of course, I think Jesus would believe that you had chosen the wrong line of work (because you are either an accessory to sin, or bearing witness to the coveting of wives, or whathaveyou), whereas your boss is just pissed because he’s got a pile of tassles stacking up at the factory and his daughter’s punk boyfriend and his friends can only make so many disappear before the people down in procurement get wise to his inventory fraud scheme.
Also, the fights in Rocky are not good examples of the ‘turning the cheek’ approach, whether it’s to secure victory, to antagonize your opponent, or to teach a moral lesson. Rocky and his opponenents voluntarily enter into a contest of sport where they agree to be subject to eachother’s blows, so as to determine who has honed their boxing skill and physique to a superior level. For the ‘cheek’ thing to apply, I think we need an instance of non-sport initiation of force.
There might be a parallel with Draco in Rocky IV, when he takes the continual “hits” from his russian trainers (ie- steroids, mental abuse, belittlement, etc) – only to finally realize that underneath his dolf lundgren shell he is still human, and that his countries political rulers will never fully subjugate his life to meet their ends.
Dolf Lundgren has a masters in in chemical engineering from MIT and has an IQ of 160. he was also a team leader for the 1996 US olympic team for modern pentathlon and speaks 5 languages. can you believe it? i always thought he was a goon.
I think you get a much better allegory out of Rocky repeatedly turning the other cheek to Boris, not so much to antagonize Boris and his political leaders, but to distract him/them, and Natasha also. Thus, Bullwinkinle can make his getaway.
Bit of an academic slut, actually. He apparently got his MA in CE from U of Sydney, and was Fulbright at MIT, but he was giving it away at RIT, Clemson, and even –get this– YuDUB (nohuskies,goducks!)! But the best part is that he was rocking Grace Jones!!! How could you leave that out, Carl?? Grace JONES!! For dog’s sake, don’t you just want to see some Annie Liebowitz or Mapplethorpe photos of Dolf Lundgren and Grace Jones? Oh, this is going to cheer me up all day!
AnneE, you are insane.
I wonder if there’s anything we can take from the Rocky movies to help fight the terrorists?
I mean look at what rocky pulled off:
-overcame poverty
-defeated a world boxing champion
-found true love
-body-slammed hulk hogan
-beat clubber lang
-avenged his friends death by ending communism
-told his kid he loved him on national tv
-out-foxed the KGB
-was nasty with a jump rope
I mean the list goes on, but there is certainly some strategy we can pull here. I feel like the terrorists will not be as receptive to boxing as a proxy sport as the russians were though. I mean they had fucking Dolph Lundgren going for them- that’s not a bad guy to stake the fortunes of your entire socio-economic future on. I just can’t see the evil-doers, harborers of evil-doers, proliferators of evil, etc. agreeing to something as reasonable as a boxing match.
They would probably only agree to something they thought they could win, like swordplay, beard-growing, kneeling and facing mecca..those sorts of things.
Anyway, assuming they did agree to a boxing match, which was going to be my original point here, I feel like we’d need to send more of a security detail. Like let’s say instead of training in the snow covered mountains of the ukraine before his fight w/ Ivan draco, rocky needs to train in afghanistan before his fight w/ Abu Draco-Allah – no way in hell is he going to be able to run free over the countryside with just a couple guys in a jeep following him around watching him! He’s going to have to look out for land mines and sniper fire. And if he does make it to the top of a mountain, right when he’s about to yell “Abuuuuuuu!!!”, he’s got to be on the watch for errant munitions from US pilots who didn’t get the memo about rocky training in the area and have mistaken him for a threat against the security of the mountain.
And I think that cuts right to the chase about the difference between the cold war and the war against terror. At least in the cold war, both sides were willing to give a ‘free pass’ so that you could train on their mountains before you were forced to face a man who had just been depicted on the largest banner ever made. With the terrorists, you would be granted no such sanctuary. You can at least respect the russians during the cold war- I mean they were completely wrong, but at least they had a somewhat reasonable process for arriving at their position. The terrorists though…well that’s just unfounded crazy-talk.
I’d go as far as to say it’s ‘gobbledy-gook’, though I’m still not entirely clear on when you use that word and when you don’t.
It’s Ivan Drago with a “G.” Not Ivan Draco. This is really something you should have known.