Check out the greek, (without accents, I couldn't figure them out, save for the ones I didn't need :P)

It could also be translated: "Unto ages of ages"

"From eternity to eternity"

something like that...

actually:
"From eternities to eternities"

where's this phrase from?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Patri

There may be more to this (I haven't looked at that part of Jeremiah before writing this) but in the OT, Israel sometimes means "the northern kingdom", or "All of the tribes except Judah" whereas Judah means "the southern kingdom" or the tribe of Judah.

This split occured after Solomon died.

There was this big split that occurred (Dwight mentioned it). Basically, the Israelites went all nutso for a while and decided to put their own king on the throne who wasn't of the line of David. Obviously that's no good -- remember God's whole thing about the line of David? But Judah kept on worshipping God and doing what was right and submitting to the rightful heirs. So, for a time, Judah is considered all of Israel because they were the only ones who were following the faith of Israel (the man) and were were all of the nation that was faithful to God. At one point there was even a war over it (and the good guys won).

It's the same principle that Paul speaks of when he says, "Who is a son of Abraham? One of his blood or one of his faith? It's the one's who keep to the faith of Abraham that are his children" (paraphrase). It's why I feel free to call myself a Jew at times when it is helpful in evangelism (I'm a faithful son of Abraham, and therefore one of his descendants).

Judah was Israel for a while.

P.S. You can check it out in 2nd Chronicles (and other places).

Touche, Dave.

I just went back and checked my memory against the text -- you're right =)

1) Solomon commits his various idolatries
2) God gives the 10 northern tribes to Jeroboam to rule (via populace support)
3) God gives Rehoboam (Solomon's heir) the other two tribes.
4) Jeroboam gets all wacky and Godless
5) Bad things happen.

I had forgotten all about the prophet and the aborted battle (between Rehoboam and Jeroboam). I checked to see what I was thinking of ... I figured it out =) (This is just a side note, btw). I once heard someone ask the question, "Why don't we see the Bible follow the kings of Israel for a number of generations, but focuses on the kings of Judah instead?" The answer (as it came) was that it was because the scriptures (as holy scriptures) focused on the line of David. The nation of Israel (as such) was the focus of various annals and historical chronicles. Sorry about that, Jared!

I agree regarding it being an action of the people -- that's why I was hoping to convey by calling it a thing God did "via populace support" -- or "by way of the support of the people." I'm not sure if it was a rebellion against God for them to pick a new king... Were the people obligated to God to prefer an heir of the line of David? I'm not sure.

I strongly suspect the causality here is something like the "geist" of that "zeit" was the holy "geist" (a la Chompsky).

I don't think it would have mattered much in the long run whether or not Jeroboam had stayed faithful. The kingdoms would have come back to David's line (per the infallible promise of God) when God's wrath against the line was satisified. It would, however, have made things much better for the Israelites if he hadn't freaked out.

Also, I didn't mean to imply that the non-Davidic kings are simply ignored -- it just doesn't follow them in the same way (as far as I can tell). There's a general scriptural focus on the seat of the line of David, and it is the focus of the prophecies (as you pointed out), and -- for obvious reasons -- the important bloodlines.

Cool; thanks,guys :)

The Northern Kingdom gets taken off into captivity and does not return with Nehemiah and/or Ezra...

here is an alternate/working definition:

A creed is a profession of faith that aims to unify Christians in truth, but usually lists the reasons one group doesn't want to hang out with another...

creeds are practically more of a litmus test than a common confession

The Apostle's creed was written because the Non-Gnostics didn't want to hang out with the Gnostics.

I've never really had much use for Creeds and Confessions and Mottos and such, myself. I'm not against them, mind you -- I just never had much use for them.

If someone wants to know what I believe, they can ask me. If they want to know what I believe in a nutshell ... well, they can still just ask me. I'll tell them gladly =) If they tell me I believe something wrong-headed, I'll ask them what they mean and what it is, and how they know and such. Then I'll give it it's due consideration. There are some points I won't budge on, no matter what (there are infinite articulations of these few points, and each of those could be called a creed (or confession, or slogan, or whatever), but I don't care about the articulations, really).

Anyway, the point is, I don't care one way or another about creeds and such. I know people who know very important creeds and confessions very thoroughly and confess agreement with them and who have grown in holiness by the grace of God through their contemplation or repetition (or whatever) of them. I'm thrilled. I've also known people who seemed to know very important creeds and confessions very thoroughly and confess agreement with them, and who have at other times also demonstrated themselves to be such as "universalists" or "atheists" (did you know there's a group of people who call themselves "atheist Christians?" Some of them even adhere to the various creeds -- they just fiddle with the definitions.)

