Abominations.

[eleos1954]

That sounds like universalism.

People need to be born again by the Holy Spirit, this did not happen until after Jesus.

no it's not universalism ... not saying everyone gets saved ... of course not.

So all of the OT prophets and people who lived before Jesus won't be in heaven? Adam & Eve won't be there? .... all those before Jesus? Baloney.

We have many stories about people in the Bible ... mostly centered around the Israelites ... who were typical of mankind in general .... ie disobedient (mankind don't change) .... however I have no doubt many people (multitudes) (not all) who were not written about will be in heaven ... looking forward to their stories and how the Lord made His presence known to them.

People are not saved because they were born before Jesus? Just their tuff luck they weren't born afterwards ... or lived in a geographical location that didn't have the gospel available to them? Is our Lord arbitrary and capricious? No He is not.

He looks at the heart .... He knows the heart .... from beginning to end of all people throughout all the ages ... past and yet to come.

Matthew 5:8
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Proverbs 21:2
Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.

For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.

For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus (Romans 2:12-16).

 

[Gregory Thompson]

You got offended from me quoting scripture. Not sure how that would thwart the correct understanding of things.

Not so.

Quoting hebrew culture isn't scripture.

Strawman to the max.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

no it's not universalism ... not saying everyone gets saved ... of course not.

So all of the OT prophets and people who lived before Jesus won't be in heaven? Adam & Eve won't be there? .... all those before Jesus? Baloney.

We have many stories about people in the Bible ... mostly centered around the Israelites ... who were typical of mankind in general .... ie disobedient (mankind don't change) .... however I have no doubt many people (multitudes) (not all) who were not written about will be in heaven ... looking forward to their stories and how the Lord made His presence known to them.

People are not saved because they were born before Jesus? Just their tuff luck they weren't born afterwards ... or lived in a geographical location that didn't have the gospel available to them? Is our Lord arbitrary and capricious? No He is not.

He looks at the heart .... He knows the heart .... from beginning to end of all people throughout all the ages ... past and yet to come.

Matthew 5:8
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Proverbs 21:2
Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.

For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.

For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus (Romans 2:12-16).

Now you're talking about works based salvation.

It's about faith, the people from the old testament were saved when Jesus travelled to the land of the dead because of the faith, not because of adherence to a law.

Because of their faith, they were able to hear Him, everyone else who relied in idols or idolized the law became like their mute idols and could not hear Him.

 

[Paidiske]

Sorry I didn't mean to do that - I asked the question so that a particular truth would emerge in the conversation.

I have a different style than most - I raise an issue and talk through it to encourage folks to participate and collectively arrive at a scriptural view. It is a more relational way of wrestling with important issues rather than presenting one line of reasoning. This draws on the collective wisdom that the Lord has blessed CF with. It also gives us a better shot of learning from each other.

I'm not sure that works out the way you'd like, to be honest. Last night I typed out a reply and then deleted it, because I thought it would not line up for the answer you had clearly settled on ahead of time, and I didn't think you were truly looking for diverse input.

For what it's worth, I was trying to gently suggest that a siege mentality around these issues (the idea that somehow governments are out to force us to change or to be punitive about particular understandings) - which I see as a repeated theme across many threads - is something unhealthy, which we ought to challenge in ourselves.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Are they believers?

God knows I guess.

 

[Jesse Dornfeld]

Not so.

Quoting hebrew culture isn't scripture.

Strawman to the max.

What was your intent in "correcting" me then? It seems to be that you don't regard the intent behind the scripture, only your interpretation.

Further, just because you didn't have it exactly right doesn't mean the Holy Spirit, Jesus, or God do not exists. It is quite silly to think so.

There are passages where I have had misinterpretations of what was said, but that doesn't mean God doesn't exist.

Perhaps we can ask someone from the MJ community to square this up. @HARK! I have a question for you. Is the traditional understanding of the saying, "6 yet 7" mean something like, "6 is sufficient, 7 is a surety"?

 

[Carl Emerson]

I'm not familiar with the context of what you are saying here ...

God's hatred for sin has not changed, ... but His apparent methodology for dealing with sin appears to have changed.

According to my reading, the Old Testament is a lesson to humanity on how NOT to respond to sin. According to the Old Covenant, the response to sin leaves noone standing. And that doesn't particularly jive with God's creation of humankind in the first place. But ... we would have never believed that we could not live up to God's standard ... until He demonstrated that to be true. So, that is the purpose of the Old Covenant.

The understanding (from the Old Covenant) that humanity does not have the power (in itself) to live up to God's expectations ... should lead to at least some of us being open to the willingness to cast ourselves upon the offered grace of God. We want to be saved (i.e. to have a viable relationship with God), ... yet we know that we cannot meet th standard for such a relationship on our own, ... so we are willing to let God do it for us.

Under grace, God deals with His childrens' sin in a different way than in the Old Covenant. In the New Covenant (i.e. under grace), the payment for sin is no longer an issue (Christ having paid the penalty), so God focuses upon maturing His child to the point where child, themself, avoids the sin.

So the difference between dealing with sin under the Law ... and under Grace, ... is that, in the former case, the effort is to PAY for sin and eliminate it via fear of sanction, ... while, in the latter case, the effort is to make the childish perpetrator better.

As an example of this, take the instance of sin within the church which you referenced earlier (i.e. 1 corinthians 5). If this situation had been resolved according to the mandates of the Old Covenant Law ... And in similar manner to the Old Covenant examples you raised (i.e. Ai and Jericho) ... the offender would have been obliterated, ... probably within the witness of the congregation.

