Social levels:
The man on the level ground helps the other man up from the confining limitations of his pit. Now there are two men to find and help the third. In a room full of candles, one or two lit candles is quite dim. However, as one candle is used to light another, and that one yet another, the light grows by the number of candles in current use. The mind of God abides first in one man, then in two. The numbers increase: God is magnified by every life that allows the God-mind to inhabit and lead. 'Lead where,' you ask? Out of the pit: out of the limiting prison that describes an individual whose every action and reaction only leads him down the dusty trail of demise.
See 1 Peter 3:19, “By which also He went and preached unto the spirits (minds) in prison.”
If, therefore, Christ, having been crucified and placed in hell for three days, did preach to all minds imprisoned since the time of the flood, shall not that same Holy Mind of God shine as effectively in us? If a day is a thousand years to the Lord, and Christ preached for three days to minds in prison of darkness that leads to death, is Christ presently preaching to you the light of life?
After one has been lifted from his former earthliness to stand on level ground, his present course will be set toward social intercourse with other individuals. Some, he will convince to take his hand; others he must grab by the hair and snatch to freedom. On the social levels, men form unions. Some go ‘round and ‘round pulling the imprisoned free from their muddy lives. In doing so, they must deal with the emotional levels, learning to reason in emotional tirades that move the confined.
The social levels are the formation of organs that will become the body. Within the process, bones must develop to support the growing weight. While an individual gives to another, that same individual is in need - and draws from those who are superior. In other words, ministry is never a one-way street.
See Philemon 1:10-13, “I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me: Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels: Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel.”
It takes some doing to get fully past the attraction of the mud. Even when some climb free, they fall back. The social levels are a primary education. Individuals must learn that the pit must always be separate from the level ground. The advancement of this primary education is an extension of emotional rhetoric. Inevitably, formulas are set, codes calcify into laws. The basic theme throughout is, of course, the differentiation between the muddy pit and higher ground.
See Romans 8:7, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”
The unfortunate thing about this primary education is that it develops as an institution whose
foundations are built in the mud. As differentiation is practiced, differentiation takes on a life of its
own. Those who regularly see differences will soon see them sitting in corners and creeping through
shadows. While it serves a limited function, differentiation between two people will grow beyond
control. Consider the good and bad uses a single belief may foreshadow.
Consider Proverbs 11:13, “A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit (mind) concealeth the matter.”
Consider also Proverbs 29:11, “A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.”
When does a fool become a dog? When does a dog become the enemy? When does an enemy become a threat, and deserve to be annihilated? It is all still that same base distinction: ‘self’ and ‘other’. A ‘brother’ is just an ‘other’ with a couple of letters in front. We find, then, that good may be a tool or a weapon.
See Ecclesiastes 10:2, “A wise man's heart (mind) is at his right hand (strength); but a fool's heart (mind)at his left.”
Once pulled from the mud, an individual needs support. You can’t just say, “You’re free! Go and be free.” Everyone struggles with freedom: ‘now that I have it, what do I do with it?’ Support and direction have been markedly lacking. We scrutinize our orthodox formulas, our entrenched dogmas, and we find meager comfort.
See Job 30:26-27, “When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness. My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me.”
If the emotional levels are levels of identification, then the social levels are levels of repetitive practice. Just what gets practiced? Well, for want of anything better, identification is practiced - repeatedly. So far, they’ve only been told to come up out of the mud. They practice the identification of the low estate and assistance to those who seem to be like they used to be. But the nearness to the pit, not to mention the fact that the foundations remain moored in mire, tugs at them. In the end, it is still about the alleviation of sorrow by the application of elation. They are not as elevated as their PR would have them believe. There is still the emotional beast to feed.
See Ezekiel 7:19, “They shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the
stumblingblock of their iniquity.”
The school of the social levels is the church. The teacher is a vague concept at best. The teacher is all, gives all. If we can present enough shiny apples to our teacher, we can come to where the teacher is. Where is the teacher? So far as evidence constrains, the teacher is on level ground and in the church. We never really see or hear the teacher, only the (br)other. While we form suspicions about all our moon-eyed (br)others, our teacher sits buried behind a wall of apples - lonely, desiring a relationship with those who would truly be students.
Having only the moon-eyed to communicate through might seem like a very limiting factor, but the teacher is able to shout loudly. In the muffled messages that the moon-eyed pick up on and propagate, there are hints for the rest of us. As we all sit in class reciting and practicing over and over, the little muscle within our spiritual ear grows ever more keen to the muffled cries that issue from behind the shiny wall.
Listen to the reps in Jeremiah 44:21, “The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them, and came it not into His mind?”
God knows where the repetitions will lead. I use the image of a school because that is where multiple minds develop in a common setting. ABCs and apples. While the reps continue, the apples pile higher. There are so many apples that walls form in the aisles between our seats. Some students are totally encased in such a tightly fitting wall of apples that they seem to wear apple skin. They are like walking talking Golden Delicious apple people. But even so, we all develop together. We still inhabit only the level ground – but God can work with that. The moon-eyed hear a muffled sound. They wave their arms about and proclaim the ambiguity. Upon that ambiguity, they build (with their emotional rhetoric) entire institutions without once approaching clarity.
