Ciao Time
When we entered Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who was guarding him. Acts 28:16 NASB
Rome – From a Messianic perspective, Rome is the epitome of all that is wrong about Christianity. It is religiosus corruptus, a history of power, persecutions and personal agendas. Despite the fact that Rome plays an important part in the initial expansion of the Jewish way of life in the Messiah, we who attempt to follow Yeshua today often view Rome and its Church as anything but God’s instrument. In fact, we are more inclined to view Rome and the Roman way as the anti-Christ. Perhaps for good reasons.
But today I want to provide just a bit of personal reflection from Italy. I might not be in Rome, but I’m pretty close, and since I am in the vicinity, I’d like to share some current thoughts about the interaction of Rome, the Church and the Messianic kingdom.
First, I’m not suggesting that we embrace the Roman way, but we do need to understand it. Not because it is a legitimate expression of biblical faith. It isn’t. We need to understand it because it is so much a part of us—all of us who grew up in the Western worldview. Whether we like it or not, Rome has affected us. From politics to economics, from education to social norms, and especially in religious ideas, Rome is the mother of the West. We might find this disturbing. We might try to reject all of its pagan implications, but this is where most of us started, perhaps unconsciously, but nevertheless birthed into the manifest destiny of Rome. If you have examined any part of the difference between biblical/Hebraic thinking and the Greco-Roman culture, you know this to be true. Most of us will spend the greater part of our lives trying to extricate ourselves from 2000 years of Roman thinking. We will not be entirely successful. Spiritual bleach isn’t able to remove all the Roman dye from our minds. Therefore, if we are going to make some progress toward the Messianic idea of kingdom, we need to know at least a little about the Roman influence in our lives. And what better place to start than here, in Italy? Perhaps some day we’ll do a tour, not a sightseeing tour but a cultural/historical tour of this place in order to recognize the Roman tendrils in our assumptions about living.
Second, even if Roman Christianity was historically and exegetically wrong, it is still an expression of the faith of the populace. Men and women might have been misled by the Church but they still attempted to follow the God they knew, and their art, society, music and celebrations reflect devotion—perhaps misunderstood but still heartfelt. Just as it is today, believers are not the same as the organization. Most of the expressions of honoring God are the result of sincere love of God, and that’s worth witnessing. So, for me, Italian churches are not centers of syncretistic idolatry (although you can find those elements if you look). They are emotional expressions of seeking God. I can connect to that because I am seeking too. I might find a number of theological mistakes painted on ceilings, but I need to look beyond the titanium white and cadmium yellow. I need to look into the heart of the painter, the sculptor and the craftsman to see how he desired to worship. That’s why I love coming here. God is magnificent, and other than sunsets and waterfalls, these manmade manifestations of His glory are uplifting. It’s a good place to give thanks.
Finally, for now, I appreciate being in a place where I am not stretched and pressed by crass commercialism, faster-food fictions and a constant demand for performance. Today life will happen slowly. Today I will greet the local grocer, speak a few Italian words to the owner of the restaurant on the corner and walk to the basilica to spend a quiet moment alone with Him. What could be better?
Topical Index: Rome, Western culture, Acts 28:16
I grew up in a very small town and we had a wonderful bakery.In small towns it’s a focal pt. In the morning.You connected with people ,chatted and the smell of fresh bakery permeated the small town. A dunk n donut it wasn’t!!!. Thanks for reminding me of a very fond memory.
Hi Skip I appreciate the cadmium and the oxides only because you have given a twist to the flip, with your words and the camera shots over the time I have dined here. So now I can look at the effort of sincerity & gaze and ponder and also wince in parts because I am aware of ‘the Faults’. I am still growing away from the hurt and find to look back incites wounded places of a “seethingness” in the seeing these places made on lies. They are grave markers in one sense & mark a death of another innocence I desired to hold, another trust vanishing into nothingness but for your words. Then your seeking heart came along with a deconstruction method that still allows mercy to operate and not just judgment and leaves the beauty in place whilst still acknowledging the reality of what ugliness took place as well. There-in lies the Grace we today, still, so desperately need for our ‘magnificent lies’ done with a ‘pure heart’ but lacking truth. The other more imperative learning is that it brought home how I think in my heart about people that are still building these magnificent lies in churches blissfully unaware or completely defiant to the Good News of The Messiah as a Hebrew. Can I see any beauty or will I judge to death as one above and over them or will I just be humble and wince hoping to place a light here or there so they too can see the fault in the work and not necessary the heart. Thankyou. FJ
“and a constant demand for performance” – what I dislike the most as well!
same here 🙂
Ditto. It’s exhausting!
