Ich weiß nicht, ob es Sinn macht, wenn ich Beiträge hier poste, die ich in meinem katholischen USA-MailCircle schrieb - hier ein Versuch:

As to St. Paul who said in 1 Kor 15,14: If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty.

By the way: Wernher von Braun the German Rocket-Engineer who from 1945 on worked for the USA and I had portrayed in 1969,
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had said: "The most important message for our planet is: Jesus Christ lived and he is risen.“

Now, the reality of Jesus’ Resurrection which is clear to all Christians, seems folly to Jews and to atheists, but is the very and real existing Spiritual Reality - (geistliche Realität) which St. Paul, who at first as Saul, fought and persecuted Christ - see Acts 9,4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” So he said, “Who are you, Lord?” He replied, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting!
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This of course was a very real experiment the later Paulus had and many witnessed - though mistook the voice as a thunder. Then in Galater 2,20 St. Paul confesses his spiritual reality and togetherness with God WHICH WE ALL CAN EXPERIENCE IF WE REALLY WANT TO, by: I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the flesh, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Since Paul at the time Jesus died on the cross was a disbeliever, we here got the prove, that Christ died for all "gave Himself for me“. Still, he who insists in denying Jesus all in spite, finally is excluded, as Jesus said for many (not for all).

The difference in Paul the believer and Saul the disbeliever is the recognition of the
Spiritual Reality = geistliche Realität. A reality that doesn’t just go to Saints like Paul, but to each one of us, if we give ourselves to this SPIRITUAL REALITY, which indeed is a absolute reality, given to all who open themselves for God.

Now, what's to many of us extremely annoying, and also challenging the wrath of God, is the terribly silly sentence we hear so often: "to believe is not to know!“ The „brutal reality of earth“ is, that the spiritual reality of Jesus’ Divinity can not be proven, as God has set longing for belief and REAL BELIEF before the grace of receiving the gift of belief. As soon as we got this, the spiritual reality is our real reality with much stronger importance and tangibility than any „importance“ of the world. St. John wrote in his first letter 1John 5,4: … because everyone who has been fathered by God conquers the world. This of course not in worldly means, but in divine eternal means, which are of much intenser reality than any earthly reality, and that’s what is the spiritual reality which indeed fills us with that strength John means to conquer 1. us ourselves, 2. our life, 3. „the world“, for then we receive very tangibly the peace of God, Jesus gave us in John 14,27: my peace I give to you; I do not give it to you as the world does. Of course not as the world does and as the world understands „peace“ as the silence of weapons like ceasefire. No, far more so as a spiritual reality, which exceeds all worldly understanding.
As stated here often before; many claim: "BELIEF doesn’t take education“ or even „start thinking - skip belief". Belief takes much more though a huge amount of education of the heart, which is way higher than any intellectual education. In fact belief is the highest education the world owns - if it’s owned. To be able to believe however takes an education far beyond and higher than any worldly education, as it’s 1. divine and 2. eternal understanding. As Paul says in Philippians 4,7: The peace of God surpasses all understanding in Christ Jesus. (Repeated in every Protestant blessing). He who gets this truth in his mind and heart, surely owns a higher education than all the world can provide! And he then owns the spiritual reality that surpasses any worldly reality which is but very transitory in contrary to the eternal reality of God.

Yours
Bruno :-)
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