As for me, I've never been able to make them mean anything to me, really. I mean, I understand the formal content, and I'm cool with it, but it generally isn't how I would articulate what my Dad did for me. Also, I'm probably fairly juvenile with regards to certain things (I only have the vaguest and most formal understanding of what a "lord" is (being an American, and me being slow about such things) -- though we're working on it! -- so I don't really call him "Lord" much when we talk. I think it's the Next Big Thing we'll be working on. He surely is my Lord, but I don't really know what it means yet.)

I've had some creeds of my own over the years. I have some now, even. They're like security blankets: when the enemy comes to try to shoot me down, I put on the full Armor of God (tm) and then, on top of that, I put on the Cape of my Creeds, because creeds -- like scriptures as such -- are much easier than faith.

God gives me all that good stuff that protects me (shield, breastplate, belt, etc.). I provide myself with a cape (or others offer me some, and I pick out the ones that fit my armor nicely and are decorated to my taste) to help me feel more secure (and rather dashing ;). It's like a wrapper around my armor. So when I see other people with the same cape, I don't have to examine all their armor (which may be a different style), to know that we're both in the League of Heros. The problem is, sometimes a Villan puts on a cape too. Villans cannot put on the armor, because it's issued by The Man Upstairs, but they can put on the cape, because we give them out freely (public confession =). So sometimes there's this naked dude walking around with a cape. If I see enough of that, and if I forget what the cape is, I'll start trusting that the cape will protect me in battle, and forget to put on my armor first when I go out. Then, while we're at the clubhouse, someone comes in and laughs villanously, and we all stand up and protect ourselves with our capes, and bad things happen.

Ok, this has gone on long enough =) I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I've been enjoying writing it!

In the Lutheran tradition, the progress from confession and absolution (a quasi-sacrament) to the Lord's Supper is the focus. Lutherans believe that the Sacraments are Lords Supper and Baptism (with Confession and Absolution being sometimes said to be a sacrament, sometimes not)

To be a sacrament, Lutherans have 3 requisites:

1. Established by Jesus
2. Confers Grace
3. I can't remember how they put this one, but practicable by all believers. (e.g. This is why marriage is not a sacrament for Lutherans, because not all believers can or should be married)

I'm still pretty confused by "conferring grace"and the nature of the Lord's Supper.

Sacraments are pretty much a mystery to me.

The Westminster Confession, that "admirable statement of Reformed doctrine" describes the characteristics of Christian religious worship and observance of the Sabbath day in Chapter 21, complete with too many scripture proofs to post here. Here are some of the main themes:

-Worship to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit alone.
-Prayer with Thanksgiving, in the name of the Son, with reverence, humility, etc...
-The reading of Scriptures with godly fear, sound preaching and conscionable hearing of the Word, with understanding, faith, reverence, singing of psalms with grace in the heart, as also the due administration and worthy receiving of the sacraments instituted by Christ...

So it seems the main thrust of it is: Worship, Prayer, and the Scriptures, along witht the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper...

By the way, ooh-rah to the Pflugerville church (St. Elizabeth's?) for having a 40 min homily! Those Texans must really need it:)

I come from a nondenominational background. For us, the message is central. We're very message-oriented. Jesus preached, Paul preached, John the Baptist preached, the prophets preached, so we preach. We love preaching.

I do wish that worship was more fundamental to the service.

With regard to sacraments, we're very simple. If Jesus said to do it, we do it. We know that there's some theological stuff about Baptism conferring grace, but for the most part we don't understand it, and we trust that if we do what Jesus said to do He'll look after us. He promised He would.

Matt: "I do wish that worship was more fundamental to the service."

Is preaching not worship? How do you define worship? Are you just thinking of worship "songs"?

All: Laura cited the Westminster Confession of Faith, which I have read and which my church is in agreement with. I don't rightly understand who is and is not "Reformed" in protestantism, and who would and would not agree with the Westminster Confession of Faith, so, for other Reformed and non-Reformed folks, are there other confessions your church is in agreement with? (Enlighten me! :) )
Council of Trent for RCC?
Heidelberg anyone?
Canons of Dordt?
...?

I don't think the Lutheran Church is "Reformed" in the sense that it is used today.