It is a wonder to gaze upon the smooth surfaces of form, molded or brought out of stone. The brilliance of those surfaces mixed with rays of reflected light. The engineering of supportive structure and the realistic lines of exacting replication. To have stood around with the crowds, each of us in awe at what is before us. To know we are the ancestry of such artisanal blood lines. To have beheld the golden calf.
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see” Thoreau.
It’s what God sees when he looks at man’s handiwork…”You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.” God
Very funny to me! Although I appreciate some of Skip’s perspective here, I’m having a very enjoyable, silent chuckle within myself as I re-read this a couple of times. At least how I interpret your comment, I’m delighting in how you are so poetically pithing on thith, if you know what I doubly mean despite my lisp.
Note to self: find and move to a place where “I am not stretched and pressed by crass commercialism, faster-food fictions and a constant demand for performance”……. oh! To really find such a great place……..
I’m looking. If I find it, I will certainly let you know.
Reading this TW brought a big smile to my face. I can just picture you and Rosanne over there enjoying yourselves. I love it!! Six weeks of Sabbath Rest…so deserved.
Wish you could join us.
I love your insight Skip. It is a great reminder to me of some things that I struggle with. You said it very well in that we need to look into the heart of the artist and maybe not be so analytical of the theology displayed (or not). I can be way to critical and not even see that I am.
I love the picture you paint of your day. I can relate to the slowness of the day unfolding and I relish that. It is how many of my days go and that is a result of a deliberate unplugging from the world and the notions of performance. I choose to do so where I am at. It helps that I am in a very rural area away from metro life. My world is bird song and radiant colors at my home.
Thank you for these words today. A good opportunity to refocus 🙂
PS: looking forward to your words on understanding Rome better!
“I need to look into the heart of the painter, the sculptor and the craftsman to see how he desired to worship.”
This you can and may do. But to “see”, to know their heart, you cannot. You can and may, and possibly should, give them the benefit of the doubt, but, not unless you can personally talk to them can you “see”, know, what is the abundance in their heart. Only then will you “see”, with merely a greater certainty, because it will come out of their mouths. (“Out of the good treasure of his heart the good man brings forth good, and out of evil the evil man brings forth evil. For from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.” – Luk 6:45) But they are not living now, so, again, you cannot “see” even if they were seeking or truly devoted to even the “God” of their own understanding.
A painter, sculptor, or craftsman, could have been just looking to make money by doing what they do and enjoy best. Who really knows? But you can give them the benefit of the doubt and consider that maybe their seeking and devotion was sincere and for the truth of the God we know. That seems to be a good attitude to have – to not condemningly judge something or someone you do not know enough about and to think the best as a possibility.
However, I think it is best to be neutral in our judgements about what we cannot know with certainty. It is best to seek out the truth, ourselves, and to help others to seek out the truth, themselves, also. And to seek to love others where they are at, regardless of whether their seeking and their devotion is for the One true God of Israel, or even for the god of mammon, or whatever their “god” may be, and to be doing that with the grocer or the owner of the corner restaurant in Italy close to Rome couldn’t be better! I agree!
May His kingdom come and His will be done in you, in Italy close to Rome, in the life of the grocer, and in the life of the owner of the corner restaurant, as it is in heaven!
I understand your point. No man can look into the heart of another and determine intention. Of course, that is doubly true of DEAD people. We could say that same for Paul, Moses, David, couldn’t we? After all, the only evidence we have is what they produced–words. Do we really know David’s INTENT in Psalm 51? Do we really know if Paul believed Yeshua was God in the flesh?
But then you make this comment: “it is best to be neutral in our judgements about what we cannot know with certainty.” Ah, that’s a problem isn’t it? What do you really KNOW WITH CERTAINTY? I have lectured on this in the past and mentioned the book “The Sin of Certainty.” This is definitely a Western paradigm, and, I’m afraid, a myth. As Wittgenstein pointed out, there is the expression “I thought I knew.” Life is a lot more about TRUST than it is about CERTAINTY. I am not so quick to write off the works of those artists. Most of them were barely paid at all. Most of them spent YEARS working on religious expressions. Their dedication puts many of us to shame even if they did not know the truth that we know. But then there is, for us, the possibility of “I thought I knew.” I’m afraid that certainty is not a biblical idea.
“…doubly true of DEAD people.” Quite funny. I agree with some of your comments, but you’re going on here about the concept of “certainty” because you’re assuming my statement means I believe we can know something with certainty, though that’s not what I said or believe. And that’s why I think it’s best to remain neutral in judging the intentions of another man’s works as with certainty. Also, are we to think the words of Moses, David, and Paul as of the same divine nature as these paintings and architecture, though we can also question their intentions?
