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Lecture: Biblical Series IX: The Call to Abraham

Jordan B Peterson
8.73M subscribers
1.7M views 7 years ago
Watch Exodus available exclusively on DailyWire+: https://bit.ly/3UgQLe6 In this lecture, I tell the story of Abraham, who heeds the call of God to leave what was familiar behind and to journey into unknown lands. The man portrayed in the Bible as the father of nations moves forward into the world. He encounters the worst of nature (famine), society (the tyranny of Egypt) and the envy of the powerful, who desire his wife. There is nothing easy about Abraham's life. Instead, he is portrayed both as a real man, with serious problems, and a hero, who overcomes tremendous obstacles to establish himself in the world. His covenant with God is an Ark. His decision to aim at the highest good he can conceptualize places an aura of magic around the events of his life, despite their harshness. He's a model for life in the world as it is, not as we wish it would be. Producer Credit and thanks to the following $200/month Patreon supporters. Without such s …...more
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Christ Compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a Mustard Seed

13:35

Abraham Sarah and Lot

27:52

Stage Setting

29:05

And They'Re Afraid of Power and so They Destroy Authority and Competence and that's a Terrible Thing because We Need Authority and Competence What Else Is Going to What Else Is Going To Allow Us To Prevail in the Long Run and So You Get Away from Your Country and You Get Away from Your Kin and from Your Father's House Right and You Go Out There and You Establish Yourself in the World It's a Call to Adventure That's What this the First Lines in the Abrahamic

36:11

And So the Idea that What Moves You Away from Your Country and Your Father's House and the Comforts of Your Child at Home Is It's Something That's beyond You and that You Listen to and Hearken to that's Exactly Right and You Can Say Well I Don't Want To Call that God It's like Doesn't Matter What You Call It Exactly It Doesn't Matter to What It Is What It's Called It Still Is and if You Don't Listen to It That's the Other Thing if You Don't Listen to It and I'Ve Been a Clinician and Talked to Enough People Now As Old as I Am To Know this Absolutely if You Do Not Listen to that Thing That Beckons You Forward You Will Pay for It like You CanNot Possibly Imagine You'Ll Have Everything That's Terrible about Life in Your Life and Nothing about It That's Good and Worse

39:10

And if You Don't Have that Then You Have no You Have Nothing but Threat and a Negative Emotion You Have no Positive Emotion because the Positive Emotion Is Generated in the Conception of the Better Future and Then the Evidence that You Generate Yourself that You'Re Moving towards It That's Where the Positive and Fulfilling Meaning of Life Comes so You Want To Set Up the Structure Properly It's Very Very Important and So What It Means Is that You Want To Be Going Somewhere that's Good Enough so that the Going Is Worth the While and You Can Ask Yourself that and that's Partly What We Tried To Build into the Future Authoring Program Which Is Well We Know What's Wrong with Life It's Rife with Suffering

42:07

And if You Ask Yourself that that's to Knocking and the Door Will Open that's What that Means if You Ask Yourself that Then You Will Find an Answer and You'Ll Think You'Ll Shrink Away from It You'Ll Think Well There's no Way I Could Do that It's like Well You Don't Know What You Could Do You Don't Know What's Possible and You'Re Not As Much as You Could Be and So God Only Knows What You Could What You Could Do and Have and Give if You Sacrificed Everything to It and that's the Reason That Abraham Is Constantly Making Sacrifices and It's Archaic Right He's Burning Up like Baby Lambs but like Well They'Re Alive You Know that's Something and and They'Re Valuable

42:59

And if It You Want It To Be a Place That You Can Live Properly Then You Have To Plan the Future That Is Perfect and Then I Think Well What Does that Mean and It Means It's Good for You Right and One of the Things That I'M I Do All the Time with My Clinical and Consulting Clients Is Trying To Figure Out What Would Be Good for Them but We Do More than that We Try To Think Okay Well What How Can We Set this Up so It's Really Good for You and that All the Side Consequences of that Are Things That Are Good for Other People

