sirguessalot

i almost hate to say it, Zix, but some of you guys obviously seem pretty much driven to dismantle the dangerous and deceptive snake oil ring of one little ole david andersen of bfe ohio

thanks a mil for posting all this herbiejuan great links, too :)-->

some holy scripture for further contemplation... imagine, if you will... simply sitting down contemplating what is amidst all the wrath amidst all the wonder in the eye of the spirit watching it all arise a mere new clarity S.S.D.D.* perhaps that Word which is most Alive is not just that which is displayed in a book or on this screen but even moreso, that which actually flashes and booms in your forehead as you read :P--> +ODD *same dang, different day

CM, please spare me an irreverent moment of brotherly reverence for you... :P--> as far as i'm concerned, you're about as authentic as they come, and every drop you've spilled in words, here, and between us, is worthy of much honor and reflection we've all come such a long way together, and you've truly been a living epistle and mirror for me. and the joy is multiplied knowing how we're all going to know each other forever, ya know? may your path continue to weave its way thru the endless mysteries of life, unfolding in ever-deepening hope, ever-widening faith, and most of all, in all the endless richnesses of that Love so obvious, that Love so generically divine... always there, brother t

hey hey, ckeer and 2gray...very interesting takes on what i consider to be a relevent subject i'm not sure what else to say on the subject right now, though i do kinda wish more of the local Bible-only crowd would have chimed in, too that silence is especially odd to me, considering how quickly such absurd biblical notions get heaped upon on around here who knows? maybe its just not upsetting or loony enough to be attractive... --> (famous last words.... :D-->)

ok, def. you obviously have little or no intention of playing any other notes on the ole spiritual flute right now. but i'll play along with your response a bit. thanks for hanging out here. :)--> and here, i think, is a big part of the fundamentalist trouble with the whole idea, def. cuz some obviously go this route...but some do not. though it may look the same at a glance. imo, we agree a bit here...the univeral flat-truth approach seems as much (if not more) problematic than any more blatant textual racism or dogmatic fundamentalist program/ming. i mean, great...so lets say we've just reached beyond racial beingness to a more global beingness, but why strip away all sense of judgement, discernment, value, virtue and call it all blindly equal? this is not what i am suggesting at all. i believe there are very good reasons for styles and flavors and spices and believe it or not, there are ways to measure and compare spiritual writings to spiritual writings that honor and distinguish what is true, pure, good in each of them. in the end, all leaves on the tree are for the healing of the nations of the world, right? sure he did, but what he meant by this has a lot more meat to it than simply that. imo, the truth of that statement has a richness that goes beyond the first few layers of meaning (the whole of which also harmoniously includes the first layers of meaning). and when it comes to the "specialness" or "exclusiveness" of Jesus and his people...it is my opinion that he was most likely the first singular and fully open expression the "divine logos" in human history (in compassion, knowledge and power). which is no small beans, anthropologically or otherwise. i mean, it had to happen sometime, somehow, some way. no, not just so he could bind everyone to the textual evolutionary limitations of his own kin and background, but rather develop and demonstrate methods and practices of joining the many wisdoms of his kin to the greater garment of the world's wisdom (Christness itself being a "worldcentric" awareness and lifestyle). from Abraham to Jesus and beyond contains perhaps the oldest and most diverse spiritual lineages on the planet (even if this royal sceptre is presently mostly stolen and laundered goods). another problem perhaps...is how the ways of textual prejudice cannot/will not see how Jesus could be "The One" and also possibly learn valuable things from (and even improve on) the wisdoms of Abraham, Zoroaster, Buddha (to name a few), not to mention include the goodnesses found in the hunter gatherers, the warlords, the old patriarchies, the then-modern philosophers and mystics and sinners and harlots... sometimes i think, if we would actually just raise our messianic standards a notch or ten...rather than dumb it down and just because one cannot or will not choose to work towards reconciling and redeeming a given spiritual-racial line to a place of functioning cohesive unity, does not mean it is un-redeemable. we are simply under a law of our own making and unable to redeem anything outside of that cage/cave/womb/pot... but it is that new unique Way of Christ (in how he taught to be and think and believe) that enables us to redeem all lines to a greater inclusive (and functional) framework and univeral sense of Truth and truths (which is also ever-growing) its just that he started from and with his own people. he knew how to speak and teach and live universal truths in his lineage in A Way that transcended (but included) even his own flesh and blood. a trailblazer on the evolutionary cutting edge, ages ahead of his own time in understanding, taking the oil of many raw new realizations to some of the squeakiest wheels on the planet at the time... imo, a real travesty is when we think we must somehow reject ours or another's earlier older levels of understanding (like self-imposed racial-textual limits) in order to grow. and so we refuse to leave (or be born from) the dogmatic cave/hole/box (which is useful for a time - like our basic spiritual grammar school lessons, or a seed splitting open and dying in the dirt) yes. a very good idea...analysis and so also, what about the idea of revisiting and analyizing all the wayyyy old cases for rejection after all these tens of hundreds of years later? can't we just assume we've learned quite a few things about spirituallity (for better or worse). and better yet, perhaps we ought to ask ourselves, and pay most special attention to..."what are the things i am not looking at?" or have yet to look at?

