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The law, the commandments, and Christians.

fhansen

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None as much as the apocrypha which is the topic of discussion.
Ok, so you've determined the quantity of controvery that's allowable in this particualrlar case?
But their apocrypha was not the same as the one in the west. It is true that the doctrinal issues during the reformation pertained to the west not the east since the reformation was against the CC.
True, the east actually included even more books in their canon. As for the differences, the east and west agree on the teachings that the Reformers objected to.
 
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Hentenza

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Ok, so you've determined the quantity of controvery that's allowable in this particualrlar case?
The controversy spans centuries.
True, the east actually included even more books in their canon. As for the differences, the east and west agree on the teachings that the Reformers objected to.
The east does not agree with the papacy or its power and neither did the reformers in general.
 
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fhansen

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The controversy spans centuries.
There was a relatively tiny amount of controversy compared to acceptance within the ancient chruches until today. Meanwhile the Reformers had issues with both canons.
The east does not agree with the papacy or its power and neither did the reformers in general.
And that has exactly nothing to do with the doctrinal objections to the apocrypha.
 
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Hentenza

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There was a relatively tiny amount of controversy compared to acceptance within the ancient chruches until today. Meanwhile the Reformers had issues with both canons.
Tiny? It was not tiny.
And that has exactly nothing to do with the doctrinal objections to the apocrypha.
I replied to what you posted regarding the differences between east and west. Your post is below. The power of the papacy, and sometimes the papacy itself, was part of the objections during the reformation.
True, the east actually included even more books in their canon. As for the differences, the east and west agree on the teachings that the Reformers objected to.
 
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fhansen

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Tiny? It was not tiny.
Relative to the consensus as demonstrated by the canon actually used, yes, tiny. You've listed a handful of dissenters, which means nothing much in itself.
I replied to what you posted regarding the differences between east and west. Your post is below. The power of the papacy, and sometimes the papacy itself, was part of the objections during the reformation.
And you know as well as I that the discussion centered on the acrocrypha -and why the Reformers would be motivated to reject it due to theological differences between it and some of their positions.
 
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Hentenza

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Relative to the consensus as demonstrated by the canon actually used, yes, tiny. You've listed a handful of dissenters, which means nothing much in itself.
You really don’t get it. The controversy was large and not just about the CC deuterocanonical books but the other books that were added and then removed as evidenced by the different books between the east and the western churches and between the different proposed books to include in different councils.

I’ve mentioned Jerome, Athanasius and Josephus but there is also Melito, Philo, Origen, Cyril, Rufinus of Aquileia, Hilary of Poitiers, Gregory, Amphilochius of Iconium, Epiphanius, and many more. There was no full consensus on the apocrypha until the CC gained enough power to force their inclusion.
And you know as well as I that the discussion centered on the acrocrypha -and why the Reformers would be motivated to reject it due to theological differences between it and some of their positions.
There are indeed books of the apocrypha that supports CC doctrines like purgatory for example. But the end goal of the reformers regarding the apocrypha was to remove them from the canonical books and relegate them to a different section where the books should not be used to determine matters of doctrine. You see that in the KJV of the times which included the apocrypha but apart from the inspired texts. This would return the apocrypha to where it was before the CC included them along the inspired texts. The reformers, just like the group there I cited above, did not believe that the books of the apocrypha were inspired.
 
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fhansen

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You really don’t get it. The controversy was large and not just about the CC deuterocanonical books but the other books that were added and then removed as evidenced by the different books between the east and the western churches and between the different proposed books to include in different councils.

I’ve mentioned Jerome, Athanasius and Josephus but there is also Melito, Philo, Origen, Cyril, Rufinus of Aquileia, Hilary of Poitiers, Gregory, Amphilochius of Iconium, Epiphanius, and many more. There was no full consensus on the apocrypha until the CC gained enough power to force their inclusion.
You're not getting it. It's a matter of who decides. You? Or the Church? This individual or that? Not even Augustine could make that decision for the Church even though he agreed with the Catholic canon. The Church decided-and ran with- that's its job, whether small and persecuted or big and powerful. There is no controversy.