45:29

For You To Have What You Need and To Do It in a Way That's of Benefit to Other People There's no Downside to that and So It's Okay It's Okay if You Reach Out and Take that and One of the Things That's Interesting about the Biblical Stories Abrahamic Stories As Well Is that God Doesn't Really Seem To Be Opposed to the Success of the People that He's Chosen You Know What Happens to Them Is that They Progress through Their Journey as They They Get Larger Flocks and They They Get More Authority

46:18

But Again It Seems to Me that that's Very Good News and that You Also Don't Have To Be Perfect in Order for To Have that Happen and Then the Other Thing this Is the Issue about Going into the Unknown It's like Well if You Leave Your Country and Your Kin and Your Father's House and You Go Out into a Land That Your Intuition Guides You to You'Re Going To Undergo these Radical Transformations this Is the Sacrificial Transformation Too because You'Re You'Re Moving Forthrightly and Voluntarily into Chaos Right and that's the Same as the Dragon Fight That's the Hero Story

47:20

And What Will Happen There Is that You Will Transform Yourself and So the Call to an Ideal Is Also the Call to a Sequence of Deaths and Rebirths That Move You Closer and Closer to the Ideal and that's What that's What God Is Calling Abraham To Do in the First Sentence of this Story You See these Things Echoed in the Strangest Places and so these Are Stills That I Took from Pinocchio and this Little Cricket so He's the Still Small Voice Right that's the Thing That Calls to You It's Your Conscious Conscience and Part It's Your Intuition in Part and It's the Thing That Opens Up the Great Book of the World the Great Sacred Book of the World

47:52

And this Little Cricket so He's the Still Small Voice Right that's the Thing That Calls to You It's Your Conscious Conscience and Part It's Your Intuition in Part and It's the Thing That Opens Up the Great Book of the World the Great Sacred Book of the World and that's What Happens Here Right and the Animators Are at Pains To Show You that It's a Leather-Bound Book with Gilt Lettering It's a Valuable Book and It's Something That's Quiet that's Showing It to You Right You Have To Meditate

48:27

Let's Say You Have To Be Somewhere Where the World Isn't Drowning You Out in Order To Understand How To Open this To Listen to that Voice That Tells You Where You Should Go with What You Should Do Next and Then What Happens Is that Something Beckons to You in the Night It's a Star Right It's Something That Transcends the Horizon It's It's Glitters

48:53

And Then What Happens Is that Something Beckons to You in the Night It's a Star Right It's Something That Transcends the Horizon It's It's Glitters It's Brilliant It's It's Not Day to Day It's Something That's beyond You It's Something That Represents a Transcendent Ideal and that Makes It Manifest to You if You'Re Quiet Enough To Listen and that's What You Wish upon So Strangely Right and People Do that They Wish upon a Star They Teach Their Children that and They Don't Know Why Well What Do You Mean You Wish upon a Star What the World Does that Mean It Means You Lift Your Eyes to the Heavens

49:04

Moment You Inhabit that Divine Place and You Have some Sense of What Your Life Could Be like if You Organized It from the Smallest Element to the Largest Element and that's a Place That You Can Inhabit if Not Forever in a Manner That At Least Felt like Forever Well because of Gepetto's Decisioned the Transcendent Manifests Itself It Takes the Form of the Blue Fairy Here That's the Positive Element of Nature Right so We Could Say Well Nature It's Not So Clear that She's on Your Side Right She's the Red Queen and Alice in Wonderland Who Runs around Screaming

53:16

And Who Says in My Kingdom You Have To Run As Fast as You Can Just To Stay in the Same Place That's Mother Nature but Then We Might Say Well How Do We Know that Mother Nature's Attitude towards You Isn't Negative because Your Attitude towards Things Isn't Proper and that's What this Film Attempts To Indicate the Idea Is that if You Aim Properly Then Nature Aligns Itself behind You Now It Also Arrays Itself in Front of You Perhaps Even as an Antagonist but the Power That It It It Provides You with from within Might Be Sufficient To Overcome It from without and I Think that I Think that the Clinical Evidence Is Clear about that

