1 Peter 1
22 You obeyed the truth,and your souls were made pure. Now you sincerely love each other. But you must keep on loving with all your heart. 23 Do this because God has given you new birth by his message that lives on forever. 24 The Scriptures say,
“Humans wither like grass,
and their glory fades
like wild flowers.
Grass dries up,
and flowers fall
to the ground.
25 But what the Lord has said
will stand forever.”
Our good news to you is what the Lord has said.
Richard: Here we see the importance of our Daily Study of Scripture. And in this age that is the Eight Sacred Textbooks.
Isaiah 39
39 Merodach Baladan, the son of Baladan, was now king of Babylonia. And when he learned that Hezekiah was well, he sent messengers with letters and a gift for him. 2 Hezekiah welcomed the messengers and showed them all the silver, the gold, the spices, and the fine oils that were in his storehouse. He even showed them where he kept his weapons. Nothing in his palace or in his entire kingdom was kept hidden from them.
3 I asked Hezekiah, “Where did these men come from? What did they want?”
“They came all the way from Babylonia,” Hezekiah answered.
4 “What did you show them?” I asked.
Hezekiah answered, “I showed them everything in my kingdom.”
5 Then I told Hezekiah:
I have a message for you from the Lord All-Powerful. 6 One day everything you and your ancestors have stored up will be taken to Babylonia. The Lord has promised that nothing will be left. 7 Some of your own sons will be taken to Babylonia, where they will be disgraced and made to serve in the king’s palace.
8 Hezekiah thought, “At least our nation will be at peace for a while.” So he told me, “The message you brought from the Lord is good.”
Richard: Wow! This is a very interesting passage. The King was very trusting and vain. But perhaps he should have looked at the long term picture and the fact that the Babylonians, even though friendly now, were not centered on God, but on other nefarious or demonic goals. Much of what passes for discurse today comports with a standard that is not centered on God’s Word. See theRheama above.
Commentary from the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
5. Hear the word of the Lord] Isaiah’s tone is threatening, because he sees in this thing a sin against Jehovah. It was not necessary to specify wherein the offence consisted; king and prophet understood each other perfectly. The reception of an embassy from the sworn enemy of the king of Assyria was in itself an act of rebellion likely to precipitate a conflict which Isaiah strove to avert; and the childish vanity displayed by Hezekiah, his pride in earthly resources, and his readiness to enter into friendly relations with the powers of this world, were tendencies against which Isaiah’s ministry had been a continuous protest. All these tendencies sprang from a single root, the lack of that absolute faith in Jehovah as the all-sufficient guide and protector of the nation which was the fundamental article of Isaiah’s political programme.
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/isaiah/39-5.htm
World Scripture and the Teachings of
Sun Myung Moon
Chapter 3
The Value of Human Life
2. A Human Being Has the Value of the Universe
In heaven and on earth, I alone am the Honored
One.
Ch’ang A-han Ching (Buddhism)
When I look at Thy heavens, the work of Thy
fingers,
the moon and the stars which Thou hast
established;
What is man that Thou art mindful of him,
and the son of man that Thou dost care for
him?
Yet Thou hast made him little less than God,
and dost crown him with glory and honor.
Psalm 8.3-5
Surely We have honored the children of Adam,
and We carry them on land and sea, and We
provide them with good things, and We make
them to excel highly most of those whom We
have created.
Qur’an 17.70
The whole world was created only for the sake
of the righteous man. He weighs as much as the
whole world. The whole world was created only
to be united to him.
Talmud, Shabbat 30b (Judaism)
We prescribed for the Children of Israel that
whoever kills a human being, except to retaliate
for manslaughter or for corruption done in the
land, it shall be as if he had killed all of human-
kind; and whoso saves the life of one, it shall be
as if he had saved the lives of all humankind.
Qur’an 5.32
Only one single man [Adam] was created in
the world, to teach that, if any man has caused
a single soul to perish, Scripture imputes it to
him as though he had caused the whole world to
perish, and if any man saves alive a single soul,
Scripture imputes it to him as though he had
saved the whole world.
Also, man [was created singly] to show the
greatness of the Holy One, Blessed be He, for if
a man strikes many coins from one mold, they
all resemble one another, but the King of Kings,
the Holy One, made each man in the image of
Adam, and yet not one of them resembles his
fellow. Therefore every single person is obligated
to say, “The world was created for my sake.”
Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4.5 (Judaism)
Teachings of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon
An individual human being is more precious than the universe. Each person’s value is infinite, because he or she is created as God’s partner of love. (262:145, July 23, 1994)
One human being, although seemingly an insignificant individual, has the potential to represent all of human history and all relationships with the future. Therefore, he or she has cosmic value. (4:268, August 3, 1958)
What value does God bestow on human beings? God created us to be His partners of love. Therefore, human beings are meant to share God’s absolute, unique value. Yet people are ignorant of this amazing truth. These days, what is a human life worth? Yet, God created men and women as His partners of love, with a precious value that cannot be exchanged even for the whole universe! (142:143, March 8, 1986)
Even God cannot have true love, peace and happiness, or attain His ideal, apart from His object partners. What would be the use of peace or happiness to God if He were alone?… Please understand that each of you is indispensable for completing God’s true love, God’s peace, God’s happiness and God’s ideal. We have been unaware of our value. When you experience your precious, awesome and lofty value, which can bring love, peace, happiness and the ideal even to God, you can praise yourself and feel reverence for yourself. (77:314, April 30, 1975)
When you marry, you want your spouse to be better than you. You hope that your sons and daughters will marry spouses who are better than them. Whose trait does this resemble? It is God’s! Heavenly Father wishes for His partners and objects of love to be better than Him. Can we deny this? Human value is supreme. From the viewpoint of love, it can be even greater than God!
For this reason, your mind desires what is highest. This is not inconceivable. All human beings could have attained this value, had there been no fall. Dwelling in that supreme, heavenly state, they were to manage and lead the universe. (211:272, December 30, 1990)
Every human being possesses a unique individuality. No matter how many billions of people are born on the earth, no two will ever have exactly the same personality. Each person is God’s substantial object partner who manifests a distinctive aspect of God’s dual characteristics. Hence, that person is the only one in the entire universe who can stimulate that distinctive aspect of God’s nature to bring Him joy. Every person who has completed the purpose of creation is thus a unique existence in the cosmos. We can thus affirm the Buddha’s saying, “In heaven and on earth, I alone am the honored one.” (Exposition of the Divine Principle, Christology 1)
Above and below, front and rear, and right and left—everyone is related to me. These relationships are not temporary but life-long. They extend from the beginning of human history, and connect me to my posterity thousands of generations into the future. If I were to be broken, my relationship with God would also be broken. My family would be damaged, as would my clan and the whole world. That is why I am a microcosm, representing heaven and earth.
My heart desires to embrace Heaven, and my body to possess the earth. I want to be enraptured by the heart of the Sovereign Lord. I want to be His representative, who cannot be defeated by anyone or anything in heaven and earth. If I deeply analyze myself in the context of these relationships, I can understand that I am the greatest being, with infinite value. (8:10-11, October 25, 1959)
The question, however, is whether we are in a condition to receive the value that God intends to give. If we were beautiful both internally and externally, we would illuminate heaven and earth like a diamond or a brilliant gem. (352:25-26, September 16, 2001)