for what its worth, heerz another interesting pair of -isms that may or may not help this discussion... Reductionism versus Holism :)--> peace

www.guru.com Here is another semi-successful site that has been around awhile. It used to be moonlighters.com. :)-->

Hi Vickles. My wife has been telecommuting through Working Solutions for about 5 years now. And despite the fact that its all online and from home, they can dish out some pretty demanding virtual admin and data-entry type contracts...and they pay. And they are growing rapidly. So check it out. Apply. Feel free to ask me more about it. Good luck. :)-->

ok, sitting here sipping wine after a good day doing carpentry work, thinking about stories of the j-man and his religion... btw, does that make me an official disciple or sumthin? --> :P--> looking at a book of poems on my desk...thinking of textual racisms... ...sufi, tao, and zen...now there are a few time-tested scriptural traditions worth exploring and comparing their spiritual words with the spiritual words of The Bible. Knowing also, that there is most likely someone somewhere also practicing sufi fanaticism, has a taoist addiction, or engages in zen fundamentalism... reminds me: "in my father's house are many mansions"...and "but the "son of man" (the spiritual man) has nowhere to rest his head" my oh my...the value of "nowhere" :)-->

nice...dmiller. :)--> if the cutting edge of western and holistic medicines and psychology, and all the best wisdom from the ancient traditions and healing arts were willing to come together and speak the same language...we might really get somewhere. especially if medicine starts moving towards becoming a purely charitable affair... but sadly, folks in all branches have their many hangups to get over. a truly integral medicine is on the horizon, though. just keep yer fingers crossed about the money and politics, i guess. I agree with Linda about the 30 or 40 years til the collective head scratching, but i also think it might be more like 10 or 20, depending on how things go.

:)--> lol, CM. i'll try harder. but also, feel free to feedback as specific as you wish. otherwise, cuz i can really only guess how it sounds on your end. yeah. and I can see two general directions of this circle, Danny. - one manifests peace and wellness outwardly universally from within the circle... - the other attracts sickness and sin towards its self and its self-defined exclusive group - one can be lifted up like a brass serpent in the wilderness (like the timeless caduceus of medicine) by those who trust them... - as opposed to the more spiritually vampiric types who just take "it" for themselves as a possession. i mean, if the gift ministeries are given first to the church (feminine)...then its the church that is free to decide who to anoint with it, right? - perhaps at one end of the spectrum is the stealing/taking/seducing of the ministry out of the church's hands, thinking God gave it to him to give to the church... - on the other end is simply being showered with ministries like gifts by the will of the church itself, without ever even having to ask for it. - one ends in a hardening entropic cancerous carnivorous desperation for more more more... - the other just never stops unfolding and opening and embracing and manifesting freely with no end in sight. when it comes to "biblical/sexual/racial exclusion," Babylon first falls within, it seems cuz heaven must come down to earth...not the other way around

