Post by pitbull on Sept 23, 2008 5:01:53 GMT -5
DAILY WISDOM
“Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom.” [Proverbs 23:4]
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
ARE YOU ENLISTED?
2 Timothy 2:3-4
In war, not only soldiers get injured or killed.
Our enemy – Ephesians 6:12; 1 Peter 5:8
Satan doesn’t care if you are a civilian or a soldier.
Your best option is to enlisted, get trained, and fight back!
Our weapons – 2 Corinthians 10:4; Ephesians 6:13-17
RELIGIOUS AWARENESS
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from Greek gnôsis, knowledge) refers to a diverse, syncretistic religious movement consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world created by an imperfect spirit, the demiurge, who is frequently identified with the Abrahamic God. The demiurge may be depicted as an embodiment of evil, or in other instances as merely imperfect and as benevolent as its inadequacy permits. This demiurge exists alongside another remote and unknowable supreme being that embodies good. In order to free oneself from the inferior material world, one needs gnosis, or esoteric spiritual knowledge available only to a learned elite. Jesus of Nazareth is identified by some (though not all) Gnostic sects as an embodiment of the supreme being who became incarnate to bring gnosis to the Earth.
Gnosticism was popular in the Mediterranean and middle eastern regions in the first centuries CE, but it was suppressed as a dualistic heresy in areas controlled by the Roman Empire when Christianity became its official religion in the fourth century. Conversion to Islam greatly reduced the remaining number of Gnostics throughout the middle ages, though a few isolated communities continue to exist to the present. Gnostic ideas became influential in the philosophies of various esoteric mystical movements of the late 19th and 20th centuries in Europe and North America, including some that explicitly identify themselves as revivals or even continuations of earlier gnostic groups.