OK, apologies. Right. Noetic certainly is not a biblical idea, as far as I can see. Faithfulness is “certain” in the sense the God’s character does not change, but that is practical, not cognitive certainty.
Thank you. Agreed.
May 17 at sundown – Day 48
Today is day 48 of counting the Omer
Today is day 48 out of Egypt
Today is day 48 of Messiah Resurrected
A Walk to Remember (Colossians 1:9-12)
A post from Restoration Ministries: The church at Colossae was under attack from false teachers who were denying the deity of Yeshua; they were teaching that He was not actually God. Though Paul had never been to Colossae itself, he addressed these issues head-on. The nature of Yeshua the Messiah as Creator and Redeemer was nonnegotiable, so Paul wrote to them in order to bring his wisdom to bear on this difficult and trying situation. It was critical to him that the Colossians know God in His greatness and glory instead of the picture of God that had been painted for them by these false teachers. He asks God to give them everything they need in order to know the truth about Yeshua as a foundation for every facet of their lives. Throughout the book of Colossians, Paul wants them to remember who Yeshua is and how He has called them to live; to live lives that are dead to sin and alive to the promises of God. He wants their walk with Him to be led by and filled with the Holy Spirit so that they can go on to do good works in the name of Yeshua.
God wants the same for us at Restoration. He wants our hearts to be filled with God’s Ruach (His Spirit) and He wants us to allow His Spirit to lead us and guide us in our everyday lives. This will take a focused commitment on our part to spend time with Him in his word and in prayer. As we move forward as a congregation we need to invite Him into our daily lives, the decisions we make, and the actions we take. When we do this, our walk with Him will be filled with the opportunity to do great and mighty things in His name.
Prayer: Lord, we want to know You for who You really are and not just what culture says about You. Fill us with Your Spirit and help us to be able to recoginze the truth about who You are. Come into our daily lives and make Your home in us; lead us and guide us in every decision and action we take. In Yeshua’s name, amen.
Of course, Restoration Ministries has a lot of good things to say, but in this case the assumption that Paul is staunchly Trinitarian leaves a lot of room for debate.
Well, while I’d absolutely LOVE to return to Israel again under the leading steps of “the Skip,” I would quickly begin to save up for a trip to Italy for “a cultural/historical tour.” I’m sure it would be enlightening, inspiring and mostly fun! Look forward to this possibility.
The idea is growing. We are investigating to see what can be done here. A different kind of experience – to tourist, a group time of study and exploration.
Sounds ideal. I am dreaming right now! I would love to go to Italy and many other countries with a different purpose….to stop the mass poisoning that is going on. Italy going bankrupt has been bribed I would say.
I grew up Catholic being that I had a grandmother who had been born in Poland. Father’s side was from Norway so Lutheran but no belief. I believed when I was about 12 not knowing that personal belief was something I needed to do. One thought from that time in my life will always stay with me which I had after I believed ‘Who do I pray to now? God or Jesus? I thought ‘God’. Almost like a miracle to me that I had had that conversation! The idea of the trinity is brainwashed into people with songs like ‘God in Three Persons’. So many other false ideas that are almost impossible it seems to correct.
One of the reasons I am here in Italy is the create material that answers the question, “Where did this idea come from?” Every idea has a history and until we recognize that history we will simply DRIFT into beliefs because we grew up with them. Now is the time to investigate how these ideas shaped our world. Yesterday I was in Ravenna, where I visited 9th Century churches still exhibiting Byzantine influence. Soon these were eclipsed by other syncretistic forms of faith. It’s all in the ceilings, the walls, the architecture. Maybe we’ll do something next year in this country so you will have the opportunity to see (and FEEL) the transition for yourself.
My wife reminds me much of the Torah is about inappropriately mixing things. Wherever we live in whatever time, discerning the Holy and profane will require all our presence and attention. If we wish to be faithful. Finding the idea roots of these mixtures is a gift I am glad you freely share Skip. Thanks for that. ..
Haha, I like this! Given your great admiration for Greco/Roman art in Roman churches, you also still have some extrication to do … 🙂
It’s not the CHURCH that draws my interest, it’s the amazing talent, skill and devotion to excellence I see in human beings. And most amazing of all is that God created us with this capacity. I wonder where it has gone today.
Is it largely gone the way of replacement with Facebook mentality and skill? Inward focus rather than outward expression of latent skills yet to be honed. Skills pushed aside and inhibited by senseless waste of self absorbtion.
Well …. La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona? Still being built.