Gospel accounts reliability

Halbhh said:

As given, but let me add about "love even the ones who harm them" -- it's not necessarily the immediate response, because first comes forgiving them. Now, forgiving is indeed though a part of love, or an aspect. We forgive those we love more readily, and we love those we forgive more readily. When a person harms you before you hardly know them, before you love them, then the first step is to forgive them.

Forgiving isn't ignoring the wrong done. It's letting go of the resentment or desire for paying them back, for one thing. And a more full forgiveness includes truly forgiving in the heart, which sometimes isn't easy at first, and can take time, or help, or Aid (from above) if really hard to do.

Forgiving doesn't mean I ignore what the person did wrong. Example: if someone steals a pencil, you don't leave another pencil out where they could steal it the next day, even if you forgive them. Example: if they took something I told them and used it to belittle me, then I'd reasonably not tell them any more personal things, even while I forgive them. So, forgiving doesn't mean I become a repeated victim, but rather that I get free of what they did. I overcome what they did, through grace, and gain freedom from their wrongful action. I'm healed in effect. If they meant to harm, the harm they meant fails.

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Halbhh said:

Not a bit!

Or, that is, it's at most only for someone like me a hint if one thing worked really better than expected, there might be more. That's only a hint. Like learning: oh, this guy might have some more stuff.

But for proving Christ exists, it's not at all there. I'm only telling you my personal viewpoint. Someone else might be unlike me, and have a very different experience, and come to faith suddenly, unlike me.

I'd strongly suggest one thing tho -- don't accept a 2nd hand view of what Christ said, but instead read for yourself, with as good a listening attitude as you are able to do, according to your ability, trying to put aside preconceptions and especially other people's ideas and really listen, for yourself. As I say: get your own idea of what He said, not person X commentary, or website Z, or book from writer Q, or preacher whoever or whoever said whatever. Yours, first hand.

Just like you'd to do read a poem -- hearing it with your own hearing.

Here's an example of what I'm trying to say

Just read, and hear, and enjoy:

====================
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-- Robert Frost

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Halbhh said:

ah, but that's not really a best kind of listening we can do, and I bet you can -- more ideally you can try to just listen when you read Christ's words, without trying to decide something or have conclusions or judge, but to just hear, like you would to try to hear that poem for instance, more fully listening to gain more -- as some of the things are truly subtle, with deeper than at first obvious meaning.

Listening is a very intelligent humble thing
Psalm 138:6; Proverbs 3:34; Proverbs 29:23; Matthew 23:12; Luke 1:52; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5

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Halbhh said:

If one has an amazing car that works perfectly, then it no long becomes interesting to trade it out for some other stuff, even that you'd found works pretty nicely before. I thought The Tao was the bees knees, and Emerson also, and Jung pretty smart, and such, but then I found the superior, and I've been astounded since. I'm not telling you the half of it.

Anyway, it's humble to listen, and expect Jesus knows more than you do about what He is saying.

And that's in a way similar to thinking Robert Frost knows his poem direction well, so that we can just listen, just trust and listen. I want to gain from the poem, so I just listen. I can expect Frost has something there for me. It's trusting.

I mean if you haven't listened that way, then you've not yet heard the words, in a key way.

Ok, that's all my analogies for now I think.

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