A Collision of Two Christianities

Zceptre said:

If you are asserting, and I think you are... that everyone is forgiven their sins regardless of their repentance or belief in the Lord Jesus....

Then where is this guy at and why?


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Luke 16:19-31

19“There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. 20But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 21desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 22So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.


24“Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ 25But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. 26And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’


27“Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, 28for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ 29Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ ”
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And I'm not here for anyone to give me an answer really... but for the people that may need to see reality and actual scripture that reveals consequences for choices.

The more people twist scripture, and the simple message being given, the less child-like, and more snake-like the arguments get.



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Matthew 18:1-9
1At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”


2Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, 3and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.


6“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. 7Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!


8“If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. 9And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire.
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Maybe we should let the Lord Jesus speak for Himself what He means.

I've heard the word salad they've used to try to turn this one on its head... but God's children know exactly what God is saying.

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So we are supposed to take the advice of a person in Hades over Jesus' offer of Eternal Life salvation by only through belief in Jesus. Which Abraham points to when he tells the rich man Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’

So the person in Hades thinks it is repentance that will keep a person from Hades. But Abraham shows it is belief in Jesus that keeps a person from Hades.

For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.

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So where is your mutilated body of missing limbs and eyes. Oh i forget you are perfect and sinless, so you do not need to cut off any body parts. Why because you have repented of all your sins.

Repentance of sin and the belief that, that is how a person receives Eternal Life salvation is just a big ole satanic lie. Too bad if you have believed in this lie.

Because Jesus is offering to anyone who will simply believe in Jesus for God's free gift of Eternal Life salvation. This prefect grace gift from God which is The Life of God.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
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For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
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For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
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“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
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He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
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“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
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Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”
Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”
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Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believe in Me has everlasting life.
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Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
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but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

seeking.IAM said:

From the article Inauguration Week Was a Collision of Two Christianities at religionnew.com. Do we have two Christianities? (Posted here for discussion about the theology, not the politics).

"What we are seeing is a tale of two Christianities. It’s why we now have T-shirts that say, “I’m a love your neighbor Christian not a storm the Capitol kind.” There are competing narratives of what the Christian faith is fundamentally about and what our priorities should be as followers of Jesus...​

​

...The word “Christian” means “Christ-like.” If it doesn’t look like Jesus, and it doesn’t sound like Jesus … let’s not call it Christianity. If it’s not about love and mercy … let’s not call it Christianity. If it’s not good news to the poor … let’s not call it Christianity. If it’s not about welcoming the stranger … let’s not call it Christianity. "​

Religionnews.com

Click to expand...

Are there actually even two people in the world who interpret and apply the Bible in identical ways?

d taylor said:

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So we are supposed to take the advice of a person in Hades over Jesus' offer of Eternal Life salvation by only through belief in Jesus. Which Abraham points to when he tells the rich man Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’

So the person in Hades thinks it is repentance that will keep a person from Hades. But Abraham shows it is belief in Jesus that keeps a person from Hades.

For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.

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So where is your mutilated body of missing limbs and eyes. Oh i forget you are perfect and sinless, so you do not need to cut off any body parts. Why because you have repented of all your sins.

Repentance of sin and the belief that, that is how a person receives Eternal Life salvation is just a big ole satanic lie. Too bad if you have believed in this lie.

Because Jesus is offering to anyone who will simply believe in Jesus for God's free gift of Eternal Life salvation. This prefect grace gift from God which is The Life of God.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
-------------------------------------------
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
-------------------------------------------
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
-------------------------------------------
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
-------------------------------------------
He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
-------------------------------------------
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
-------------------------------------------
Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”
Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”
-------------------------------------------
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believe in Me has everlasting life.
-------------------------------------------
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
-------------------------------------------
but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

Click to expand...

Respectfully, I have no idea what you just said. You have posted scriptures that contradict your assertion.

Like I said, for those who take what God says and don't ignore the word repentance it is clear.

He said the word because He requires it. He isn't giving people "options." People can read these passages themselves and God will judge us all according to our own goings.

Lord Jesus did not say everyone was saved. He said few people find life, and most enter destruction. This is a warning to be careful what you believe and who you follow.

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Matthew 7:13-14
13“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
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If you want to live in sin, or convince other people they should live in sin or that they will be saved without believing in the Son of God... you do that.

For everyone who believes God said things because He means those things, "and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

Zceptre said:

Respectfully, I have no idea what you just said. You have posted scriptures that contradict your assertion.