But that's not what happens. The Corinthians strive to TOLERATE the sin, ... at least until Paul upbraids them ... and compels them to put the offender out of the fellowship. But NOT to destroy him, ... but to turn him around to the acknowledgement of his non-conformity to the goodness inherent in God's instruction. And, indeed, this is what occurs ... with Paul following up and instructing the Corinthian church to readmit the former offender ... appropriate to his newly developed repentance.

Yes I agree with this..

There is the matter of Ananias and his wife being struck down.

What is your take on this???

 

[Jesse Dornfeld]

Not so.

Quoting hebrew culture isn't scripture.

Strawman to the max.

Hi. I have started a thread in the MJ community regarding this. Perhaps they will have some insights for us. Here is the thread: Proverbs 6:16-19

 

[Gregory Thompson]

Hi. I have started a thread in the MJ community regarding this. Perhaps they will have some insights for us. Here is the thread: Proverbs 6:16-19

Since I'm not MJ, there's no point in engaging.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

What was your intent in "correcting" me then? It seems to be that you don't regard the intent behind the scripture, only your interpretation.

Further, just because you didn't have it exactly right doesn't mean the Holy Spirit, Jesus, or God do not exists. It is quite silly to think so.

There are passages where I have had misinterpretations of what was said, but that doesn't mean God doesn't exist.

Perhaps we can ask someone from the MJ community to square this up. @HARK! I have a question for you. Is the traditional understanding of the saying, "6 yet 7" mean something like, "6 is sufficient, 7 is a surety"?

In general, it was a point of interest from me. However, the way this has been handled has kind of made me lose interest.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Is it that our concept of what the love of God is or is it that Paul knew how that particular person was going to react? A different sinner could have reacted in an unconstructive way and perhaps even lost his salvation in the process. The Corinthian church appears to have been a mess. Why was only one person excommunicated?


How are you going to excommunicate someone for a reason that you're unaware of?

Why did Calvin excommunicate a lot of people? Was it out of love for their souls? What was the result of this excommunication?

Sure you can exclude people from a cult or a club of similarly-minded individuals. And many churches act that way.

But this is not God's way. Remember the parable of the wheat and tares?

We don't know that only one was excommunicated in the Corinthian Church.

Regarding the Wheat and the tares - is this not Jesus seeing in the future the church loosing the discernment and authority to deal with those among them that had no relationship with God? In the early church such people would be afraid to join...

 

[Paidiske]

Regarding the Wheat and the tares - is this not Jesus seeing in the future the church loosing the discernment and authority to deal with those among them that had no relationship with God?

I don't think so. In the parable, the workers can tell the difference between wheat and weeds; they recognise that both are present. It's the master who tells them not to uproot the weeds, lest doing so damage the wheat as well.

 

[A_Thinker]

So it starts with things God wishes would just stop, just kill the habits.

There are the proud eyes,
Then the pride leads to lying cause you think you can get away with anything.
The hands shed innocent blood to cover up the lies and to save face
Then the heart devises all sorts of wicked plans and does harm every chance they get.
It's progressive.
A false witness breathes out lies to frame people for their many crimes, and progresses finally to a habit of causing discord among organizations to avoid suspicion.

I don't know if this list is progressive or not. Hands quick to shed innocent blood is pretty far along.

 

[Carl Emerson]

I'm not sure that works out the way you'd like, to be honest. Last night I typed out a reply and then deleted it, because I thought it would not line up for the answer you had clearly settled on ahead of time, and I didn't think you were truly looking for diverse input.

For what it's worth, I was trying to gently suggest that a siege mentality around these issues (the idea that somehow governments are out to force us to change or to be punitive about particular understandings) - which I see as a repeated theme across many threads - is something unhealthy, which we ought to challenge in ourselves.

Well in my country parliamentarians have a conscience vote and rise to the full authority of their secular priesthood and make moral and ethical pronouncements that they put in law. They passed full term abortion by stealth when everyone was concentrating on Covid. Now our babies -unwanted for any reason are left on the table to die. And you think my whistle blowing is unhealthy? Hello ???

 

[Jesse Dornfeld]

In general, it was a point of interest from me. However, the way this has been handled has kind of made me lose interest.

Why is that?

 

[Carl Emerson]

No.

However, in scripture there are priority scriptures such as the greatest commandments, the summary of the commandments in Romans 13, the explaining of all sin being "not of faith" in Romans 14 to name a few.

So when man's interpretation of scripture contradicts the priority, ignore the interpretation, and continue with the root.

So the Scriptures, although inspired, have varying authority? So we cant trust the writings of Paul - so when he said 'be ye imitators of me as I am of Christ' he was out of line because Jesus would not have excommunicated the young man... Is that what you mean?

 

[Paidiske]

Well in my country parliamentarians have a conscience vote and rise to the full authority of their secular priesthood and make moral and ethical pronouncements that they put in law. They passed full term abortion by stealth when everyone was concentrating on Covid. Now our babies -unwanted for any reason are left on the table to die. And you think my whistle blowing is unhealthy? Hello ???

That is not what I said. I said a siege mentality - the believe that "they" are out to get you, or force you to conform - is unhealthy.

 

[Jesse Dornfeld]

Certainly the killing of innocents is an abomination. I would certainly put abortion in this category.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Just what you meant by it, I saw that it supported my position, Carl agreed to it so I was curious how you read the passage.

In post #33 I was agreeing with Ananias...

 

[Gregory Thompson]

Why is that?

It's hard to explain. I remember when I first came to the forum, I would learn from the different traditions like you set out to do.

It is possible there was some transference in regards to this verse and now only you are interested.

I'm sure it'll come back.