Here are some thoughts that figure into our dicussion of dualism. Seems worth sharing.
In 1985 I read an excellent article called "Worship: Foundation for
> Reality" by Steve Robbins, PhD, who was at that time pastor of a
> Vineyard in Oxnard, California. One of the things he explained was
> that the phrase "in spirit and truth" was likely a transliteration
> from Hebrew/Aramaic into Greek, and when people heard it they would
> understand the idea "is the same on the outside as on the inside". In
> other words, God is not looking for worship that has
> "spiritual/emotional" and "mental/intellectual" components, but rather
> that God wants those who worship him to be people whose lives are
> absolutely congruent- what you see is what you get in the deepest
> possible way.
>
> As for "trying to convert the spirit realm into the fleshly realm",
> that sounds like an _expression_ of dualism that Wright says time and
> again is not to be found in Jewish thought- quite the opposite. There
> is no division be tween "spirit" and "material"- it's all One Creation.
> It's just that we humans can't always see or apprehend what's going
> on in the non-material realm. Indeed, the whole first part of
> "Resurrection of the Son of God" is about how, in contrast to all
> other known ideas about life after death in the first century, the
> Jewish idea of "resurrection" MUST be bodily. So not knowing Jesus
> "after the flesh" must carry a different meaning than that the
> disciples didn't recognize Jesus because he must have had a
> non-material body.
>
> Finally, nowhere in the bible is the bare concept of "materiality"
> seen to be bad, wrong or evil. God's creation, all of it, is Very
> Good. And then he completely sanctified it by becoming a Human Being.
> Jesus still has the wounds, remember?
>
> Dana Ames
> Ukiah California
> apprentice of Jesus in the PCUSA
> Reality" by Steve Robbins, PhD, who was at that time pastor of a
> Vineyard in Oxnard, California. One of the things he explained was
> that the phrase "in spirit and truth" was likely a transliteration
> from Hebrew/Aramaic into Greek, and when people heard it they would
> understand the idea "is the same on the outside as on the inside". In
> other words, God is not looking for worship that has
> "spiritual/emotional" and "mental/intellectual" components, but rather
> that God wants those who worship him to be people whose lives are
> absolutely congruent- what you see is what you get in the deepest
> possible way.
>
> As for "trying to convert the spirit realm into the fleshly realm",
> that sounds like an _expression_ of dualism that Wright says time and
> again is not to be found in Jewish thought- quite the opposite. There
> is no division be tween "spirit" and "material"- it's all One Creation.
> It's just that we humans can't always see or apprehend what's going
> on in the non-material realm. Indeed, the whole first part of
> "Resurrection of the Son of God" is about how, in contrast to all
> other known ideas about life after death in the first century, the
> Jewish idea of "resurrection" MUST be bodily. So not knowing Jesus
> "after the flesh" must carry a different meaning than that the
> disciples didn't recognize Jesus because he must have had a
> non-material body.
>
> Finally, nowhere in the bible is the bare concept of "materiality"
> seen to be bad, wrong or evil. God's creation, all of it, is Very
> Good. And then he completely sanctified it by becoming a Human Being.
> Jesus still has the wounds, remember?
>
> Dana Ames
> Ukiah California
> apprentice of Jesus in the PCUSA