indeed...sexual prejudice being possibly one of the widest and most harmful aspects of scriptural and textual exclusion, imo. all races also have women in them. women can be as spiritual as men (and in ways most men would never dare approach in a thousand years). we can see it in the fundamentalist patriarchies of all languages, how whether its the heretical destruction of women's spiritual writings and contributions and hearts and hands and minds, or simply keeping them from learning how to write and think for themselves (pretty much forcing their gifts into secrecy and hiding)...health, prosperity, medicines, arts, all take a big nose dive real quick, it seems (talk about a naive thing to "choose"). and the farther this regresses, the closer men get to becoming quite reptilian and shark-eyed, and women revert to their much darker days of vicious desperate matriarchies. again, i think prejudice against the individual and collective outer world of the feminine really just arises out of a problematic relationship with much subtler things. example: look at "the j-man's" heavenly anointing from above by that holy spirit dove. no, not a magic gift for just him, or mere hallucination, but a real inner awakening to that truer unbreakable marriage of "angels in heaven." not just a taste of it, or fleeting spiritual high (though its kinda hard to tell what would have happened from the way he was killed so quickly afterward), but a fuller experience that really quickened his transformation to a realized peace-bringer and healer and super-dooper-saint and such. once this anointing hit his "head", he was finally able to "do his thing," because he was not a threat to women, children, the sick and dying, or anyone's cultural or political wellbeing. he was able to suffer like a woman (who almost always already instinctually knows how to) with and alongside the weak and sinful and young and newborn, without seeking a weakness to exploit for his own elevation, or a way to control his "harem." and so rather than having to "fight against" gravity and crawl on a single belly like a "natural man" just to get to "the mountaintop," he was lifted up to the "clouds above the mountain" by the more peaceful always two-fold approach of being winged (not to mention also being uplifted by those whom he genuinely healed and helped and taught without asking for or taking anything for himself in return...except the mutual bond of love, of course...we all have a right to ask for this...and there's nothing uniquely messianic about that, though it may seem so at times). and the thing is, the J-man did not invent this, nor was he or his race the first to write about it, or experience it. though i would say that his way was truly emergent and agentic (and he seemed to know how far ahead of his time he was...he and his students actually predicting that his and their actions would continue to confuse people for thousands of years to come) he seemed to summarize that "day of the lord" in that sense, and herald new "ages" coming, and then also raise all the old bars on the ways of simply being. he challenged (and continues to challenge) the world's perspective on body realm/gross-realm/physical realm life and death and rebirth. which obviously still confuses the patriarchies, because they still can't seem to replicate his "magic" fruit (let alone keep their pecker in their pants around women and children). and so we are told to "raise our moral standards" and "lower our expectations"...which is a pretty creepy habit. and if women want to have a say in the world, its still deemed proper that they damn near stick to the old methods of a room full of men in white wigs (talk about homo-genos) or otherwise just shut up and stop complaining about everything and let the menfolk come up with "solutions." ...talk about making woman do that which is "unseemly" with one another (which is not the same as Paul's admonitions, which seem more towards the practical manner in which all these "spiritual/sexual things" were being worked out in public and private) and also not the same as... if the feminine gift to masculine is increased expansiveness, and cooperation, and connectiveness the masculine gift to feminine is ascension, agency, and power. which, obviously would lead to increased healing and care and cooperation and communion in the world unified, we are spiritual (which is living beyond that draw from the deck of chromosomes) divided, we are not (trapped in the thinking sex and gender is only a physical thing, and therefore only a physical sin) btw, def, thanks for bringing up the issue of sexual prejudice. :P--> and thanks abi, for the feedback. CM...

