1 Corinthians 9:20 · World English Bible
1 Corinthians 9:20 Meaning To the Jews I Became
To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain those who are under the law;
What does 1 Corinthians 9:20 mean?
To become a Jew is to camp inwardly at the right side, the right hemisphere, the seat of Christ consciousness, and to take on its circumcision, the cutting away of outer desire. That is the inward gain, the higher faculty met by shearing off the lower cravings.
From the Esoteric reading below.
1 Corinthians 9:20 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Esoteric
ESOTERIC
Esoteric
To become a Jew is to camp inwardly at the right side, the right hemisphere, the seat of Christ consciousness, and to take on its circumcision, the cutting away of outer desire. That is the inward gain, the higher faculty met by shearing off the lower cravings. Becoming as under the law is the other meeting: entering the outward keeping on its own ground, the tribal tradition of Moses and Ezra with all its measured observance.
What happens in a person is this double approach, going inward to the right side to cut away desire, and standing inside the outer tradition only long enough to win the ones bound there and carry them past it.
Right hemisphere: the right side of the brain, the seat of Christ consciousness one camps at inwardly Circumcision: the cutting away of outer, lower desire
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Live 1 Corinthians 9:20 today
- Spend a little time today cutting one habit of wanting, something small you reach for out of appetite, and keep it to yourself. Inner work does not need an audience.
- In your next conversation with someone whose world you find rigid, talk in their terms instead of correcting them. You will reach them from inside their language and nowhere else.
- When you are in a meeting with rules you think are pointless, follow them without complaint while keeping your real attention on the person you are trying to actually help. Going along with the form is not the same as believing it is the point.
Where could I meet someone inside their world instead of asking them to come out to mine?
The same truth in other traditions
Zhuangzi
The skilled person meets each situation on its own terms, bending like water around the shape of the vessel while staying water. Fitting in is not the same as being dissolved.
Buddhism · skillful means
A good teacher speaks in the language the listener already has, meeting them inside their own world in order to walk them out of it. The form changes; the aim does not.
Sufism
The teachers lived inside the ordinary customs of their town while their inner work went on quietly underneath. Outward conformity, inward freedom.
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