Neo-Platonism in general was
defined as the new concept or the new approach of the Greek antiquity belief of
Platonism itself. The original Platonism has the concept of having two
different worlds which are the upper perfect or ideal world and the lower
shadow or dark world which is our current position. Platonism concept teaches
that we should strife our best to be able to live in the upper ideal or perfect
world rather than living in the lower shadow or dark world. The only way to go
up from the lower level of world to the upper level of world is though a stair
which is philosophy. Similarly, Neo-Platonism concept beliefs the similar idea
that human being should be able to focus and meditate in the spiritual aspect
of their life while they must remain undistracted by the worldly matters.
Moreover, they belief that the way they can achieve this state or what they
consider as the "bridge" is by having faith in Jesus and following all
His teaching; however, ironically, one of the teaching of Jesus is to seek the kingdom of God in the world.
This concept becomes a dilemma to the Neo-Platonism belief; whether they should
fight and become stuck in the world, or whether they should focus their eyes on
heaven only. The Christians on the other hand, belief that the way they bring
the kingdom of God to the world is through bringing grace and blessings to the
world.
In the modern world today, the
main problem is that people did not understand about ministering grace and
blessings through their life. People were not able to fulfill their calling of
seeking the Kingdom of God in this earth because they did not minister grace
and blessings to the world through their life or work; furthermore, they were
being absorbed by the darkness of the world and becoming part of the world
themselves. One of the examples is the corruptors who minister neither blessing
nor grace to their nation, but rather causing the loss to their nation.
Consequently, people were not blessed in their life such that their life will
be much more difficult and challenging for them.
People should be able to
understand that they are called to seek the Kingdom of God in this world; the
way we could seek the Kingdom of God in the world is through ministering grace
and blessings through our life. There are many clear ways for us to actually
minister blessings to the world. One of the examples of ministering blessings
to the world is how Steve Jobs and many other inventors invent new innovations that
could bring convenience to the world; nevertheless, bringing blessings to the
world does not necessarily means that we should make a big impact to the world,
but also by simply blessing other people we may already know. Secondly, one of
the ways to minister grace in our life is to show other that we care for them.
One of the easy examples could be helping our friends that have difficulties in
class.
As a personal application, my
personal field of interest is in the area of computers. Through my understanding
in computer, there are any ways I can minister blessings and grace to others,
especially those in my community. One of the ways I could minister blessings
through my computer skill is to create programs that could be very useful for
other people. Then, one of the ways I could minster grace trough my computer
skill is to help other people who experience problems with their computers,
especially by solving the technical problems.
As a conclusion, we as a
Christians were called to seek the Kingdom of God that we may receive the
blessings of God. On other words, we could also say that we are called to bring
the Kingdom of God to the world. The way to fulfill this calling is to minister
blessings and grace to the world through our life. In the modern world today,
people did not bring blessings or grace to the world, but rather being consumed
by the world bringing negative impact to the world itself. To minister
blessings and grace to the world does not necessarily mean that we should
directly make a huge impact to the world, but it is also enough for us to be
able to minister the blessings and grace to the people we're familiar with in
our community. When we are able to do our calling of bringing the Kingdom of
God to the world, we will see that God will bless us throughout our life.