lol. fair enough, raf. peace :)-->

okee dokee. i said id stick around.... we all set rules for ourselves (or not). and we can impose these rules on others (or not). there are many sets of rules going on here. the one i was referring to was the rule where "because its the internet" we can heap as much shame and abuse on each other as we wish, and then somehow call it merely "dialogue" and "discussion." is there such thing as verbal abuse? does it cause damage to the abusee or abuser? science, religion, psychology, experience...all say yes. oh great. the usual pack of "challengers" basically dogpiles one guy's attempt at talking about a subject, and then someone challenges the manner of "dialogue," and then someone stands there and say "what about him? after all, he cussed too." btw - i have never claimed Dave was a model of anything. i'll just go find a few (of many) implying what? implying what? ok, back to Raf... I think Dave was referring to unhealthy overblown cynicism in general. And that he does not take this water idea as seriously as people are accusing him of. though i could also understand why it might fit in the category of "good news" for him and others. i'll defend him for this, even if i don't drink the stuff. perhaps one reason the comparison pushed everyone's buttons to overreacting is because we are still obviously way too easily offended by anything that has do with that J-word. for one, like religions, all branches of science have their own often severe limits and prejudices. two, those are your own rules for "something to be beneficial." if i eat something and i am made well, i could care less if science tells me i should be sick cuz they can't figure out why. when someone's health benefits from something, be it a placebo or not, they often go into regression when someone tells them to doubt it. our state of mind and state of body work pretty closely together. and this "help" is often done in the name of cold hard science. but when people get sick because of this approach, the doctors need to start seeing a shrink. i don't think its that cut and dry. again, yer rules, yer limits, you stated them. again with the liar thing. when you say what something someone is writing about is manure or worse, even when a half dozen or more other people are obviously wanting to talk to Dave some more about it, because they've experienced benefits, you can call em all crazy. you can call em all duped. you can call em all gullible. but that's ok, as long as you don't use the word liar? and you can call it a "challenge to his thesis" all you want. which is part true, but its also way more than that. we disagree on a lot, raf. about how things work in general, it seems. fine. but Dave is fleecing no one. and yeah, i think the Penta price is way steep. i bet Dave does too. "verifying claims?" ive been around. that is not what i would call it. "pounce on truly significant matters like screen names" or, desperately trying to defend himself from a mob of rude cynics who have live by different sets of rules? yeah, but read between the lines, raf. honestly, does Dave think he is Christ? Does he think his water is the ultimate path to heaven? nope. again, the cynics dogpiled him and perhaps are overreacting to Dave's way of saying something like..."you guys have started with doubt and may stay there." ive talked to him, and don't think he's the type. like i said. im not that baffled by what's going on. and i think your summation is heavily filtered. omg, did it hurt when he bashed ya? if so, consider how much we can affect each other via written words if not, why you complaining? who aint, raf? with all our little pocket fulls of little addictions and fixations to work out. honestly. besides, i hope we're reaching a time when mental illnesses are nothing to be ashamed of. one can be addicted to anything, right? our bodily health and mental health is one package. there are ways to "challenge" ideas without spiralling into "verbally abusive behavior." it can be like groundhog day, over and over and over again. not good for the heart or organs of all parties involved. The benefit of oxygenated water, more perhaps even moreso, the character of these "accepted" methods of "challenging" people's ideas on this forum. you honestly think everyone feels safe posting here? are we now in some darwinian mode, where if we can't stick up for ourself against a pack, we don't deserve to be writing here? to some posters, these are the "rules" they live by. if you think it aint true...im not sure what to tell ya any more. again, there are a variety of ways to "discuss" things, aren't there? like i said...yer rules. ok. Dave...i know its hard, considering, but try not be an a$$. :)--> now, if that's all i would have written to the "challengers," would be having all this fun, raf? ummm...no. but health is serious issue. from the bitterness. the resentment. the shame. some people want to discuss things in common and agreement without being "challenged", and no, this isn't by default a call to sign up another green card, or a sign of gullibility, or dangerous group think. unless you somehow prefer the way the world is going, and how people are treating each other....you might want to change and keep changing all the time. renewed day by day, right? in your mind. your heart. that crap. no, i think you guys are smart. meaning, yeah, i also think smart people act stupid at times. of course i think people are acting stupid about things. why would i have stuck my neck on the block. im even beginning to think im pretty stupid for doing it. :P--> oh well. imo, worse than the fundie warrior against the devil stance, is the deeply entrenched nihilist mindset that say "nothing is possible with God. He can't even make something good come out of an overpriced Penta Water experience." i've personally seen people healed from all sorts of strange things using all sorts of strange methods, none of which would satifisy modern science's less-than exhaustive criteria but of course, according to some, those darn people have no right to be well. in fact, we should tell them they should be sick again, because the methods are not "authentic" or "official" or "scientifically explainable" and this is a sad sad travesty. you see what im getting at, raf? what do the epistles say about wholeness of body soul and spirit? about the tongue and speech and how to treat each other?

omg, raf, plz don't tell me that your not being able to find the exact words "Dave, you are lying" in the text of the thread must mean... besides, why did you pick only that tidbit of a criticism out of my entire post?