And you know that the Eastern Churches ended up the same although without as much in the way of formal pronouncements and with very little disagreement over the ensuing centuries, other than including even a few more books. And not all of those people you've cited included every book of the NT that we consider to be canon while including other books that we reject, incidentally. What we really know is what the ancient churches actually did, aside from and despite any surrounding chatter.
There are indeed books of the apocrypha that supports CC doctrines like purgatory for example. But the end goal of the reformers regarding the apocrypha was to remove them from the canonical books and relegate them to a different section where the books should not be used to determine matters of doctrine. You see that in the KJV of the times which included the apocrypha but apart from the inspired texts. This would return the apocrypha to where it was before the CC included them along the inspired texts. The reformers, just like the group there I cited above, did not believe that the books of the apocrypha were inspired.
There was no place where the books were originally relegated. They were contested by some while others, at council as it should be done, decided on the matter-and later councils consistently reconfirmed the same, correct, decision.
 
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DamianWarS

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I’ll give a real-life practical example so we're not just reciting theory here. I knew a man who became Christian in his 20’s or 30’s, grew in faith, along with hope and love as he continued in his walk with God. He had the usual struggles and dry periods, backsliding at times but overall growing nearer and nearer to God over a period of years. Now, much later in life he was very surprised to find himself in love with a woman not his wife. All the thoughts and desires that come with that territory came flooding in and the human mind is quite capable of justifying adultery because it can just plain seem so right and natural. Love, itself, might even seem to compel it.
The value to not commit adultery does not hinge upon the 7th commandment. it's there implicitly from the marriage covenant, which is legally binding. When you set it as the law of your life, the product of which will be not to commit adultery (or at least that's the goal). This is a good product/goal, and I'm not saying these are not good things to keep, but they don't touch upon the deeper heart issues or values where our motivations come from. This root issue with your friend is not whether adultery (or having a second partner, etc...) is moral/immoral. That's the superficial symptom of a much deeper-seated issue. He may blindly keep the 7th commandment and not commit adultery, but this does not critically address the deeper moral compass that tells him to go somewhere else. This is the problem of the 10; they do not critically address the issues, but rather are focused on outward superficial morality that hopes to calibrate inwardly. Christ's approach is flipping this, where we address the inward first, and our outward actions are an outflowing.

I don't think the answer to your friend is holding the 10 commandments at a higher value and doing so would be just a band-aid solution (even if the product is not commiting adultery). What I'm sure we both can agree on is Christ is his answer and is a better moral compass over the 10. He is confused on if the HS is guiding him to immoral actions, and sure we can use the 10 to emphasize universal morals, but when you envoke the 10 he would be right to call out polygamous practices of the OT to consider the morality of more than one partners. You've opened the door to OT morals when you bring up the 10, your friend won't have the same value for your post-biblical rational separating the 10 like this. He will rightly see a tension that polygamous values are compatible with the 10 (as they were when they were presented). And you've introduced this by not critically approaching the issue and just slapping the 10 over it, saying it's the solution, so don't want the finger when he mixes in other OT values that are logically consistent with the 10.

the NT does not value adultery, and there are plenty of areas to draw from to show that this is not NC practice (polygamy is a bit of a different issue but we can keep it simplified). When we isolate the 10 and introduce it like a mic drop, then someone spiritually immature will see this as cause to celebrate any value they see in the OC in like manner that satisfies their thought process. Because you don't critically approach it, they, too, are not critically approaching adultery, and just using cut-and-paste examples to justify their actions (because that's exactly what you're doing with the 10). Christ teaches that we are to love our neighbour as ourselves. This man's wife is his neighbour (in a unique context) that he is intimately involved in a lifelong covenant relationship (marriage). introducing another partner violates this agreement (legally) and no doubt violates his wife desires (this adultery). Does he want his wife to introduce another man, too? If the answer is no, he has the answer for himself of what his action should be. Now the cause to not commit adultery is not because the 7th commandment told him so it's because he knows that if his wife did the same to him it would hurt him, thus the same action to his wife hurts his wife. This alone is an action of love towards each other over love of self (leading to adultery), and Christ tells us it's what he desires, so now it is a spiritual act of worship to love our wife in this way. The 7th commandment doesn't say that, and it's only a superficial goal (The real goal is acting in a way that loves your wife, not just with adultery but in all things) and the 7th doesn't teach us this.

