1 Timothy 1:3–4

I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those whose teaching is contrary to the truth. Don’t let them waste their time in endless discussion of myths and spiritual pedigrees. These things only lead to meaningless speculations, which don’t help people live a life of faith in God. 

God is within you

Follow your heart

What is true for one is not true for all

One-ism: (All is One) Everything is an uncreated accident

Two-ism: (All is Two) Everything is created by a Creator

Creator or something created

Romans 1:25

They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself. . 

I am not in charge.

I am accountable to this Creator.

I am responsible for my actions and its impact on my relationship with the Creator.

Heavens and Earth

Light and Dark

Land and Sea

Male and Female

Distinctions flow out of the Creator’s being who created distinctions for a purpose.

One-ism: (All is One) Everything is an uncreated accident

Two-ism: (All is Two) Everything is created by a Creator

Distinctions are part of our Creator

1 Corinthians 6:19–20

Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

A society without distinctions is a society in chaos.

The secret to the holy family is the earthly family. To make the former disappear, the latter must be destroyed in theory and in practice.

Epicureans--goal of life was to achieve pleasure through inner peace.

Stoics said the goal of life is to elevate the power we have within ourselves, by denying the power of anything external. 

“All you have to do is be attentive to the power inside you and worship it sincerely.”

-- Marcus Aurelius

Acts 17:24-28

“He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs.

He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.

“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist.

Jeremiah 10:23

I know, O Lord, that the way of human beings is not in their control, that mortals as they walk cannot direct their steps.

Acts 17:30-31

“God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him. For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.”

John 15:19

The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. 

Sin—missing the mark.

Suffering—many people deny God because of suffering in the world.

“If you are stressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

-- Marcus Aurelius

Salvation—If God is within me, if we find ourselves coming to a point of needing help, needing to be saved, the only option I have is to look within myself, improve myself and I can tell you, that doesn’t work!