Micah 4:1-3 :
In the future, the mountain with the Lord’s temple will be the highest of all. It will reach above the hills, and every nation will rush to it. People of many nations will come and say, “Let’s go up to the mountain of the Lord God of Jacob and worship in his temple.”
The Lord will teach us his Law from Jerusalem, and we will obey him.
He will settle arguments between distant and powerful nations.
They will pound their swords and their spears into rakes and shovels ; they will never again make war or attack one another.
[The rest of the chapter is a similar message of hope]
John 7:2-5 :
It was almost time for the Festival of Shelters [annual pilgrimage festival when the jewish people gather together in Jerusalem to remember God’s provision during the 40-year journey in the desert], and Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Why don’t you go to Judea ? Then your disciples can see what you are doing. No one does anything in secret, if they want others to know about them. So let the world know what you are doing !”
Even Jesus’ own brothers had not yet become his followers.
[I don’t understand this part as well, why would it be a lack of faith in Jesus ?]
[Here’s the beginning of his answer :]
“My time hasn’t yet come, but your time is always here. (…) Go on to the festival. My time hasn’t yet come, and I am not going.”
After Jesus’ brothers had gone to the festival, he went secretly, without telling anyone.
[It was risky because the leaders wanted him dead, yet he goes into the temple and starts teaching when the festival is about half over. When asked how he knows so much without being taught, he replies :] 7:16-19 :
I am not teaching something I thought up. What I teach comes from the one who sent me.
If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me.
[In the sense that he’s not in conflict with what the tradition teaches ?]
If I wanted to bring honor to myself, I would speak for myself. But I want to honor the one who sent me [, like the previous prophets ?]. This is why I tell the truth and not a lie. [Not “this is why i never make mistakes”, i.d.k.]
Didn’t Moses give you the Law ? Yet none of you obey it ! So why do you want to kill me ?
[Here comes a list of descriptions/explanations/instructions that will be continued tomorrow.
It seems that it aims at the minority of things that aren’t immediately perceptible as being wrong or good.
On this topic, i’d like to add a remark :
We know when we’re doing something wrong. Yes, we can justify doing a bad action to another being sometimes, but it is still a bad action. If i hurt someone to protect myself i’ve still hurt someone, even if he’s guilty and i was justified.
Yes, sometimes you must do bad things, but they don’t become good things, because if they could have been avoided, then it’d have been better(, contrary to good actions)]
Narrated An-Nu‘mân bin Bashîr رضي الله عنه :
I heard God’s Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم saying, “Both legal and illegal things are evident, but in between them there are doubtful/unclear things, and most of the people have no knowledge about them.
So whoever saves himself from these unclear things, he saves his religion and his honour.
And whoever indulges in these unclear things is like a shepherd who grazes (his animals )near the Himâ/‘private pasture’/‘inviolate zone’ of someone else, and at any moment he is liable to get in it.
(O people ! )Beware ! Every king has a Himâ and the Himâ of God عز وجل on the Earth is H…e.r.is illegal/forbidden things.
Beware ! There is a piece of flesh in the body ; if it becomes good/reformed, the whole body becomes good ; but if it gets spoilt, the whole body gets spoilt ; and that is the heart.”
(Sahih Al-Bukhâri, Vol.1, Hadîth No.49).
Surah Al-Baqarah(, “The Cow”) 2:173-177 :
[God] has forbidden you only the dead animals, and blood, and the flesh of swine, and that which is slaughtered as a sacrifice for others than God.
But if one is forced by necessity, without wilful disobedience, nor transgressing due limits, then there is no sin on him.
Truly, God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
Verily, those who conceal what God has sent down of the Book, and purchase a small gain therewith( of worldly things), they eat into their bellies nothing but fire.
God will not speak to them on the Day of Resurrection, nor purify them, and theirs will be a painful torment.
Those are they who have purchased error at the price of Guidance, and torment at the price of Forgiveness. So how bold they are( for evil deeds, which will push them) to the Fire.
That is because God has sent down the Book(Qur’ân) in truth. And verily, those who disputed as regards the Book are far away in opposition.
It is not pious/righteous/… that you turn your faces towards east or west( in prayers) ; but it is (the quality of )the one who believes in God, the Last Day, the Angels, the Book, the Prophets, and gives his wealth, in spite of love for it, to the kinsfolk, to the orphans, and to the poor, and to the wayfarer, and to those who ask, and to set slaves free, performs As-Salât, and gives the Zakât, and who fulfil their covenant when they make it, and who are patient in extreme poverty and ailment and at the time of fighting( during the battles).
Such are the people of the truth and they are Al-Muttaqûn(‘/the pious/righteous/God-fearing/…’)
Saint of the day : St. Alphonse Rodriguez, Jesuit