You asserted earlier though that we cannot tell when someone is not acting out of love. This is not true. The verses above state quite overtly that you can judge based on obedience. 'You are my friend if you do as I have said."
Sometimes we can't tell the intentions behind a person's actions. And in these situations leave judgement to god.
Yes, obediance to loving thy neighbor. good job.
This is clarified many times over. Jesus does not condemn the law. He fulfills it. His coming did not make the law evil. Rather, the law gave us understanding to know why Jesus came, and why He will come again.
Yes, and he also sums the law up, reclarifies it and tells you in what light to evaluate it - that measurement being love.
I see no support for your assertion that we cannot know someone is acting within God's will or not. We are told to judge by the fruit. We are told to exclude people from the church until and unless they repent. We are told exactly the sorts of things they need to repent from.
Well if god's will is to act out of love towards each other - then in some situations you would need to read a person's mind to infer if their intentions were loving or unloving. So considering that humans aren't mind readers the proof is selfevident.
Judging the fruit is fine and dandy when it's obvious it's good or bad.
I'll wager in at least some situations we differ as to what is good and bad fruit.
Jesus knew that a silly laundry list of dos and do nots would lead people astray so he simplified it.
Your argument is that love takes precedence, but when questioned in detail, you have had to admit that correcting a sinner is an act of love, since that is more or less what you feel you are doing too.
Absolutely, encourage people to act out of love (correcting the sinner) is a loving act.
Now you'd need to explain to me why you pass judgment. Since you do the same thing when you confront me or Brightmorningstar as we do when we confront you, and also refuse to acknowledge other scriptures which clarify some of the more complex issues we are faced with as a church body, I am unclear as to what exactly you feel you are achieving.
lol, achieving? With you guys, nothing... for the peanut gallery maybe something. And that possibility of something is enough.
You are simultaneously violating the tenets of your own argument and refusing to acknowledge the importance of many, many additional scriptures that touch on the subject.
In my opinion you are being purposely obtuse.
Why talk about other scripture when Jesus clearly and simply states how to act in his accordance with his will? You can read all the other scripture you choose but anything that runs contrary to acting out of love is false or being viewed in a way Jesus didn't intend.