This extends to the 4th too (which is the more critical issue here). The 4th does not address critical action. We are simply prescribed what to do on x days and what not to do on y days without critically identifying its moral value. the justification is to mirror the 7th day, but there is still no critical response just a string of whys that only ends with "because it says so" if we want it to impact us at a core level, then we need to critically deconstruct the 4th commandment (and with it the 7th day to address what it's core contructs and values really are, whether they are about physical value, or spiritual. When we unpack it's core construct and values we can address them as universal over their superficial counterparts that we see in the 10. Just like with adultery, it misses the point to just say do to steal, do not murder, do not commit adultery, etc..... I can figure that out without the 10 (and so can your friend). What but aligns my core heart action? because those thigns are just an outward focus, not an inward core drive. What is my core drive? you friend would be better to focus on that core heart value over parroting the 7th commandment and the 10 do not address this core. But Christ does this without smuggling in the 10 into the NC (or any other values surrounding the 10 like polygamy or salvery)
 
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Hentenza

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You're not getting it. It's a matter of who decides. You? Or the Church? This individual or that? Not even Augustine could make that decision for the Church even though he agreed with the Catholic canon. The Church decided-and ran with- that's its job, whether small and persecuted or big and powerful. There is no controversy.
Here is your bias in full display. We discussed earlier the errancy of man and that man runs the church so is not a matter of “the” church deciding anything but a matter of men deciding things. Men, even those is high positions in the church, are open to the biases that power and self serving decisions bring. Some have a pet doctrines and arguments for or against doctrines that they choose to take. The history of your church perfectly shows how corruption becomes like a cancer and has to be removed. The head of the church is Jesus not some elected official.

The books of scripture and consequently the books of the canon were recognized by the people of all the independent churches from the beginning. The people in the councils merely discovered what had already been decided for them. God made sure of that. So no it’s was not me or your church that decided the books of the canon it was God that made sure that the right books ended in the canon. After all God inspired the books of scripture. This is why the apocrypha has always been surrounded in controversy and why they were never universally accepted.
And you know that the Eastern Churches ended up the same although without as much in the way of formal pronouncements and with very little disagreement over the ensuing centuries, other than including even a few more books. And not all of those people you've cited included every book of the NT that we consider to be canon while including other books that we reject, incidentally. What we really know is what the ancient churches actually did, aside from and despite any surrounding chatter.
I disagree and I posted evidence to that effect. So now is your turn.
There was no place where the books were originally relegated. They were contested by some while others, at council as it should be done, decided on the matter-and later councils consistently reconfirmed the same, correct, decision.
They were relegated to “good to read” but not for deciding matters of doctrine. This is how the people that I cited and the council of Laodicia thought of them.
 
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fhansen

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Here is your bias in full display.
No, it's just wisdom being displayed: coming to understand how God works in His world.
We discussed earlier the errancy of man and that man runs the church so is not a matter of “the” church deciding anything but a matter of men deciding things.
That's certainly not a position I offered. What we discussed was that God ensures that we have a means to know the truth with a degree of certainty DESPITE man's weaknesses, limitations, imperfection and sin. He works in and through the human-populated Church that He established to hold, preserve, and proclaim that truth.
Men, even those is high positions in the church, are open to the biases that power and self serving decisions bring. Some have a pet doctrines and arguments for or against doctrines that they choose to take.
Then you, as well, are prone to error. unless you're exclusively and infallibly immune to such things.
The books of scripture and consequently the books of the canon were recognized by the people of all the independent churches from the beginning. The people in the councils merely discovered what had already been decided for them. God made sure of that. So no it’s was not me or your church that decided the books of the canon it was God that made sure that the right books ended in the canon.
Yes, that the point. While many people disagreed on the correct contents of the NT canon, and Reformers continued to stir that controvery up again centuries later, God's church nonetheless presented the world with a particular canon and then consistently continued to use the same one until this day. The practical and messy and mundane steps of human involvement in this process is essential-and you're just speculating on or imagining how it worked.
After all God inspired the books of scripture.
Yes, God inspired the books of Scripture-and many other books were surrounded in controversy as well, including the antilegomena, but God managed to provide His church with the correct canon nonetheless, just as God used men in Jerusalem to settle a dispute involving legalism in Acts 15 or to work out the doctrine of the Trinity in Nicaea when heretical views arose.
This is why the apocrypha has always been surrounded in controversy and why they were never universally accepted.
So what is that-besides your infallbile dogmatic personal opinion as influenced by a group of men some 5 centuries ago?
I disagree and I posted evidence to that effect. So now is your turn.
You provided no evidence as to the canon that the Church actually USED-only evidence that shows that some people disagreed with the church. What else is new?
They were relegated to “good to read” but not for deciding matters of doctrine. This is how the people that I cited and the council of Laodicia thought of them.
The Council of Laodicea rejected the Book of Revelation and added other books that are rejected by all today. Fortunately by the hand of God the larger church did not recognize nor sanction the decisions made at that local council, as it has done at times when appropriate in the case of some other local councils.
 