But some of us are not clothed in apples, we naked ones; we discern the stirrings of an internal voice. It is like ours, only stronger. It is small and sometimes hard to distinguish from our own inner voice. It is calm and quiet, oh, but how inescapable the power of it! We find a union and harmony that neither pit nor level ground suggested. Our first real gain in the social levels is a mental graduation to a higher grade.
Colossians 1:21, “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled.”
And yet, we sit in the same classroom with the apples: they totally encased, we exposed. The social levels are those of intermingling, of growing up together – they are people levels. They are also the ‘get-a-clue’ levels. The successfully obtained and practiced knowledge within these levels will be the beginning (for some) of a trek into the foothills of understanding.
1 Corinthians 14:24-25, “He (the unlearned) is convinced of all, he is judged of all: And thus are the secrets of his heart (by communication of the God-mind) made manifest.”
On the level ground is the church. The apples promote the level ground and the church as goals. The promotion itself has become institutionalized. The level ground, the first level, is a broad plain. Finding a direction, taking a stand, making a commitment is of the character of primary development. One simply must choose.
See Titus 1:15, “Unto the pure (singular) all things are pure (one): but unto them that are defiled (legion: “for we are many”) and unbelieving is nothing pure (absolute); but even their mind and conscience is defiled.”
The social levels are also levels of influence. The apple-skinned have practiced and institutionalized differentiation. They have formed their moon-eyed unions and seek to proselytize every (br)other. The church of the level ground is the Holy goal that they proclaim, for that is where their practice of differentiation has placed advantage and justification. The maintenance of their advantage and justification is the institution they have built, through calcified emotional rhetoric, upon those distant muffled cries they never bothered to investigate or define. And remember, the foundations of their institution are grounded in the pit. It would appear that they are only going in circles. They promote the same old message to the same tired people in the course of maintaining their advantage and justification. Those of us less clad in apples hear the message anew from within.
Hear the inner voice speaking from Jeremiah 4:14 “Wash thine heart (mind) from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved.”
The shouting heard from behind the wall of apples troubles those who wear the wall, for it threatens to shake off their clothing and leave them naked. Elation is no longer an answer to their sorrows, but elevation is, and they reach their heights through institutionalized supplication and humility.
Even when it is a genuine and sincere response, after the manner of the true spirit of supplication and humility, as found in, Lamentations 1:20, “Behold, O Lord; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart (thinking) is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.”, even then, it is only a last-ditch effort to maintain advantage and justification in the face of jarring adversity and fear.
Ultimately, it is inevitable that two opposing camps should form. They are ‘establishment’ and ‘anti-establishment’. Historically, they have manifested in many guises. Sometimes, their separate arguments can share the same source. Establishment, on the one hand, seeks the security of the status quo. Anti-establishment, on the other hand, may use the same source message to indicate new spiritual advances.
Consider the separate uses of Hebrews 13:9, “Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart (mind) be established with grace; not with meats (sacrifices, ceremonies), which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.”
We are aware that the emotions and passions are the forces that drive our lives. Some of us are driven toward something, but of the whole, some is a small percentage. The winds wail; leaves are ripped from trees and sent in all directions. As they fall from the trees along the banks into the river of progress, only a fraction fall into the center where they may advance forward. The majority fall along the banks where the eddies keep them turning in small, confined circles. The passions drive us but passions are of the mind (what we used to call the heart).
See Deuteronomy 18:6, “With all the desire of his mind.”
The mind, then, might represent the chalkboard in our school. On that chalkboard are written the problems we must solve. We are called forward individually to take chalk in hand and write down the solution. Now, at this point, we are not speaking of absolute right and wrong. We are developing: we are learning. Doubtless, we often get the answer wrong, but as we learn and grow, so grows our percentage of correctly answered problems.
The classroom is a mess. It is in a state of chaos. It is a free-for-all classroom where one advances only in accordance with his desires. If you want to learn, you will learn. Many simply think they already know it all, and they speak as if they think they are the teacher but they exist in stasis (or, could I mean that they exist in the status quo?), and the few of us that are placed with our noses in the corner, beneath an ill-fitting dunce cap, are placed there by our (br)others. Doubtless, many more would be in the corner if the teacher was set free. In our present, mixed-up state, all of us have our ‘rights’ and our ‘wrongs’ - and plenty of each.
Our scores are posted on the chalkboard. Some of us know that the teacher is really not trapped
behind the wall. Our teacher is not so far removed; our teacher is inside our minds, where the presence or absence of a wall is critical.
See 2 Corinthians 8:12, “For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that (what) a man hath, and not according to that (what) he hath not.”
Of the walls that may be found inside our minds, let it be known that the broad and fertile plains of the level ground are no more than a beginning. They are not, nor can they be, the end that some people make them out to be. Social levels cannot be a goal in themselves. This is where people develop, where people make decisions, and choose directions. When there is no more room in the classroom for walls of apples, other walls may be built within our thinking. The foundation for such walls is pride, preconceptions, calcified emotions and passions like so many stalactites and stalagmites filling the vast, echoing vaults of the inner man - where God is building His kingdom.