54:04

So There Might Be Enough of Nature within Us To Help Us Withstand the Nature That's Outside of Us and It Depends At Least to some Degree and How It Is that We Orient Ourselves in the World to some into some Unknowable Degree Now Geppetto Wants an Autonomous Individual as a Son and that's Also Something That Makes Him a Great Person because Autonomous Individuals Have Their Own Will and if You'Re a Tyrant It's the Last Thing That You'Re Going To Want and if You'Re the Tyrant Who's Jealous of His Son It's Even More So the Last Thing You'Re Ever Going To Want and So To Aim High and To Want the Development of the Autonomous Individual Are the Same Thing and I Would Say that's the Core Story in some Sense of Western

55:09

Substructure from the Scientific Perspective There's Only Two Determining Forces with Regards to the Destiny of the Individual There's Nature Deterministic and Culture Deterministic and Then Scholars Wrangle about Which of those Is the Greater Force but in Mythological Stories There's Always a Third Element and that Third Element Is Something like Autonomous Consciousness and There's no Place for Autonomous Consciousness in the Deterministic Story of Nature and Culture but We all Act as if Autonomous Consciousness Is the Primary Reality and the Biblical Stories Are Predicated on the Idea that Autonomous Consciousness Is What Gives Rise to the World

56:17

To Move Forward and To Transform It into Something To Transform Himself into Something That Can Be Properly Considered Described as a True Son of God and that's the Rite Aid and It Works like this As Far as I Can Tell You Know When I Talk to People about Doing the Future Authoring Program They Often Put It Off and It's Not Surprising because It's Hard and and Be It but It's More than that They Think Well I Don't Know How To Write I'M Going To Do a Bad Job I Don't Really Like Assignments I'M Going To Have To Do It Perfectly I Need To Wait till I Have Enough Time and like One of those Is Enough To Stop You Cold and all Five of Them You'Re Just Done and So I Tell People Do It Haphazardly a Tiny Bit at a Time and Badly

57:32

That's One of the Things I Learned from Young It Was Just It's So Unlikely You Never Think that It's So Amazing that that My Be the Case but the the the Satirical in the Iran Akande and the Troublemaker that the Comedian the Fool the Fool Is the Precursor to the Savior Why because You'Re a Fool When You Start Something New and So if You'Re Not Willing To Be a Fool Then You'Ll Never Start Anything New and if You Never Start Anything New Then You Won't Develop and So the Willingness To Be a Fool Is the Precursor to Transformation and that's the Same as Humility and So if You'Re Going To Write Your Destiny

59:21

So You Don't Know Where the Light Is It's Dimly Apprehended Only and You'Re Afraid To Follow It but You Decide To Take some Stumbling Steps towards It and as You Take Stumbling Steps towards It You Become Illuminated and Enlightened and Informed because of the Nature of Your Experience because You'Re Pushing Yourself beyond Where You Are and You'Re Going into the Country That You Have Not Yet Been in and You Learn Something and So What Happens Then Is the Star Moves You Move 10 Feet towards It You Think no That's Not Right I Didn't Get It Right It Isn't There It's Actually There and So Then You You See It Somewhere Else and You Shift Yourself Slightly

1:01:30

Because You'Re Pushing Yourself beyond Where You Are and You'Re Going into the Country That You Have Not Yet Been in and You Learn Something and So What Happens Then Is the Star Moves You Move 10 Feet towards It You Think no That's Not Right I Didn't Get It Right It Isn't There It's Actually There and So Then You You See It Somewhere Else and You Shift Yourself Slightly and You Move Forward and that's What Happens Is that You Continue as You Change the Thing That Guides You Forward Moves

1:01:46

You Move 10 Feet towards It You Think no That's Not Right I Didn't Get It Right It Isn't There It's Actually There and So Then You You See It Somewhere Else and You Shift Yourself Slightly and You Move Forward and that's What Happens Is that You Continue as You Change the Thing That Guides You Forward Moves Right It's like God in the in the in the Desert in Egypt the Pillar of Light That You'Re Following It's Moving It's Not a Permanent Thing You Move towards It It Moves Away It Guides You Forward and So You Say Well Is What I'M Aiming at Paradise Itself and the Answer to that Is No because What Do You Know You You Couldn't See Paradise if It Was Right in Front of You but You Might Get a Glimmer of It

