"Understanding" -2

I hope that I did not through water on the coals of your giving; did I? But our attitude of giving, even giving of our tithes, is to be an attitude of praise; it should be given because God is good, not to ask Him to be good towards us. In Psalm 103, David's expression is of God's Love, and the praise that He is giving is that of thankfulness; which he expresses wonderfully within those two opening verses. Then David goes on to list all of God's benefits that are not to be forgotten, and in the next seventeen verses he listed them; finishing up with three verses of exhortation to all, that the Lord is to be blessed. This is not for blessing the Lord to receive His benefits, it's all about blessing the Lord because of His Great Love! Giving to God; praising God; serving God; or even serving our brothers and sisters, is not about doing these things to be blessed, it is about doing these things because we are blessed. In 1 Corinthians 14:20, Paul leaves off speaking about how he would rather speak five words of understanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue, to speak about something which is in context, yet is also very much a root of all that might cause us to lack understanding in the Lord. He writes: "Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men". If you dive into this passage and look at the words which Paul has chosen, you will find some very interesting teaching about living victoriously over sin. It is not that we lack the ability to be victorious over those sins that bind us, but rather, we lack the understanding to get it right! For example: in the word 'children' we find a word that means to be child like, or a babe; but within this context of what Paul is writing, and in the second use of the word, it means to be ignorant of evil. To see better what I am trying to say, let's look at the word 'understanding', which is the word 'phren', meaning literally the diaphragm, that which curbs or restrains; and figuratively, the supposed seat of all mental and emotional activity. Throughout the New Testament it metonymically means the mind, intellect, disposition, feelings; only in 1 Corinthians 14:20 is it translated as 'understanding'. This 'diaphragm' was regarded as the the seat of intellectual and spiritual activity; which determined the strength of the breath and hence also the human spirit and emotions. It precisely refers to the ability not only to think, but also to control one's thoughts and attitudes. It is the heart as the seat of passions as well as the mind as the seat of mental faculties. Therefore, what Paul is saying has to do with not being a child like person when it comes to understanding who we are in Christ; you can be child like when it comes to sin, whereas you stumble into it, and are not fixated upon it; but in understanding we must be 'teleios'. Yes, that's right; the word 'men' in Paul's writing is the word 'teleios', which means finished; or in this instance, it means knowing the truth...