ok, im an idiot, cuz i just gotta say this once...(tho of course i'll stick around to defend "myself" -->) what the heck...yer rules i don't think Dave is at all guilty of what you guys are getting all frothy about. he is not starting a cult or trying to get rich, nor saying its "the gospel" (like he's been falsely accused). and he and many others have actually benefitted from this air-water, and they think its great. I mean, why don't you call Kit Sober and her husband a liar too? or the others who are interested. besides, if its just a placebo and helps, i say...bottle the hell out of it. distribute it. give it away. friggin help people somehow fer gawd's sake. watching this thread has been like watching a sick frat party gang up on what they perceive as a weakness, then spaz out on him when he shows any more signs of weakness. The Penn and Tellers of the world are funny and passionate, but they are also a bunch of magicians and con artists with all kinds of chips on their shoulder. they are not prophets, nor are they very ethical or helpful in their manner of distributing their brand of "information." "You are an absolute idiot for believing so and so..." is not useful, kind, practical, or anything. you guys have spent so much energy trying to save everyone from little ole Dave's stories and thoughts, if i didn't understand it a bit, i would be baffled. And now, the shame and demonization of Dave has carried over to other threads. what the f? go get laid or something. There has got to be ways to better deal with our own physical and mental illnesses than this. And by all this misrepresenting, you are causing more harm than you think you are preventing, imo. "Protecing the innocent from big bad Dave Anderson's sparkly water ideas" --> You would think this thread on "miracle water" has become the official group therapy session for working out all our rabid ex-way shaming techniques. its like yer intentionally going out of your way...to do what? tar and feather the guy? show off to everyone how absolutely and consistently stubbornly mean and rude you can be? i dunno, i think the longer you/i/we do stuff like this, the harder and harder it is to change (if you/i/we even want to any more) i honestly think you guys are smarter than this, and have a lot more to offer (tho, i might be wrong on this too...we'll see) :(--> --> :D-->

thanks Roy. :)--> I just don't know what to tell ya Def. You can obviously play a few notes really well (value of judgement in salvation, value of rejection in salvation). But if other notes are your enemy...might the spiritual harmony you still seem to seek always be somehow confused with spiritual wickedness? imo, The "scriptural" call to "reject heresy" is to reject the very manner of choosing which you (and not just you) so often promote as being "of Christ". Because heresy is choosing. That old old habit of censorship of wisdom and spiritual exclusivity based on arbitrary things...like this old, dangerous pre-Christine idea of "infallible church patriarchies" (like so many christianized Pharoahs and Nimrods). Or the way Lucifer "choose" and took and a part of heaven into "his" camp (which many consider to be that original sin). imo, The approach actually breeds more and more "evil spirits" in the souls of society, and causes more suffering and ignorance and torment in life (simply by cutting your own self off from what Christ has been teaching all over the world since the beginning of time, for starters), which is pretty much the "fallen" approach Jesus gave his life trying to deliver his kin from - the racism and prejudice and elitism that comes with all forms of orthodox dogmatism (though they are also all valuable and worthy of redemption). Heck, even now, Jesus himself seems to have been made the scapegoat for this same sinful new/old patriarchy of mere possession and control and punishment and chopping things into pieces of good and bad. Although, there is nothing wrong with patriarchy itself, or making distinctions, but is it the highest form? Is it the most capable of dealing with life and love? Are all patriarchies equal? Is fatherly judgement really The dominant virtue and principle in life? A black and white (and often painfully red) version of the universe is all that the ole beast within us is able to see. But the "mind of Christ" can distinguish the value of every color in the spectrum. Same universe, a different set of eyes = a new heaven and earth...coming together in harmony. Try it, you might even find a rebirth. Yes, there is a lake of fire in life, and all heresy, selfish control, selfish judgement, and self deception has gotta take a dip one way or another. Its for this reason, it seems, that for most, Jesus' baptism is Hell. And so no wonder The Way is called "narrow" and "small" is known to make "grown" men cry (cuz they know they aint gonna try it). A way in which our shadows and our pains and hatred reveals our own personal edges, not to mention a real good reason to do crazy stuff like fast, meditate and go off by yourself in the wilderness for long periods of time til you see your devils and dragons... CM, aka vert... yes. This is redemption, imo. The ability to rescue any and all of our past partial truths and in-graft the values into a deeper, wider, higher, longer, newer arena of understanding. Lemons into lemonade... :D--> ...here and now...gotta love it.And that which is new, that which is emergent, that which is the cutting edge...this is the newness of Christ. Not just dead stuff. Not just entombed stuff. Not just things written in books by dead men. The timeless meets the ancient meets the old meets the new meets the future... And the east meets the west and the north meets the south... What else could it be?