1:01:55

I Hit a Wall My God and Then I Had To Die a Little Bit and I Barely Got Back up It's a Phoenix Transformation at each at each Turn and It's Painful but the Thing Is Is that Even though You'Ve You'Ve Traveled 20 Miles Let's Say on that Road and You'Ve Only Moved 3 Miles Forward You'Ve Moved Three Miles Forward Instead of Falling Backwards because that's the Thing Too Is that if You Stand Still You Fall Backwards You CanNot Stand Still because the World Moves Away from You if You Stand Still and There's no Stasis

1:03:03

Because that's the Thing Too Is that if You Stand Still You Fall Backwards You CanNot Stand Still because the World Moves Away from You if You Stand Still and There's no Stasis There's Only Backwards and So if You'Re Not Moving Backward Back Forwards Then You'Re Moving Backwards and that's More More of the Underlying Truth of the Matthieu Principle to those Who Have Everything More Will Be Given from those Who Have Nothing Everything We'Ll Be Taken

1:03:24

And that's More More of the Underlying Truth of the Matthieu Principle to those Who Have Everything More Will Be Given from those Who Have Nothing Everything We'Ll Be Taken It's a Warning Do Not Stay in One Place Well as You Dig and Zag Maybes and Maybe the Cataclysm of each Transformation Starts To Lessen There's Not So Much of You That Has To Die with every Mistake and Maybe You End Up Oriented At Least Reasonably Properly if You Were Sensible That Would Have Been Your Trip but It Wasn't Right It's that and Perhaps It's a Lot Worse than that Perhaps There's no Shortage of Backtracking

1:03:41

If You Were Sensible That Would Have Been Your Trip but It Wasn't Right It's that and Perhaps It's a Lot Worse than that Perhaps There's no Shortage of Backtracking but It Doesn't Matter because as You Stumble Forward You Illuminate and Inform Yourself and Perhaps that's Partly because the World Is Made of Information and if You Encounter It and Tangle with It Then It Informs You and Then You Become Informed and Then Your Information and Then You'Re Ready and So God Says to Abraham I Will Make of Thee a Great Nation

1:04:18

And if You Encounter It and Tangle with It Then It Informs You and Then You Become Informed and Then Your Information and Then You'Re Ready and So God Says to Abraham I Will Make of Thee a Great Nation and I Will Bless Thee and Make Thy Name Great and Thou Shalt Be a Blessing That's that's a Good Offer Fundamentally I Mean It Means What Does It Mean to To Be Made a Great Nation of Well Perhaps It Has Something To Do Directly with Your Descendants

1:04:37

He Said a Man Is Not Only Responsible for Everything He Does but for Everything That Everyone Else Does and You Think Well No No No and Yes Sometimes no Sometimes that's What You Think if You'Re Cataclysmic Cataclysmically Depressed Right Is that Your Sins Are So Egregious that that They'Re Unforgivable and that in some Manner You'Re at You'Re at Fault for Everything That's Terrible with World but There's Actually Truth than that and There's Actually Redemptive Truth in that Is that Things Wouldn't Be So Bad if You Weren't So if You Weren't So Far from What You Could Be and that's Terribly Pessimistic because It's all on You Man but It's Terribly Optimistic because God There's a Lot of Things That You Could Do and if You'Re Crying Out for Something To Do Then that's the Best News You Could Possibly Have It's like Things Aren't So Good but You Know Are You So if You Stop Doing the Things That You Knew To Be Destructive Which Is the Right Place To Start You Know if You'Re Going To Clean Up Your Room What Do You Do First Well You Just Get Rid of the Mess

1:05:38

It's Just It Announces Itself to You and You Can Certainly Know Yourself and this Is a Very Easy Meditative Exercise To Sit Down and Think Okay I'M Doing One Thing Really Stupidly that I Should Stop Doing It's like How Long Is It Going To Take You To Figure Out What that Is It's About Two Seconds Right You'Ve Known It Forever but You Could Even Make It Less Demanding You Could Say There Are some Stupid Things That I'M Doing that I Know Are Stupid and Wrong that I Could Stop Doing that I Would Stop Doing

1:06:52

There Are some Stupid Things That I'M Doing that I Know Are Stupid and Wrong that I Could Stop Doing that I Would Stop Doing and Then You Can Just Start with that and You Can Just Do that and Maybe It's Just a Little Thing although It's Not because It's It's a It's a Step Forward on the Proper Voyage It's Not a Small Thing and You Think Well What Would Happen You Could Say Let's Do this for a Year Even a Month Just Try Not To Do Things You Know To Be Stupid