The Lutheran Church uses the Apostle's Creed, the Nicene Creed (with the "and the Son" bit), and the Athanasian Creed.

Then there are confessions. They have a whole mess of them in the Book of Concord, but the main one is the Augsburg Confession.

I'm not sure what the difference is between a Creed and a confession, but I know that Luther and all the Lutherans after him did not write any new creeds.

Church of the Ascension and St. Agnes, the Episcopal church I'm attending now, regularly runs between an 1.5 and 2 hours for its high mass. I'm very grateful that they don't feel constrained to an hour, as it would make everything feel too short -- there's simply too much content to cut it off like that.

I was raised Evangelical, and there, too, the focus of a Sunday service was the sermon. Hymns are good and fine, Sunday School very important (we even called the older equivalent "Adult Sunday School"), but in the end, what one really came to hear was what Pastor had to say.

This approach has a lot of problems, but I do find that, in general, non-Evangelical sermons/homilies tend to be far less substantial and, therefore, generally less interesting than those sermons I was raised on. I learned a lot of great theology that way.

A professor at our seminary once jokingly said, "Mysticism is a lot of mist and a lot of schism." I thought you might enjoy that...more serious comments to follow.
Charlene

Everyone here probably knows that I'm a particular fan of exegesis -- especially for definition. Mostly this is because a single word only means anything in a context. The way one group uses a word at a certain time may differ greatly from the way another group uses the word later; but generally a single person tends to use words in about the same manner during his entire lifetime, with refinements more than changes. For that reason, it's good to infer from otherwise clear statements what certain words mean. It requires a bit of triangulation, but it is worthwhile.

Everything in this post comment should be interpreted through the knowledge of that bias.

Having said that, I'll say also: I have thought a fair bit about the nature of "Mystery" -- not as much as some other important things, but a bit over the past three or four years. In what follows, I'll rely upon the grace and insight of whomever is reading to understand that a somewhat "clinical" treatment of a word used to refer to something that seems (at first blush) to be anything but clinical isn't an affront in either intent or effect. I hope that will be apparent.

In my own study of it, I have been primarily concerned with the new testament authors because in life, I am primarily concerned with "the mystery of Christ." I choose to understand first what mystery means in terms of the mystery of Christ and the news preached in the New Testament. It seems that Paul and John are the only two who use the word ("ΜΥΣΤΗΡΙΟΝ"), although Peter alludes to the fact that Paul has great insight into things hard to understand.

Rather than build an exegetical case for my definition, I'll just say what it is. Whoever is curious can, of course, feel free to check it out themselves. If you want to ask me about it, please do -- I love to discuss the good and true things =) I'm especially interested in anyone who can give me compelling reason to change my understanding.

Anyway, to get to the point, a "mystery" (translated by some translators as "secret") is "undiscoverable truth." It's a bit of a terse definition, so I'd like to expand it a bit.

First, the truth is not able to be discovered but it is able to be known. This much is clear, since Paul claims to be able to tell others about various mysteries, and that some are known to "us." It turns out that mysteries can never (even in principle!) be discovered by any exploration, but can be known only by revelation. This is an important distinction! It classifies truth not by it's known-ness, but perspectivally. Because of this, a mystery remains a mystery when it becomes known and understood. Further, a mystery is never diminished in either its mysteriousness or import when it has been revealed -- even fully revealed -- to anyone. God is never glorified less by the understanding of a mystery, but always more because the revealed truth becomes a first principle from which to reason (obviously), and testifies to the (1) existence and (2) goodness of God.

Because there is no method for man to know a given mystery, the meaning seems to have blurred to mean "unknownable truths." Notable among this group is "the mystery of the Trinity," which many have insisted is merely beyond human understanding. But a subtle idolotry comes in when this happens: one gives the "Mystery" itself precedence over God. the Mystery of the Trinity is something that no man can possibly discover, but there is no truth unknown to God, and there is no limitation so great that He cannot overcome it. God can reveal any truth to anyone, because all truth is His, and so are we. He has complete authority and power to do as he will in this matter.

Men have sometimes confused the undiscoverability with unknowability. This, itself, stems from a misplaced faith: that human knowledge starts with man. There has also been a second difficulty (historically): when a mystery is proclaimed, it cannot be verified by others except by independent revelation which they cannot invoke, because they do not command God. For this reason, false teachers have come proclaiming untruth in the name of "Mystery." I'm sure that many of them sincerely believed it, and that some of them even received revelations from unclean spirits, mistaking them for God. This latter is most commonly what occurs in false religions. "Mystics" of Islam, Hinduism, the Babylonian religions, etc. have been given many revelations by demons and, since their claims are false they are (obviously) unverifiable. In order to avoid this problem, many Christians have thrown out the baby with the bathwater -- they have fallen into a concession that whoever claims to have an understanding of a mystery must be false -- in order to protect against the chance that it's the case.