that is beautiful, megan. thanks. :)--> i was in Rome City once for the advanced class i'll never forget coming across this magical glade of thousands of butterflies during the day, which turned into this magical glade of fireflies at night btw - i grew up Portland. got into the Way in Portland in 92. and just saw some things you wrote somewhere else about it that made me a lil homesick. peace

thanks for chimin in Danny :)--> ok, more mega-geek mode... i agree. it is a great time to be living (aside from the looming possibility of some sort of WW4 era, of course). there seems to be somewhat of a global textual underground revolution going on as we speak. new discoveries of old things. more and more new inter-faith dialogues opening up like a bold quickening of the pace in an ongoing centuries-long anthropological shift towards learning "what to do when your planet keeps getting smaller and smaller" or something or that other fabled time "when the sea gives up its dead" (thinking of recent dramatic archeological and other various technical advances and discoveries) and i think yer right, Danny. any dogmatic or orthodox textual exclusivity is more or less destined to fail in many ways, especially by simply not being able to grow or elevate that slice of humanity beyond where it already is it leaves us mostly unable to deepen any of those connections, histories, causalities and relationships to its own advice (beyond the most surface and "safety approved" connections) when all along, the fingerprints of those crazy non-canonical grandparents are hiding in plain sight :)-->

lol, oak. yeah, there is always to be a mystery it seems. jim, according to lcm, once yer "born again" according to the pfal model, the "OT war for life and death is over." to think otherwise is to be "deceived by the adversary." that's the gist, sum and substance anyway. lol

i think LCM is in error to say eph 6 has nothing to with war just as we would be in error in saying it 6 has nothing to do with sport (because of all his obvious boneheadednesses) but in another light, in using "sport" and "playing war" in a deeply spiritual context, as a way to avoid all-out inner/outer war...sounds more like something a prince of peace would promote, anyway we can "settle it like Solomon," in wisdom and peace ya know, become like a child...and all that ;)--> (who just love to play games to learn) besides, it was one of the reasons the greeks started the Olympiads...to avoid war not to mention how Paul is well known for using a cultures own literary and religious heritages to promote silly things like divine love and the very real brotherhood of all humanity ok, i'll try to be done now... peace :)-->

Bingo, Dan. lol :)--> ok, oak, did the writer of Ephesians believe he served a prince of peace, or a prince of war? i mean, come on. look at his life. his mission. everything he wrote. its not some secret what these guys were trying to be. i mean, did he write this stuff when he was a soldier and oppressor and cop, or was it many years after he turned his life into that of a wandering healer, teacher and mystic peacenik (willing to go as far as getting himself killed and beaten and imprisoned many times for his beliefs)? why would he write merely about physical war? when the entire hellenic culture hinged upon the spiritual relationships between games and war (especially for fostering peace between the greek nations...for a while) and if not physical war, but some sort of war for souls, how can we think we can or should nit pick one or the other out of this guy's religious poetry? in most, if not all classic literatures, figures of speech and multiple meanings and such were common in all poetry, songs, and spiritual appeals. and this guy was most likely not a mere hack at it (being more multi-cultural in a very cosmo and philosophically charged world) it seems to make much less sense for this Paul guy to suddenly flash forward to our modern single-plane flatland fundamental literalist literary style, or worse, somehow magically revert to pre-historical more single-minded cave painting expressions of monsters. i know you like playing the ole D's advocate, oak, but... you kidding? who could use a Bible to "back anything up" around here? without going to war or wrestling over the correct version or interpretation of things did what? write about sports and war in the same breath, as using the same dynamics? ummm....trying to represent how life is a struggle, whether yer fighting for life or spiritual reward? and so "get to fighting, do yer best, use the best equipment at your disposal," etc... check out the book of rev says about Ephesians. they love to play and simply hate to lose. why would Paul promote mere war to them? or mere sport? also, in some traditions, the practice of being a pacifist is expressed as being a warrior

the evidence is in his cultural history and context and the nature of his mission to somehow integrate cultures in some sort of universal language and love and whatever i mean, like i said, they used military equipment for the games also, very very different than modern olympics, regarding everything from sexuallity, race, methods of practice...etc... and this late in the olympic tradition, there was even less and less difference between sport and war (more and more violence became allowed and promoted in the arena) he was as much a roman as he was jewish (and other things, most likely) he was obviously an educated dude in many cultures and languages he wrote letters to people all over the world with different worldviews ummm... why wouldn't he?

keep in mind, that to the ephesians and ilk, there was little to no distinction between what equipment was used for games and what was used for war i mean, they carried shields and helms and swords in the games, for god's sake. threw spears and rode chariots and such. played warrish music. even the awards for battle we hard to distinguish from the awards for games their rituals and pantheons of birth and marriage and dying were also mingled with both war and games sometimes i wonder how two (or more) apparently opposing truths can't be allowed sit in the same "chair" without trying to eliminate one? can't Paul express both (and more) aspects in the same passages or words? pretty basic stuff