Christians Do Not Quarrel About Religion ~ Jacob Boehme

Christians Do Not Quarrel About Religion
Jacob Boehme

Genuine people who are reborn in Christ’s Spirit are in the simplicity of Christ and have no quarrel with anyone about religion. They have enough interior strife with the bestial, evil flesh and blood. They consider themselves great sinners and fear God, for their sins are manifest and stand under judgment. The wrath of God reproaches them in their own eyes, but the love of Christ presses through and drives out the chaos, as day follows night.

For the godless, however, their sins rest in the sleep of death and sprout forth in the abyss and bring forth the fruits of hell. The Christianity in Babel quarrels about knowledge: how one should serve, honor, and know God. They teach that whoever is not united with them on all points of knowledge and opinion is not a Christian, but rather a heretic.

Christians, however, have no sect. They can dwell in the midst of the sects, even appear in their worship services and yet cling to no sect. They have only a single knowledge, which is Christ within. They seek only one path, which is that they always live and act rightly. They place all knowing and willing in the life of Christ. They sigh and wish always that only God’s will be done within themselves, and that the kingdom of God may be revealed within.

Therefore I say that all is Babel that bites and quarrels over the letter. The letters stand all in one root, which is the Spirit of God, just as the various flowers all stand in the earth and all grow next to one another. None bites the other because of color, scent or taste. They permit the sun, along with the rain and wind and heat and cold, to do with them as they wish, yet each one grows in its essence and characteristic. So it is also with the children of God. They have various gifts and knowledge, but are all from one Spirit. They rejoice with one another in the great miracles of God and thank the Most High in His wisdom. Why should they quarrel about the One in whom they live and are, and of whose being they themselves are?

It is the greatest foolishness in Babel that the devil has made the world quarrel about religion, so that they quarrel about opinions, about the letter. The kingdom of God, however, is not in any opinion, but in power and in love.

http://jacobboehmeonline.com/home

The mystics truly pierce through all the appearances of nature, and learned to see God in all, and how they sought to bring men in very deed to be their All.

Hey brother wayneman,
The thought of Babel and confusion came to me yesterday and I wanted to meditate on it some more. However when I searched for an article that went over it more thoroughly I could not find one. So I am extremely grateful for this article that you posted.

Thank you!

In German "Babel" is also the word for "Babylon," so there are prophetic connotations here. Boehme unfortunately had some first-hand experience with the Babylon religious system. He was tried for heresy, run out of town and chased from village to village by functionaries of the state Lutheran Church. In every book he wrote he has quite a bit to say about Babel.

Debate and confrontation were things I relished in until God one day broke all my ambition for them. He did this by allowing me a glimpse at my own spiritual biopsy. When God shows a man his true colors apart from the grace of Christ, something revolutionary happens: the will to fight suddenly leaves him; the urge to win each and every theological tussle dissipates; attention is diverted from the faults of others to the remedy of his own malady; and God's grace becomes magnified and infinitely prized. The acquisition of this grace precludes any and all preoccupation with the spiritual business of others, other than seeking how to be a greater blessing to them and a more magnanimous source of edification. Anything that does not lend to a healthier and more prolific measure of edification becomes eschewed.

Brother Paul

Many are called, as the Apostle Paul gave commandment to Timothy and Titus, etc., to "Protect the flock.

I knew that someone would trot out the "ministry of the watchman" motif. But I think Boehme is talking about a state of the heart. Yes, Christians will confront error sometimes because they have to, not because they enjoy it. That's the problem: too many religious people actually *enjoy* fighting.

by PaulWest
Yes, but there is a way to protect that does not involve a public tar-and-feathering. A wolf can be brought down with a single gunshot. Sloppy machine-gun raking and deafening hand grenades are not necessary.

Amen! Brother, can I get another Amen? :)

Discernment is the most lacking quality in today's Church and that is why He warned us that "most" will fall away because of false teachers, false prophets, etc.

Most "defrocking" I encounter here is unsanctioned and dealt through an outburst of fleshly pride, like Paul in this case. The only difference I see is that Paul later apologized. Most do not, but rather go on to justify the reviling.

There is a way to defrock, to rebuke, to expose and reprove that is sanctioned by the Holy Spirit. But you have to earn the right to engage it; the timing and spirit of it must be sanctioned by God. Otherwise it backfires and exposes your own flesh. You may not notice it, but others will.

I'm being read incorrectly - but that's O.K.

I hope this is more clear.

The point I got from Jacob Boehme is that in the Kingdom of God, there is no controversy. There is no such thing as kingdom controversy. Wherever there is controversy it is not the Kingdom. Two people who are truly filled with the Holy Spirit cannot possibly oppose one another. Christ does not oppose Himself.

A reprobate is, by definition, any person who warrants reproving; I used this term specifically to umbrella every category we can think of - from the gamut of doctrinal error all the way to full-blown heresy and rebellion.

I believe with all of my heart that, the "longsuffering" he is referring to here, is that it takes a lot out of a person to have to "reprove, rebuke or defend sound doctrine".

Ironically, these are people who quote scripture prolifically and seem to have all the answers, but end up spraying the verses everywhere with indiscriminate sloppiness. They never hit the wolf. It's just a lot of impressive noise and smoke and dirt flying up.

I doubt much that Ravenhill, Katz and their ilk ever enjoyed coming against heresies and false prophets/prophecies. Not at all. It ages a person and takes it's toll, as it did with the Apostle Paul. He received more persecution than any man in The Word.

Just a thought about "protecting the flock"

I think there are many that try to "over-protect" the flock. Some times I wonder if the young in the flock was allowed to see the real deal, and taught instead how to deal with the hard things, there would not be so many babies in Christ.

Just some I gather when I was young in the Lord, I wanted the real deal, but felt it was "covered" for my "protection" :)