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    The Practice of Christian Mysticism
    The Practice of Christian Mysticism
    The Practice of Christian Mysticism
    Ebook68 pages1 hour

    The Practice of Christian Mysticism

    By Ed Hurst

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    Far from being silly gibberish masquerading as some higher form of intelligence, mysticism simply admits that we can know and act on apprehensions of truth that are above human intellect. Such an approach was the fundamental frame of reference for most of humanity for thousands of years. In general, only in the West is this approach disparaged. More to the point, the ancient Hebrew people and Jesus Himself used a mystical approach. Christian Mysticism accepts that biblical revelation comes down to us from a totally different realm of existence, and that the teachings of Jesus are best understood in light of that ancient Hebrew mystical approach to knowledge. Such an approach informs a more accurate Christian belief.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEd Hurst
    Release dateJun 5, 2014
    ISBN9781311114433
    The Practice of Christian Mysticism
    Author

    Ed Hurst

    Born 18 September 1956 in Seminole, OK. Traveled a great deal in Europe with the US Army, worked a series of odd jobs, and finally in public education. Ordained to the ministry as a Baptist, then with a non-denominational endorsement. Currently semi-retired.

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      Book preview

      The Practice of Christian Mysticism - Ed Hurst

      The Practice of Christian Mysticism

      By Ed Hurst

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2014 by Ed Hurst

      Copyright notice: People of honor need no copyright laws; they are only too happy to give credit where credit is due. Others will ignore copyright laws whenever they please. If you are of the latter, please note what Moses said about dishonorable behavior – be sure your sin will find you out (Numbers 32:23)

      Permission is granted to copy, reproduce and distribute for non-commercial reasons, provided the book remains in its original form.

      Cover Art: Tower of David in Modern Jerusalem, public domain image.

      Other books by the same author include A Course in Biblical Mysticism and Biblical Morality.

      The Practice of Christian Mysticism

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Chapter 1: Two Realms

      Chapter 2: Journey between Realms

      Chapter 3: Defining Christian Mysticism

      Chapter 4: Three Pillars

      Chapter 5: Spiritual Depth

      Chapter 6: Repent

      Chapter 7: Creation’s Programming

      Chapter 8: Units of Revelation

      Chapter 9: Sheikh-ing Creation

      Chapter 10: It’s Personal

      Chapter 11: Truth Is Messy

      Chapter 12: Powers and Principalities

      Chapter 13: The Family

      Conclusion

      Introduction

      If you know anything at all about the word mysticism then you realize it concerns a method and approach, not content.

      Jesus was a Hebrew man, born in the twilight of Hebrew intellectual culture. The ancient Hebrew mind was an Eastern mind, and Jesus taught an Eastern religion. More precisely, it was part of the Ancient Near East (ANE). That means His teaching was inherently mystical in approach. In the strictest sense, to be a follower of Jesus Christ – a Christian – is to be a mystic.

      I will not attempt here to defend mysticism as the quintessential nature of Christ’s teachings. You can find that in another volume (I also wrote A Course in Biblical Mysticism). Instead, we will examine the practical implementation of mysticism as an approach to understanding Jesus Christ.

      This book assumes you are familiar with Scripture. I won’t load the text down with footnotes and a thousand Scripture references. That’s not the way mysticism works; we aren’t legalistic and literalist. The Hebrew people did not use language as a container for facts and truth. They used language as road signs to a path where words could not go. We assay here to examine how to use those markers, so we must assume a familiarity with the Bible, even if the reader might not have a clue how to think like a Hebrew.

      A critical element in early Christian religion was teaching people to embrace that Hebrew viewpoint of reality. The Hebrew people themselves eventually abandoned it; replacing it with a Western intellectual construct that we call Hellenism today. The broader Western culture of today shares a lot with Hellenism, and Western Christianity is actually little different from the false religion of the Jews, a religion against which Jesus struggled daily in His life. Though not lost from human awareness, at least among academics, the full richness of God’s revelation – our understanding of God Himself – is foreign to most of the people who call on His name.

      A fully conscious return to biblical mysticism is our only means to reclaiming the rich heritage of the Cross.

      Chapter 1: Two Realms

      The essence of religion is a practical response to a spiritual apprehension.

      Christian Mysticism presumes a direct encounter with God. This is the standard definition of the term. Obviously, that need not be literal, since God is a spirit being with no inherent physical form. God takes whatever shape suits the need of the moment, as would any angelic beings He might send among us.

      This much we recognize in normal terminology. What we might easily miss is the underlying assumption of Two Realms. The real world in which we all live is obvious. Scripture broadly refers to this as the Fallen Realm. While the whole of Creation is not under the Fall, the important point is that anywhere we humans might go in our fleshly form will always be under the Fall. That’s because we are fallen in our natures. We are not in the state for which we were created, not what God had intended for us.

      He designed us to live with Him. While He is surely here, He is not confined to this realm as we are. His is the Spirit Realm. The two realms are not equal. His is the original. The universe as we know it is just a pet project of His, confined under space and time limitations. Indeed, the boundaries of time and space are a part of the Fall. This we can understand, even if we cannot possibly grasp intellectually what it would mean to be free of the time-space continuum.

      This creates a problem, in that we struggle to break out of our own limited existence when talking about God. There simply are no words, as was recognized long ago with the old theological term

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