The understanding of a given mystery is always a gift from God. It has been given to some to know mysteries and proclaim them -- we call them sometimes "mystics" and sometimes "prophets" (the events of the future, for example, are undiscoverable; but God can, and has, and does reveal it to some as He sees fit). It is a fearful thing to receive a revelation from God -- and the first such revelation any man receives is the revelation of the Mystery of Christ: that Jesus was the son of God, in very nature God, born in flesh, to bring salvation from death, by death, by grace through faith in this very mystery. After this, the God who lives and loves continues to reveal to his children the good and true mysteries. But, as I said, this is a fearful thing. Lacking in wisdom, some have spoken foolishly about what has been revealed to them, and suffered shame for it. Others, also lacking wisdom, have been proud -- as if by their own power the knowledge has come to them -- as if the mystery were merely undiscovered by men, and not undiscoverable. When this happens, men bring the discipline of God upon themselves. Knowledge of a mystery is a fearful thing to have, because it requires much faith. As a rule, one ought not to speak of a mystery if they have not been told to; and one must speak of a mystery if told to. This is only a guide -- wisdom brings finer discernment, but if anyone is uncertain about it, this rule is good to follow.

Finally, I'll point out that there are a good many things about God that are not mysterious. That is, there are some truths about God that can be discovered by man, "for since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." But there are some truths about God that are mysterious. No one can know the persons of God without revelation. None can comprehend the incarnation without revelation. None can gain the knowledge of God that comes through fellowship with Him without his revelation of Himself to them. The mysteries of God are unnumerable and are more profound than what can be known by men. It is the great blessing of God that he should reveal himself to us -- and the delight of every believer to be "a mystic" -- one to whom God reveals Himself and His creation.

With regard to "mystical prayer," it can mean: prayer in which we pray not what we desire to pray, but what is revealed to us as God's prayer for us, through our prayer. Have you ever had the experience of speaking to another person and suddenly being carried along by the spirit in what you say and speaking from the heart of God? This is similar to "mystical prayer." Sometimes, when we pray we open ourselves to God and humble ourselves before him, and we find that it is not that we are praying, exactly, but that, in prayer, we are participating in a motion of the Spirit upon the Earth. Now, it is still our prayer as well, but only in the way that, say, a large wave can be said to be "comprised of" its component waves (remember your wave mechanics?). It is impossible to pick out one from the other -- they have fully become one -- yet it is distinct from either alone. So it is with "mystical prayer" -- it ceases to be possible to say, "this is my prayer to God," but neither is it possible to say, "this is not my prayer." In truth, it is "the mystery [i.e. the undiscoverable truth of the will] of God revealed through your prayer."

The meaning may be altered slightly in particular usages, but this is a solid foundation for a beginning of understanding. I'm not sure if this is what people mean when they say what you are hearing. My experience is that people often don't actually mean anything in particular when they speak of things in abstraction like this ... or at least, are not sure exactly what they mean. Probably some of the people you hear are all hard core about it and know what they mean and mean true and real things, and others (probably the majority?) have heard the phrase, match the notion with some not-yet-well-examined experience (that may or may not be a good fit), and have repeated it, trying to convey something of which they are not quite clear. (This last bit isn't judgement, by the way, just observation. I would prefer that such not be the case, but I have experienced that it seems to be with most similar things.)

hmm. I don't know a lot about mysticism. When I hear it used in a Christian context, I intuitively associate it with contemplation, which jives with the definition you gave in the post. Perhaps that is because mystical prayer would not be about presenting your requests and/or praise to God, but letting God reveal mysteries to you. Thus, silence and solitude also intuitively come into play in my mind's eye.

Though honestly, I don't think I've ever heard someone contemporary refer to their prayer life as "mystical." I also wonder whether the ones we refer to as mystics - like St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa as you mentioned - would use this term in describing their own experience. I have read very little of mystics, and couldn't even name another one off the top of my head, but maybe someone is more familiar and would have a clue? My guess would be no, in which case, I would question why someone nowadays would make it a point to say their prayer life is "mystical" - it seems potentially divisive.