Never Argue With A Fool

http://www.simonpreacher.com/blog/success_journal/never-argue-with-a-fool/

Proverbs 14:1
The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

Proverbs 14:9
Fools mock at making amends for sin, but goodwill is found among the upright.

Proverbs 10:18
Whoever conceals hatred with lying lips and spreads slander is a fool.

 Proverbs 12:15
The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.

Proverbs 14:7
Stay away from a fool, for you will not find knowledge on their lips.

 Proverbs 14:16
The wise fear the LORD and shun evil, but a fool is hotheaded and yet feels secure.

 Proverbs 16:22
Prudence is a fountain of life to the prudent, but folly brings punishment to fools.

Proverbs 18:2
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions.

Proverbs 26:4
Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.

The Wait Is Almost Over

After waiting over 3 years for some finality, some sense of closure...justice the wait will soon be over. The wait has been one filled with ups and downs, not only in the way I have acted during this trial but with life in general and I look forward to the calm. While I can not even being to know what God is going to do through this, I do have hopes. I hope that through the ruling that there may be growth in Godly character and healing for everyone.

Gungor "Beautiful Things"

Reciprocate Good Deeds in Faith (Matthew 7:12)

Reciprocate Good Deeds in Faith (7:12)

If those who condemn others are condemned (7:1-5), God clearly operates on a principle of reciprocity; we must do good to people in advance of their doing good to us, trusting God to reward us later. The principle in this context is that as we give, it will be given to us by God in the day of judgment. If God is the example of giving (vv. 7-11), we should give whatever people need (5:42). How we treat others (7:12) reveals our character (vv. 16-20) and hence reveals our eternal destiny (vv. 13-14, 21-23). At least since a sermon of John Wesley in 1750 this has been called the "Golden Rule" (Guy 1959); over a millennium earlier, a Christian Roman emperor allegedly engraved the saying on his wall in gold (France 1985:145).
This rule was a widespread principle of ancient ethics. The positive form of the rule appears as early as Homer and recurs in Herodotus, Isocrates and Seneca. The negative form ("And what you hate, do not do to anyone") appears in Tobit 4:15, Philo (Hypothetica 7.6) and elsewhere; one Jewish work straddles both forms (Ep. Arist. 207). Although some commentators have tried to disparage the negative form by contrast with the positive, both forms mean essentially the same thing; both biblical law (Lev 19:18) and Paul (Rom 13:10) define the positive commandment of love by means of negative commandments (E. Sanders 1992:258-59).
The principle appears in cultures totally isolated from the ancient Mediterranean; it appears, for example, in Confucian teaching from sixth-century B.C. China (see Jochim 1986:125). That others would discover this same principle should not surprise us, because one of the most natural foundations for ethics is for a person to extrapolate from one's own worth to that of others, hence to value others as oneself (compare, for example, Sirach 31:15). Thus every person is morally responsible to recognize how one ought to treat every other person. When we treat others (such as waitresses, store clerks or children) the way people of higher status treated people of lower status in Jesus' day, we invite God's judgment against us. No one so insensitive as to demean another human being on account of social station warrants God's mercy (Mt 5:7; 6:14-15; 7:1-5).
One who observes this basic principle will fulfill all the basic principles of the law the way God intended them (compare 5:21-48; 22:37-39). Later Jewish tradition declares that the sage Hillel, who taught before Jesus did, had already seen this rule as a good summary of the law. As the story goes, a Gentile approached both Hillel and his rival sage, promising each that he would convert to Judaism if the sage could teach him the law concisely. Hillel declared, "Whatever you do not want someone to do to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Law; the rest of it is just explanation" (b.Sabbat 31a; compare ARN 25, 53B).
This is the law of love, the principle by which Jesus epitomizes the entire humanward aspect of God's law (22:39-40; compare Jn 13:34-35), a principle Jesus' earliest followers never forgot (Rom 13:8-10; Gal 5:14; 6:2; Jas 2:8). What is distinctive about the principle as it appears in Matthew is its relation to the day of judgment (Mt 7:1-2, 13-14).

IVP New Testament Commentaries are made available by the generosity of InterVarsity Press.



http://www.biblebelievers.com/jmelton/SinsofTongue.html 

Matthew 7

God Will Judge Us the Way We Judge Others (7:1-2)

By this point in the sermon, no one who has been taking Jesus' words seriously will feel much like judging anyone else anyway. Still, we humans tend to prefer applying ethics to other people rather than ourselves. (For example, husbands tend to prefer quoting Paul's instructions on marriage to their wives rather than his admonitions to them, and vice-versa. Likewise, I have sometimes listened to a sermon thinking, I wish so-and-so had shown up for church today.) So just in case we have been too obtuse to grasp that Jesus addresses us rather than others in 5:3-6:34, Jesus renders the point explicit in 7:1-5. We are objects of God's evaluation, and God evaluates most graciously the meek, who recognize God alone as judge.
Even if we knew people's hearts, we could not evaluate degrees of personal guilt as if we understood all the genetic and social influences that combine with personal sinful choices in making some people more vulnerable to particular temptations (such as alcohol or spouse abuse) than others. Most important, Jesus warns us that even if we knew people's hearts, we would be in no position to judge unless we had lived sinless lives, never needing God's forgiveness (vv. 3-5; compare 6:12, 14-15).
Many people have ripped this passage out of context, however. Jesus warns us not to assume God's prerogative to condemn the guilty; he is not warning us not to discern truth from error (see 7:15-23). Further, Jesus does not oppose offering correction, but only offering correction in the wrong spirit (v. 5; compare 18:15-17; Gal 6:1-5).
Having right beliefs about judging is not enough. Although Jesus regards scribal and Pharisaic righteousness as inadequate (Mt 5:20), it is not because scribes and Pharisees professed the wrong doctrine on this issue. Most of the sages would have probably agreed with his basic perspective here (compare, for example, Sirach 28:1-3; m. 'Abot 2:5), and even the particular image of measuring back what one measures out (Mt 7:2-as in "what goes around comes around") was proverbial wisdom. Jesus' contemporaries often affirmed his principle and even used the same illustration, but Jesus demands more than agreement from disciples: he demands obedience (vv. 24-27).

IVP New Testament Commentaries are made available by the generosity of InterVarsity Press.

 

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+7&version=NKJV

Does God Ever Refuse to Hear Prayers?

http://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2012/05/does-god-ever-refuse-to-hear-prayers/