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fhansen

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The history of your church perfectly shows how corruption becomes like a cancer and has to be removed.
To this day the church teaches that constant renewal of the Church and continuous conversion of its people, leaders and laity alike, is essential. Vigilance, due to human weakness and sin, is sometimes lacking as it was in the Assembly of God church I used to attend where scandal ended up destroying it. People do bad things. Does that mean that God's "deposit of faith", the teachings He gave us, are necessarily corrupted? Not at all; people just fail to heed those teachings, finding ways to disobey them, following Adam's lead in Eden with or without any claims of theirs to the contrary. The human heart can be quite deceitful, and prideful, and covetous, etc.
 
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fhansen

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Quite a mixture of not so consistent concepts here IMO.
The value to not commit adultery does not hinge upon the 7th commandment. it's there implicitly from the marriage covenant, which is legally binding. When you set it as the law of your life, the product of which will be not to commit adultery (or at least that's the goal).
So we ignore the 7th comandment but still need to be cognizant of another bit of legality, the marriage contract? Either way, nothing was said about setting the commandment as the law of one's life, but of the benefit of simply having awareness of the law even while one might actually be trying to avoid and ignore it, and how it ended up affecting the heart as that law contributed to initiating and informing an internal struggle. IOW, the law still serves its role as a tutor and a "convictor of sin", of showing us our failure to love to put it best- even as it has no power to cause us to comply and obey in the way God desires, by the heart.

The law is nothing more or less than a part of God's revealed will for man, a law that is based on and reflects His love and that is already written in man's heart (the "natural law") but obscured and dimmed and corrupted by the Fall and man's subsequenet alienation from God and His will. Augustine put it this way:
"God wrote on tablets of stone that which man failed to read in his heart."

So life involves struggle, a battle at times, and only with the help of grace, the work of the Spirit and our cooperation with Him, the active presence of God's love in our lives, can we hope to understand, and to overcome. That's what my friend learned, the hard way. We're all here to learn that we cannot, and were never meant to, do it on our own. All of God's revelation plays its part, including the law even as it's true role is clarified and explained by and within the new covenant. It's all part of initiating and nurturing and cultivating the love in us that obeys and fulfills the law by its nature.
 
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Hentenza

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No, it's just wisdom being displayed: coming to understand how God works in His world.

That's certainly not a position I offered. What we discussed was that God ensures that we have a means to know the truth with a degree of certainty DESPITE man's weaknesses, limitations, imperfection and sin. He works in and through the human-populated Church that He established to hold, preserve, and proclaim that truth.

Then you, as well, are prone to error. unless you're exclusively and infallibly immune to such things.

Yes, that the point. While many people disagreed on the correct contents of the NT canon, and Reformers continued to stir that controvery up again centuries later, God's church nonetheless presented the world with a particular canon and then consistently continued to use the same one until this day. The practical and messy and mundane steps of human involvement in this process is essential-and you're just speculating on or imagining how it worked.

Yes, God inspired the books of Scripture-and many other books were surrounded in controversy as well, including the antilegomena, but God managed to provide His church with the correct canon nonetheless, just as God used men in Jerusalem to settle a dispute involving legalism in Acts 15 or to work out the doctrine of the Trinity in Nicaea when heretical views arose.

So what is that-besides your infallbile dogmatic personal opinion as influenced by a group of men some 5 centuries ago?

You provided no evidence as to the canon that the Church actually USED-only evidence that shows that some people disagreed with the church. What else is new?

The Council of Laodicea rejected the Book of Revelation and added other books that are rejected by all today. Fortunately by the hand of God the larger church did not recognize nor sanction the decisions made at that local council, as it has done at times when appropriate in the case of some other local councils.
That’s quite the OP-Ed you wrote there. No evidence but all opinion. I’ve been providing evidence for the last few posts showing that the Apocrypha was not universally accepted by the 6th century and you have not posted any evidence of your own. I work with evidence not opinion. So I’m going to answer your post with I disagree with your opinion until you can provide evidence that we can discuss.
 
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fhansen

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That’s quite the OP-Ed you wrote there. No evidence but all opinion. I’ve been providing evidence for the last few posts showing that the Apocrypha was not universally accepted by the 6th century and you have not posted any evidence of your own. I work with evidence not opinion. So I’m going to answer your post with I disagree with your opinion until you can provide evidence that we can discuss.
Nonsense. Aside from avoiding plenty of specific points I made, for some reason you accept the contemporary new testament canon even tho it still wasn't universally accepted in the16th century. And it's been clearly demonstrated that the Catholic Church for its part continously used the same 73 book bible from at least the 4th century until this very day! And meanwhile the eastern churches from ancient times till now haven't done things much differently. And that defines the actual usage of practically the entire Christian world for centuries.

