The Secret Of Life

       The secret of life is that there are no secrets at all. Everything we need to live happy, successful lives is always available to us in every moment. There is no eternal life, nor any past life, that is more important than your life in this moment. Since all other moments are either memory or imagination, that which is eternal exits right now.

Look at the teachings that the Gospel writers attributed to Jesus. Despite the apocalyptic views of John the Baptist, Paul, and the early Christian church, there are major parables of Jesus that do not reflect an apocalyptic view of history, at all. Consider Jesus’ parables of the Samaritan, prodigal son, dinner party, vineyard laborers, shrewd manager, unforgiving slave, corrupt judge, leaven, mustard seed, pearl, and treasure. 

All of these have to do with how to live in God’s kingdom, now. There is no heavenly or hellish eternity, no deceiving or tempting devil, no original sin, nor any need for redemption. These parables are all about how to express unconditional love, now. That is the secret of life.

The only explanation for these teachings being so different from the popular apocalyptic mindset held by many in Jesus’ day, is that this was the message he actually taught. He was different then, and he is still different, even from many Christian churches that claim to follow his teachings. Jesus’ teachings of love, now, were so simple they were not understood by his followers and certainly not by Paul, nor by the members of the churches Paul founded.

The fact that the Gospel writers were compelled to include these contrary teachings in their texts was not unprecedented. The Yahwist strand of written material in the Torah was written about 950 BCE in Jerusalem, the capital city of the Jewish state of Judah. Jerusalem was located in the southern portion of the country. Solomon was king of Judah at the time. The Yahwist materials favored the traditions and institutions of the dominant southern Jewish tribes.

The Elohist strand of material in the Torah was written about a century later, 850 BCE, in the northern Jewish state of Israel, which was created following a civil war in Judah in 920 BCE. The Elohist document included many of the same stories of the Yahwist strands, but editorial changes were made so the new document supported the traditions and institutions of the northern Jewish state, Israel, and actually condemned actions of the southern nation of Judah.

 In 721 BCE the Assyrians conquered Israel and disbursed the northern Jewish population throughout the Assyrian Empire. The remnants of the 10 tribes of Israel simply disappeared from history. Still, the Elohist document survived and found its way south to Judah, where at around 690 BCE it was edited together with the original Yahwist version written in Judah. Instead of editing out conflicting perspectives, however, the editors blended both versions together much as they were originally written, leaving doublet texts in Genesis with which we are all familiar. For example, consider the two different creation stories and the two conflicting stories of Noah. Each had its particular purpose for its intended audience. The same is true for all the other doublets that are found in the Torah.

Jesus was respectful of the Law and the Prophets, but he saw and taught a perspective even higher than the Torah. He taught love, now. His teachings were so strikingly different that his themes and verbal examples were remembered and eventually written down. Just like the Old Testament redactors, the New Testament Gospel writers included Jesus’ teachings of living God’s love now, right in the middle of their own concepts of an apocalyptic universe.

When reading the Bible it is each reader’s responsibility to separate the wheat from the chaff. As you learn more about how and why the documents in the Bible were written, understanding the overall message of the Bible becomes easier. That overall message appears to be that there are no secrets of life, at all, past or present. A final conclusion emerging from Jesus' teachings in the New Testament is, simply, God reigns whenever and wherever love rules.