JohnR7 said:
Then you would know that God has no ego. That those who are born again and transformed into the image of Jesus do not have ego or pride. These are human qualities that are a part of fallen human nature and do not reflect God or the new creation we become in Christ. As in blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
I want to believe that, really I do, but I've seen too many "Christians" who are nothing
but ego and pride. They've got the whole "I've got the Holy Spirit and you don't; nyah nyah nyah!" thing happening.
As for God himself, it's hard to beleive that He doesn't have an ego to bruise, since he's such a capricious and jealous thing...
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. [5] Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; --Exodus 20:4-5
But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: [14] For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: --Exodus 34:13-14
For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God. -- Deutoronomy 4:24
Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, --Deutoronomy 5:9
Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you; [15] (For the LORD thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. -- Deutornomy 6:15-16
And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst: [20] The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven. -- Deutoronomy 29:19-20
And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. -- Joshua 24:19
I would think if that is what you do for a living, then you would know the Bible as literature and you would know and understand the shadows and types in the Bible.
I've never met a Christian who wanted to discuss the Bible as literature. They wan't to discuss it as the Word of God. They believe that "literature" implies "fiction."
As literature, the Bible is a pretty well-written anthology sharing a common theme.
Before people even can get saved, they tell them that sin is a condition that eats away on the inside of them like a cancer. That is why we need the great physician. He is the only one that has the cure. Through Jesus we can be cleansed of any sin, healed of any sickness. To be saved means to be healed. Set free, redeemed, delivered. So that sin and sickness no longer have any power over us. We are set free.
And here we find the problem; You're confusing a simile, a metaphor, and reality.
Had you began with "sin is
like a cancer, eating away at the spirit as cancer eats away the body," you would have been using a brilliant simile which would perfectly explain the nature of sin and no doubt bring people closer to God.
But you said that "Cancer
is a sin," which, without the
like, could be construed as a metaphor, which still works, so long as people understand you're speaking metaphorically.
Clearly you are not. Now you say, "sin
and sickness no longer have any power over us." You really do expect people to believe that cancer is a physical manefestation of a sinful nature.
The Puritans believed that; I go into some detail into it when I teach
The Scarlet Letter. Aside from that, I had thought that the superstition that disease was punishment from God went out in the middle ages.
There is a thing called the "germ theory."
Like I said, the women who did the most work on this is Hannah Hurnard who wrote "Hinds Feet on High Places". She shows how things manifest in the physical realm, to show us what is going on in the spiritual realm. Most of what she wrote on this subject in in the main stream of Christianity. Although if you accept all of what she wrote, then she is a universalist and believes that everyone will be saved. But even die hard calvanists believe in the shaddows and the types in the Bible and that a disease like cancer or lepersy is a type and a example of sin and how it eats away at the body in a attempt to destroy it. The difference is that Hurnard attempts to show how this spread into the animal kingdom and all of creation. This she feels is why bee's sting, and animals devour one another. Because of man's fallen condition being reflected in natural and the physical world around us.
Sounds like she too is misinterpreting "shadows and types" by applying them outside the literature. Nevertheless, I'll see if I can find her in my bookstore.
Of course the most famous allegory is "piligrams progress" and the most die hard sola scripture people accept this book. I could go on. I use to read a lot of calvan miller, who wrote "The Singer". CS Lewis wrote in the allegory style, but I never read any of his work. There are others. I am sure you would know better than me, sense this is what you do for a living. So you must know about all of them. Are they on your reading list that you hand out to people? Or don't you put the christian books on your reading list?
Since I work in a Christian school (surprise!), I can focus on my field of expertise, which is American Literature, pre-Civil War. I leave the Christian authors for the Religion teachers.
And I will recommend Thomas Paine's
The Age of Reason, Dan Barker's
Losing Faith in Faith, and George Smith's
Atheism: The Case Against God for you. Now we both have some summer reading.