"But, oh, that's immaterial!", you retort, "Because there have been some people who didn't like the canon that way".

And that's about like saying that prolife isn't a Catholic position because I know a few Catholics who support abortion.
 
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Hentenza

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Nonsense. Aside from avoiding any specific points I made, you've dismissed the evidence that the new covenant canon was still not universally accepted in the16th century-and yet that doesn't stop you from accepting the canon in the form that most accept today.
Nonsense? From the one that has not provided one shred of evidence? That’s rich. It seems that the times that we’ve had a conversation you turn quite dismissive when asked for evidence. You need to understand that the object here is not to win the argument at all costs but to have an exchange and examination of evidence. That is how we further understanding. Bye now. You can now have the last word.
 
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fhansen

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Nonsense? From the one that has not provided one shred of evidence? That’s rich. It seems that the times that we’ve had a conversation you turn quite dismissive when asked for evidence. You need to understand that the object here is not to win the argument at all costs but to have an exchange and examination of evidence. That is how we further understanding. Bye now. You can now have the last word.
Fine, truth doesn't seem to be a priorty for you anyway.
 
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DamianWarS

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So life involves struggle, a battle at times, and only with the help of grace, the work of the Spirit and our cooperation with Him, the active presence of God's love in our lives, can we hope to understand, and to overcome.
Indeed, and this is why we don't need the 10 because we have the HS. I'm not ignoring the 10 but that doesn't mean its the thing that leads me, it doesn't because it only has superficial results and quite frankly I'm not interested in superficial results. your friend needs Christ, not the 10, even after he has gone through it the hard way, he still needs Christ, not the 10, and his wife and person he commit adultery with all need Christ not the 10. no amount of repeating "thou shall not commit adultery" until it is all they can think of changes this.

I'm interested in actively pursuing love towards God and my neighbour over simply not harming them in some very broad and instinctive ways. the 10 do have broad morals that, sure, we can all agree on but they are not foundational, Christ is. do we need something else to set our moral compass? that's what the HS is for. is the HS telling you to commit adultery? well it's one of those things that if you have to ask then you're probably too spiritually immature and if you want to belabour the point the answer is to surround yourself not with the 10 but with a spiritually sound and mature community that can help you sort out the noise and redirect you, and that's what community is for, the 10 don't do that.

the 10 no longer have that instructional role, that doesn't mean my resolve is to murder steal and commit adultery (which seems to be the strawman you're tip toeing around), it means the 10 are not the thing that inform my actions. if you need instruction that's what the HS is for. aligning with scripture is helpful but the 10 are surrounded in a mixed value systems we no longer keep so the logic to cut y but not x is confusing nor does scripture tell us to do this. the values are in the NT, we don't need the 10 as this foundation because we have better revelation and teaching.

the 10 are also grossly limited and discourages an active role with HS, it's more of a of a set it and forget it check list. there is a mass amount of topics it doesn't cover. the 4th is also ceremonial, which points to Christ. So what tells us how to love my neighbour over merely not killing him, stealing from him or sleeping with his wife? what tells me how to love God outside of abstaining from making an idol or using his name in vain? what tells me Christ's work that he accomplished which has ushered in and made available his rest for all?

the 10 simply are not that thing. if my friend is being tempted to commit adultery, steal, murder, lie etc, then the 10 is not going to help him and I'm not opening up the 10 to make sure he knows about them. I'm more interested in his relationship with Christ than I am of his duty to the 10.
 
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fhansen

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I'm interested in actively pursuing love towards God and my neighbour over simply not harming them in some very broad and instinctive ways. the 10 do have broad morals that, sure, we can all agree on but they are not foundational, Christ is. do we need something else to set our moral compass? that's what the HS is for. is the HS telling you to commit adultery? well it's one of those things that if you have to ask then you're probably too spiritually immature and if you want to belabour the point the answer is to surround yourself not with the 10 but with a spiritually sound and mature community that can help you sort out the noise and redirect you, and that's what community is for, the 10 don't do that.
But why would anyone need that community if the HS is all we need? The ten flow from the HS, BTW, they're not opposed to His will.