1:07:13

You Know and So It's Low-Hanging Fruits Man because They'Re Saying that's the Other Thing if There's a Lot of Things Wrong with You Then It's It's Really Easy To Start Fixing It You Know You Got So Much There's So Much Territory That You Can Inhabit I Will Make of Thee a Great Nation I Will Bless Thee That's Good I Mean the Whole Nation Thing That's Positive but To Have God on Your Side That's You Know You Might Want that When Things Get Rough that Would Be Good and Make that Name Great and Now It Shall Be a Blessing Wonderful that's a Good Deal Then I Will Bless Them That Bless Thee That's Good Too and Curse Him That Curseth Thee and in Thee Shall all Families of the Earth Be Blessed

1:08:05

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

1:45:08

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

1:45:17
Lecture: Biblical Series IX: The Call to Abraham
26KLikes
1,704,401Views
2017Aug 1
Watch Exodus available exclusively on DailyWire+: https://bit.ly/3UgQLe6 In this lecture, I tell the story of Abraham, who heeds the call of God to leave what was familiar behind and to journey into unknown lands. The man portrayed in the Bible as the father of nations moves forward into the world. He encounters the worst of nature (famine), society (the tyranny of Egypt) and the envy of the powerful, who desire his wife. There is nothing easy about Abraham's life. Instead, he is portrayed both as a real man, with serious problems, and a hero, who overcomes tremendous obstacles to establish himself in the world. His covenant with God is an Ark. His decision to aim at the highest good he can conceptualize places an aura of magic around the events of his life, despite their harshness. He's a model for life in the world as it is, not as we wish it would be. Producer Credit and thanks to the following $200/month Patreon supporters. Without such support, this series would not have happened: Adam Clarke, Alexander Meckhai’el Beraeros, Andy Baker, Arden C. Armstrong, Badr Amari, BC, Ben Baker, Benjamin Cracknell, Brandon Yates, Chad Grills, Chris Martakis, Christopher Ballew, Craig Morrison, Daljeet Singh, Damian Fink, Dan Gaylinn, Daren Connel, David Johnson, David Tien, Donald Mitchell, Eleftheria Libertatem, Enrico Lejaru, George Diaz, GeorgeB, Holly Lindquist, Ian Trick, James Bradley, James N. Daniel, III, Jan Schanek, Jason R. Ferenc, Jesse Michalak, Joe Cairns, Joel Kurth, John Woolley, Johnny Vinje, Julie Byrne, Keith Jones, Kevin Fallon, Kevin Patrick McSurdy, Kevin Van Eekeren, Kristina Ripka, Louise Parberry, Matt Karamazov, Matt Sattler, Mayor Berkowitz , Michael Thiele, Nathan Claus, Nick Swenson , Patricia Newman, Robb Kelley, Robin Otto, Ryan Kane, Sabish Balan, Salman Alsabah, Scott Carter, Sean C., Sean Magin, Sebastian Thaci, Shiqi Hu, Soheil Daftarian, Srdan Pavlovic, Starting Ideas, Too Analytical, Trey McLemore, William Wilkinson, Yazz Troche, Zachary Vader -- SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL -- Direct Support: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/donate Merchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/jordanbp... -- BOOKS -- 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos: https://jordanbpeterson.com/12-rules-... Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief: https://jordanbpeterson.com/maps-of-m... -- LINKS -- Website: https://jordanbpeterson.com/ 12 Rules for Life Tour: https://jordanbpeterson.com/events/ Blog: https://jordanbpeterson.com/blog/ Podcast: https://jordanbpeterson.com/podcast/ Reading List: https://jordanbpeterson.com/great-books/ Twitter:   / jordanbpeterson   Instagram:   / jordan.b.peterson   Facebook:   / drjordanpeterson   -- PRODUCTS -- Personality Course: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/perso... Self Authoring Suite: https://selfauthoring.com/ Understand Myself personality test: https://understandmyself.com/ Merchandise: https://teespring.com/stores/jordanbp...

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Jordan B Peterson

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