CryingInTheStreets.org

In the modern Western cultures, good and evil are often made into philosophical, abstract ideas.  What does it really mean for something to be good, or for something to be evil?  Should we philosophize at length and come up with our own ideas about good and evil as some intangible abstraction?  This article is designed to clear this up, and show how the subject of good and evil is concrete truth, and not abstract philosophical theory.

When we go back to the ancient Hebrew language to check out the meaning of what we find in the Bible to be translated as “good,” we find something very interesting.  The actual ancient meaning is better translated into English as “functional.”  Let us take a look at the first mentioning of this word as translated in the Revised Mechanical Translation of Genesis put out by the Ancient Hebrew Research Center (http://www.ancient-hebrew.org).

Gen 1:1-4 AHRC-RMT  in the summit Elohiym [Powers] fattened the sky and the land,  (2)  and the land had existed in confusion and was unfilled and darkness was upon the face of the deep sea and the wind of Elohiym [Powers] was much fluttering upon the face of the water,  (3)  and Elohiym [Powers] said, light exist and light existed,  (4)  and Elohiym [Powers] saw the light given that it was functional and Elohiym [Powers] made a separation between the light and the darkness, [emphasis mine]

The light God created was seen to be functional.  Now let us look at the first mention of the Hebrew word often translated as “evil,” from the same translation of the ancient Hebrew.

Gen 2:9 AHRC-RMT  and YHWH [He exists] of Elohiym [Powers] made all of the trees spring up from the ground being a craving to appearance and functional for nourishment and a tree of the life in the midst of the garden and a tree of the discernment of function and dysfunction,
Footnote  – The singular word “tree” may imply a “tree” or “trees.” The context of this and following verses do not specify if there is one tree or a forest of trees. Compare this with 2:16. [emphasis mine]

Dysfunction is defined as, “Impaired or abnormal functioning,” by Merriam-Webster.com.

Let us put this meaning into common life terms we can relate to.  Take Family A and Family B.

Family A has their ups and downs like everyone else, struggles of this fallen life we exist in now, but they have a strong network of loving trust and help each other out through everything, having a strong husband and father with a kind yet strong heart, a wife and mother who is like the glue holding the house together with all of her wonderful qualities of a helper, and children who have been trained/disciplined in the love of God.  As we closely examine this family for weeks, months and years, we document that they are very functional.

Family B also has struggles they go through like other families, but the father tends to try to chase his problems away to the bottom of a bottle of strong drink, only to turn on his own loved ones, becoming an abusive tyrant of the household, feeling constantly out of control and trying to gain control by force and intimidation/fear.  The mother is having a secret affair with another man, and spends most of her time trying to escape her hurtful home life to live it up outside of the home, leaving the children at home with their drunk and abusive father most of the time.  The children have no sense of security or structure growing up and they know more about negative feelings like fear, anger, hatred, and bitterness than they do positive ones.  One of the children has already dissociated badly into multiple personalities to try to cope with the pain of her life.  We note that this family is extremely dysfunctional.

There could be other family scenarios that are either functional or dysfunctional for those involved, but this should be sufficient to help us understand what function and dysfunction are about as they related to our lives in this world.

Before that tree of the discernment of function and dysfunction, man and woman were innocent and only knew proper function.  The serpent introduced them, and thus the world they ruled over, to dysfunction, which has been down here getting spread around like Herpes from that day forward.  Is it any wonder there is now so much dysfunction in relationships, families, churches, government, etc?

Since we have all clearly experienced function and dysfunction in our lives, we can readily understand what good and evil are.  We don’t need some Greek philosopher or Western mindset to paint an abstract picture of “good and evil” for us.  Such has only served to confuse our minds, so that we call good “evil” and evil “good.”

Take for example when someone does something detrimental to their bodily or mental health and they call it “good.”  Or take when certain individuals of society decide they are not interested in the proper function of male and female, but they want to make up their own use of male and female, causing dysfunction that can harm all of society, yet these people call their lifestyles “good.”  They may even want us to support their dysfunction and call it hatred and bigotry if we call it what it is; dysfunction.

Because our Western societies have left behind the concrete understand of good and evil that God gave us revelation of from ancient times, our societies are falling apart, being torn from the inside out by increasing dysfunction.  Families are experiencing the same thing.  There have not been as many families so dysfunctional as there are in modern societies, in recorded history that I’m aware of.  Just look at the statistics for divorce, adultery, rape, molestation, spouse and child abuse, and even parents killing their children or children killing their parents.  Our prisons are busting at the seems with criminals as this society increases in dysfunction.

This is serious!  We must put aside the foolish ideas about good and evil Greco/Roman Western World culture has come up with, and understand the truth about these issues.  God wants full and proper function for us, in his bliss (Psalm 16:11), and proved it through the work of Christ, which is clearly documented in world history and is not some myth as the proponent of dysfunction would have us believe!

There are many influences, forces, and spirits in the world we could be swayed by.  Beware of those not bringing us heavenly functionality through the Door called Christ!  For those of you who are not believing in Christ, and find fault with “Christians,” don’t be deceived.  Ghandi also had such a perception and said that he likes our Christ but not our Christians.  Just because people stand in a garage and call themselves cars does not make it so.  Don’t look to dysfunctional Christians, look to the functional Christ as the Way to heavenly function and bliss, the Way of reconciliation for our species back to the function in Eden that we lost, and the functional dominion we were given to have over this Earth.  Christ = function.  Adversary (aka “the evil one”) = dysfunction.  Which side do you choose this day?

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