Like I said, for those who take what God says and don't ignore the word repentance it is clear.

He said the word because He requires it. He isn't giving people "options." People can read these passages themselves and God will judge us all according to our own goings.

Lord Jesus did not say everyone was saved. He said few people find life, and most enter destruction. This is a warning to be careful what you believe and who you follow.

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Matthew 7:13-14
13“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
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If you want to live in sin, or convince other people they should live in sin or that they will be saved without believing in the Son of God... you do that.

For everyone who believes God said things because He means those things, "and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

Click to expand...

I do not doubt that, people who believe in a works salvation do not understand God's grace of belief in Jesus.

You show this by the verse you posted about the narrow gate. Which by your writing you believe is not living in sin. But you fail to see that the narrow gate is Jesus and belief in Jesus is the way a person goes through the narrow gate of Jesus to Eternal Life.

seeking.IAM said:

"What we are seeing is a tale of two Christianities. It’s why we now have T-shirts that say, “I’m a love your neighbor Christian not a storm the Capitol kind.”

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Anyone who wears such a T shirt is basically just making a political statement under the auspices of piety, but its really a bit of a neo-Pharisaical display of holier-than-thou attitude, evocative of some of the worst moments of Puritanism.

The correct approach is to reject such a statement and instead confess our sins. Anyone who declares they have sinned less than their neighbor is committing the sin of pride, and even thinking we have sinned less than our neighbor is a dangerous delusion (on the other hand, desiring to sin less than our neighbor makes the ability to exert pride in the future a hypothetical objective; the right approach I think is to presume that one’s neighbor will always be less sinful than oneself is. Otherwise, we predispose ourselves to not love our neighbor at least as much as we love ourselves, since if our neighbor otherwise does anything to offend us at all, whether displaying a political sign for a candidate we disagree with or partying too late into the night one evening, we will be encouraged to hate him.

So the man who wears a T shirt with the words quoted in the article is really declaring “I’m a Christian of the kind who likes to think he is holier than his neighbor while claiming to love him.”

We should hold fast to the warning of St. Silouan the Recluse, that there are two thoughts from which every Christian must flee: the first being that we have already attained holiness, that we are saintly (which wearing such a T shirt is a declaration of, “I sin less than others who claim to profess Christ”, and the second one being that we are beyond the hope of salvation. Because someone, on reading what I have wrote, might erroneously presuppose that I think we should instead wallow in the reality of our sins and assume that there is no possibility that we could be delivered of them, which would be the case except for the important fact that our God became fully human and died on the Cross in order to trample down death by death, so that death would be swallowed up in victory, and we could be delivered through faith in Christ our victorious God and Savior who has rebuked Hell and has made it so through faith in Him the uncreated grace of God the Holy Spirit will wash us of our sins in baptism, and having been born again of water and the spirit, and united to the Church, and partaking of the precious Body and Blood of Christ our True God in the Eucharist, our sins will be remitted, so even an unprofitable servant or the rich young ruler might have hope of salvation, for what is impossible with man is possible with God.

2PhiloVoid said:

Are there actually even two people in the world who interpret and apply the Bible in identical ways?

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There are plenty who try to interpret and apply the Bible in identical ways. And by worshipping together according to the traditional liturgies of the church, we can say, on the basis of lex orandi, lex credendi, that many succeed.

The Liturgist said:

There are plenty who try to interpret and apply the Bible in identical ways. And by worshipping together according to the traditional liturgies of the church, we can say, on the basis of lex orandi, lex credendi, that many succeed.

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That's great if people attempt to do so, but that in no way exposes what they actually think. And I'll venture that no two Christians in the world think in only terms of identical sets of "official systematic hermeneutics." Not that it wouldn't help if there was such a thing.

seeking.IAM said:

From the article Inauguration Week Was a Collision of Two Christianities at religionnew.com. Do we have two Christianities? (Posted here for discussion about the theology, not the politics).

"What we are seeing is a tale of two Christianities. It’s why we now have T-shirts that say, “I’m a love your neighbor Christian not a storm the Capitol kind.” There are competing narratives of what the Christian faith is fundamentally about and what our priorities should be as followers of Jesus...​

​

...The word “Christian” means “Christ-like.” If it doesn’t look like Jesus, and it doesn’t sound like Jesus … let’s not call it Christianity. If it’s not about love and mercy … let’s not call it Christianity. If it’s not good news to the poor … let’s not call it Christianity. If it’s not about welcoming the stranger … let’s not call it Christianity. "​

Religionnews.com

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If I could be like Christ, He wouldn't have need to die for me. I can try my best but I think He would have stormed the Capitol!