Many people build walls in their minds to match the walls of their actions. That may be the end result of such well-practiced differentiation. Their thinking is action-oriented: that is their nature. They are wall builders. Realistically, there is some of that in all of us. Then again, some of us heed the call to break down those inner walls. That call is our new inner man. We have practiced him on the sly because the Apple-people might view such things as a threat to their advantage and justification.
We secretly break down our secret walls; we listen to the voice of our inner man – and what
a voice! It sounds somewhat like the teacher.
See Psalms 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken (exposed) spirit (mind): a broken (exposed) and a contrite (conscientious) heart (mind), O God, Thou wilt not despise.”
See also Psalms 34:18, “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken (exposed) heart (mind); and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit (a mind open to God).”
Still, these are the social levels. These are the levels of interpersonal intercourse, of positioning, of getting one’s head around, and practicing, knowledge – of learning the difference between the advantages of the higher ground, and the disadvantages of the pit. It must be said, therefore, that the social levels are levels of salvation. That single word characterizes our present dispensation like no other word can.
See our present dispensation in Romans 10:1, “Brethren, my heart's (mind’s) desire and prayer (communication) to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.”
See our present dispensation in Romans 10:10, “For with the heart (mind) man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth (communication) confession is made unto salvation.”
But as I say, these are the social levels, where custom and tradition are binding restrictions of differentiation and allegiance. The actions of people weigh heavily; established ceremonies weigh
heavily; even the enlightenment of some is based in common, stock concepts that place God far away
and treat the mind with an emotional standard while treating the flesh with a standard of subservience to the advantage and justification of the church of the level ground.
Presently, power and influence belong to those leaves trapped in small eddies along the banks and near the roots. At the same time, however, some few leaves do fall further from those foundations that are moored in mire; they reach as far as the currents that can sweep them forward personally. They progress beyond the mere social and emotional merry-go-round of baptism, tithing, and blind obedience to church administrators. The church of the level ground has penned its flock, whereby they gather their wool.
They have settled on the emotional laurels of social interaction.
See Romans 10:9, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart (mind) that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
Even in such restrictive conditions, some individuals have climbed to the foothills of understanding, where no corrals may be found; where they are not regularly sheered, and where the voice of their new shepherd sounds from their inner man. This climb to understanding is not an act that comes without sacrifice. The sorrows of knowledge may no longer be avoided or balmed into nonexistence. They must be clearly and intimately realized. They must be held with ungloved hands.
See the severe new realization in 1 Corinthians 5:5, “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit (mind) may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
Such a realization may yet feel the comfortable tug of the social and emotional standards not far below them. The ointment that once was applied to their fears and sorrows may be found still in the corral of the church. The laurels of custom and tradition are warm and comfortable; they subscribe to the well-being of the corporeal individual. They stipulate that the body must be now, and separate from the spirit, which they hold will come into play after death. They bend all argument back to the status quo. And yet, the same source material that is used to maintain stasis may also be newly interpreted.
See both the old and new in Hebrews 10:22-23, “Let us draw near with a true heart (an authoritative mind) in full assurance of faith, having our hearts (thinking) sprinkled from an evil conscience (a practice of wrong standards), and our bodies washed (infused) with pure water (spirituality). Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for He is faithful that promised).”
How many read into this the exclusivity of body and soul? How many read into this the inclusion of spirit into flesh? The school year is nearly done. In such a chaotic class, many will fail, and may not be allowed to advance. Some few will actually graduate to the next higher level. If they at all think,
speak and act unlike the apple-skinned people, they will be cast out as anathema; they will perhaps
be labeled as oranges. But, that orangeness will not be an outward wall, nor will it be an inner wall.
The difference that makes for orangeness will be a sensitivity to higher communications, an exposure
to the true teacher, a relationship between the inner man and God, a new mind within the present
flesh.
These free sheep will never wander far from their shepherd, for all progress is toward Him. They will seek and find the true path that leads them to pasture. They will climb yet higher and further from the level ground. These milling, seeking sheep are moving out of the social levels and moving upward into aggregate levels. They will read beneath the lines; they will seek brothers and sisters who are infused with the God-mind; they will amass, coalesce, and become the new, spiritual Israel.
See Deuteronomy 10:12, “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart (mind) and with all thy soul (combined spiritual/corporeal identity).”
It is a wonder that we have spent so much time and labor in the low lands of the level ground. We are now aware that much of our former righteousness was actually transgression. When we should have reasoned with God, we, instead, fondled our emotions. When we should have been about the business of opening to the infusion of the God-mind, we wasted time with routine, custom, tradition, ceremony, and the tight, mindless circles of affectation.
See Ezekiel 18:31, “Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit (a new mind).”
Former standards will pass away. Former concepts and interpretations will be undone. The God-mind will expose to our newly opened eyes grand vistas of conception. New and beautiful truths about heaven and earth will dawn upon our tender understanding.
See Isaiah 65:17, “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.”
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