Posts
The Philistines were opposed to spiritual discipline. Here they represent foreign thoughts or deviations from a true course, non-spiritual concerns related to the five senses; these detract a person from their spiritual consciousness. These desires must be controlled for spirituality to grow in the soul. You might say the spiritual has to overcome the material, or that “truth must overcome errors in living”.
Goliath the giant represents a major obstacle keeping the spiritual self from growth. David, the spiritual side, must overcome this obstacle in order to control the errant sensory thoughts (Philistines). The rock he uses represents spiritual truth and faith, which when used properly (with the sling of assurance and self-confidence) can overcome the major obstacles to growth.
The material side is more evident and at first exerts a stronger pull than the spiritual, hence the giant in the parable. People may be addicted to money, food, power, violence, sensuality, any number of things of a non-spiritual nature; once something becomes a habit, it takes much spiritual assurance, confidence, and faith to overcome it.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
I Enjoy your "decodings" very much. I find the reading of the bible a great source of wisdom, even tho I myself am not a Christian.
Keep up the good work.
thanks a lot - I need to spend more time on this blog, I have too many to keep up.
As a Baha'i I have a lot of love for the Bible and often do presentations on Bible stories/'Christian' subjects... I'm doing David and Goliath tonight and am using your understanding as a main focus of this story. Great blog, God bless. Sam
You write, "The rock he uses represents spiritual truth and faith, which when used properly (with the sling of assurance and self-confidence) can overcome the major obstacles of growth."
I disagree with the part about "with ... self-confidence," because, as scripture (Phil 3:3) says, "have no confidence in the flesh." Also, I think that "the rock" represents, Jesus Christ, our savior and Lord. And that the "sling" represents our trust and dependence on Christ.
Remember, after all, that David said, "the battle is the Lord's." 1 Sam 17:47
To me, faith implies self-confidence, for it removes fear. Psychologists agree that "the power of believing" explains how all philosophies and religions work for some, silmply b/c they have faith that it will. Hence the fact that even voodoo works for some, though scoffed at by scientists and more modern theologists.
I believe it was Paul who simply said "all you need is faith", and if taken literally, that's the key - he didn't say faith in any one philosophy, and in that regard modern psychologists would agree. You can also call this "power of positive thinking", etc, encouraged by nearly all religions, philosophies, and self-help pop-psycholgists.
If praising one particular deity or religion was required, nothing would have been accomplished by 'false gods', and all great works would have come from "the one true religion", and we'd all know and agree what that is.
Most of these parables are much more simple than we make them to be. Remember they were designed to be simple tales told to illiterate people usually around a nightly fire. They were never designed to be read in print centuries later, and debated ad infinitum as to where they represented reality literally or perhaps metaphysical concepts through the use of symbols, metaphors, and parables.
It's been said that "only westerners think their religious myths actually happened", likely because we're so governed by and chained to the material world that we can't imagine that these stories don't represent real events in history b/c we've forgotten how to think in metaphysical terms any longer.
Jesus represents your own spirit (as we are all children of 'god'), not some actual deified magic man walking around in reality thousands of years ago, capable of such physics defying acts as walking on water to prove his link to the creator deity.
To miss the metaphysics behind the symbolism used is to miss the entire point of the teachings. As many have tried to teach, if you look at the surface of these stories only, you only get the superficial meaning, you miss the deeper points entirely.
If praising a deity is all you need, then don't bother reading the Bible or doing any study on your own, just go to church, sing in praise, and give tithes - that's all that's demanded by modern religions, and you'll be "saved" by osmosis as a believer along with all the others. This isthe teaching of most religoins for their "masses".
I innutively arrived at the same exergesis one day when looking at a children's book of david and goliath where goliath is killed betwwen the eyes with a stone, the picture depicting a red mark between the eyes bringing to mind the guru chakra or third eye. Ah yes I thought this story is about spirtual transformation and rising to our higher selves. Any thoughts on the inner meaning of Noah's ark.
Post a Comment