Flaming Sword said:

If I could be like Christ, He wouldn't have need to die for me. I can try my best but I think He would have stormed the Capitol!

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His Kingdom is not of this world.

seeking.IAM said:

I meant that as explanation of why I chose to post it in a theology forum not a political one.

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Perhaps true Christianity vs false Christianity ?

Zceptre said:

Maybe we should let the Lord Jesus speak for Himself what He means.

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PERFECT!
(but against the rules of the internet/forum)

2PhiloVoid said:

That's great if people attempt to do so, but that in no way exposes what they actually think.

Click to expand...

If two or more people people pray the same prayers together and honestly try to practice the same faith, any differences due to personal temperament are surely immaterial. Indeed the ancient church, that is to say, the Orthodox, accomodate a diversity of styles of prayer and worship.

The Liturgist said:

If two or more people people pray the same prayers together and honestly try to practice the same faith, any differences due to personal temperament are surely immaterial. Indeed the ancient church, that is to say, the Orthodox, accomodate a diversity of styles of prayer and worship.

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And I'm thankful there are traditions like Orthodoxy who can accommodate some diversity in their prayer and worship.

d taylor said:

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Both of the two type of Christianities are just that, people following a religion. If the person has not believed in Jesus for God's free gift of Eternal Life salvation and become a permanent born again child of God.

And yes a person can follow Jesus and never have believed in Jesus for Life.

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Why would a person follow Jesus and not believe in Him? And does believing in Jesus imply Christlikeness as well-or is only belief necessary?

seeking.IAM said:

From the article Inauguration Week Was a Collision of Two Christianities at religionnew.com. Do we have two Christianities? (Posted here for discussion about the theology, not the politics).

"What we are seeing is a tale of two Christianities. It’s why we now have T-shirts that say, “I’m a love your neighbor Christian not a storm the Capitol kind.” There are competing narratives of what the Christian faith is fundamentally about and what our priorities should be as followers of Jesus...​

​

...The word “Christian” means “Christ-like.” If it doesn’t look like Jesus, and it doesn’t sound like Jesus … let’s not call it Christianity. If it’s not about love and mercy … let’s not call it Christianity. If it’s not good news to the poor … let’s not call it Christianity. If it’s not about welcoming the stranger … let’s not call it Christianity. "​

Religionnews.com

Click to expand...

Could you define the “storm the Capitol kind”? I’m not sure who that would be. There are certainly some on the right who seem to virtually equate one party-line with Christianity, and that can be very deceptive, but just curious as to what is meant here.

d taylor said:

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Jesus also forgave people who did not turn from sin.

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Jesus expects that mercy, that grace, that love, to have an effect, to make a change, in us:
“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matt 6:14-15

"What we are seeing is a tale of two Christianities. It’s why we now have T-shirts that say, “I’m a love your neighbor Christian not a storm the Capitol kind.” There are competing narratives of what the Christian faith is fundamentally about and what our priorities should be as followers of Jesus...

Click to expand...

fhansen said:

Could you define the “storm the Capitol kind”? I’m not sure who that would be. There are certainly some on the right who seem to virtually equate one party-line with Christianity, and that can be very deceptive, but just curious as to what is meant here.

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The "storm the Capitol kind" is the kind that are sworn to do that which Christ the Lord refused to do, which is, to use temporal power to force hypocrisy upon our neighbors of this world. This was the ethos of Constantine, Charlemagne, and many, many others. The Holy One has been taking power from it increasingly in the last five or six hundred years, but it still motivates many whose preachers preach it.

2PhiloVoid said:

Are there actually even two people in the world who interpret and apply the Bible in identical ways?

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Sure there are, in the "weightier matters."

JEBofChristTheLord said:

The "storm the Capitol kind" is the kind that are sworn to do that which Christ the Lord refused to do, which is, to use temporal power to force hypocrisy upon our neighbors of this world. This was the ethos of Constantine, Charlemagne, and many, many others. The Holy One has been taking power from it increasingly in the last five or six hundred years, but it still motivates many whose preachers preach it.

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I'm not sure that most of those Jan 6 people wouldn't have done it with or without attaching it to Christianity.