Again, this person was very surprised to find themselves in this situation, had never experienced anything like it in the past, and so would never have thought it even possible. And so the law against adultery had essentially no meaning or power for him-he had no need for it beforehand. He was the "responsible type"-and even afterwards love, not lust, was apparently the primary driving force as his concern for the welfare of the other person remains even now, some many years later, even tho no adultery ever occurred. And as I stated previously, aside from what we may prefer to believe about ourselves, "the human heart and the human mind lack perfect knowledge, perfect understanding, perfect wisdom, perfect spirituality, perfect virtue and holiness regardless of whether or not one identifies as “born again”, "regenerated", etc." That battle will continue; we're never totally immune from hard challenges/temptations- in this life, at least.

All sin/evil is in some way an attempt to experience or achieve or obtain some greater good or fulfillment. The glutton or alcoholic doesn't desire to ruin their health but rather to experience greater pleasure/gain happiness/kill pain. The businessman doesn't desire to simply do evil; to cheat his customers or the government first of all but to simply observe the basic value of good business: to make money. Pleasure, wealth, possessions, status, security, are false idols that tempt us to justify their promptings.
the 10 simply are not that thing. if my friend is being tempted to commit adultery, steal, murder, lie etc, then the 10 is not going to help him and I'm not opening up the 10 to make sure he knows about them. I'm more interested in his relationship with Christ than I am of his duty to the 10.
And yet the bible instructs us to do that very thing: to steer sinners from their sin when we're aware of it.
 
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DamianWarS

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But why would anyone need that community if the HS is all we need? The ten flow from the HS, BTW, they're not opposed to His will.
but it's a cut and paste version. if you smuggle in the 10 based on his will then what about the rest of his will? Ex 24 is the first covenant of the 10 but it is not just the 10 and that is quite clear in the passage. who told you to separate the 10 from God's law? what authority do you have to do this? Jesus doesn't isolate the 10, his reference is the whole thing.
And yet the bible instructs us to do that very thing: to steer sinners from their sin when we're aware of it.
the 10 only do this superficallly. your friend was overwhelmed with lust for another and in that pressure he buckled. what power does the 10 have to prevent this? would naming it have reduced that lust or act upon it? his actions are of that of his own kingdom, not of God's, he did not deny himself in his actions he denies Christ, this didn't have to be adultery, it could have been anything (even things uncommented in the 10). overlap does not mean authority, it is only Christ.

I have no issue with saying that God doesn't oppose his own will, of course I accept this but when it comes to the 10 real issue is about how we observe the Sabbath and it's not really about if we think adultery is sinful. there is a fundamental way we approach the sabbath that informs us how the 4th is relevant. it is immensely relevant we just see it's relevancy very different. this is not an adultery issue, this is a Sabbath issue. superficially proping up the 10 doesn't critically engage this, and that's what I'm looking for, critical engagement. your friend commiting adultery is painful, but how does that inform us how we approach the 4th commandment? agreeing adultery is wrong does not mean a covenat that has been made obsolete is no longer obsolete.
 
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fhansen

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but it's a cut and paste version. if you smuggle in the 10 based on his will then what about the rest of his will? Ex 24 is the first covenant of the 10 but it is not just the 10 and that is quite clear in the passage. who told you to separate the 10 from God's law? what authority do you have to do this? Jesus doesn't isolate the 10, his reference is the whole thing.
The ancient churches and the ECFs retained the ten, and Jesus and Paul both spoke of the ten specifically, as being the commandments that fulfull the law, as the commandments that mean eternal life as they're obeyed. There's a reason for all that because, for one thing, contrary to some contrary theologies, man must be righteous/obedient and live accordingly in order to enter heaven. The fact that the only way to do that is by and with the Holy Spirit does not change the fact that it must be done. So the law, cut and paste or otherwise, remains handy. That's not by my authority but that's obviously what the churches received. The rest is speculation.
I have no issue with saying that God doesn't oppose his own will, of course I accept this but when it comes to the 10 real issue is about how we observe the Sabbath and it's not really about if we think adultery is sinful. there is a fundamental way we approach the sabbath that informs us how the 4th is relevant. it is immensely relevant we just see it's relevancy very different. this is not an adultery issue, this is a Sabbath issue. superficially proping up the 10 doesn't critically engage this, and that's what I'm looking for, critical engagement. your friend commiting adultery is painful, but how does that inform us how we approach the 4th commandment? agreeing adultery is wrong does not mean a covenat that has been made obsolete is no longer obsolete.
He never committed adultery-that was part of the point because apart from his faith, which includes and is the object of knowledge received, which also includes the law, he'd probably never have resisted, he wouldn’t have had the presence of God with him, the grace with which to fight the battle.
 
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