Paul was one of the sect of pharisees. Was Christ wrong about his Sect? Or do you think it possible for God to save and change any he chooses?
A rather glaring deflection of my point. You are wrong about the Pharisees being merely "dedicated stewards." That you are unwilling to acknowledge this despite it being very obvious says a lot about your willingness to be honest about the facts of a matter.
I was the pharisee, willing to debate with anyone, dismissing those who werent saved as long, shunning those who hung out with the sinners....knowing i was right and anyone who didnt believe my words were wrong. But change is possible when we stop thinking about what the bible says about "them" and focus on what it is saying about "me"
??? Your experience doesn't trump the plain command of Scripture. And none of this really has anything to do with the point I made to which your comments here attempt a response.
So since you acknowledge possible changes in some situations, why not leave the judgement to the one who knows all? Why study and look for the wicked instead of looking for the good?
Why not leave the judgment to the One who knows all? Because He has commanded me in His word to "judge righteous judgment" and to make clear and careful distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil. One cannot be a moral and a thinking person without making such judgments between things.
It also does not follow that because I am careful to observe when a thing is evil that I am not therefore "looking for the good." I don't know about you, but I am able to do both. In fact, I must if I'm going to be a righteous person.
What of the master fisherman? Toiling day and night during peak fishing hours to catch fish....just to have the son of a carpenter tell them to cast there net to the right during non peak hours, right after they just pulled out empty nets?
And...another deflection of my point. That "carpenter" was the
God-Man, Christ,
the Creator of the universe. Although those whose fishing he directed did not know it, Jesus knew more about fishing than all the fishermen who have ever lived combined. And this is why trying to draw a parallel between my analogy and Christ's interactions with his soon-to-be disciples is in error. In my analogy, the one giving advice does so from
profound ignorance; in yours, it is the
omniscient God of everything who is offering advice. Not very comparable circumstances, clearly.
Would the fishermen be wise and right to dismiss any fishing advise the carpenter may have? Of Course! And I would find no fault in you doing so. I Just also happen to find no fault in the disciples taking the route of the fool...
But, you see, Peter, James and John had no idea at the time who Jesus was. And inasmuch as they had been fishing all night and caught nothing it wasn't like they were going to lose out by following his recommendation. I don't see, then, that the soon-to-be-disciples were "taking the route of the fool."
To the religious, back then, the disciples were viewed as ignorant and unlearned men....yet they had the power of God in them.
Back then they did not have the full canon of God's revealed truth, the Bible, either. But we do and by it are thoroughly equipped to do the work of God (
2 Timothy 3:16-17). Those believers who neglect to study it and grow thereby should not expect to be taken seriously on spiritual matters or to be as effective in God's service as those who do (
Psalms 1; Psalms 119:11;
Hebrews 5:12, etc.).
I see no wrong in you not embracing those who know little about scripture.
"Embracing"? What does that mean, exactly? I don't discard believers who are scripturally-ignorant but I don't go to them for spiritual guidance, either. You seem determined to create false dichotomies...
Forgive me if you find fault in me taking the path of the fool, and acknowledging that God can send help through any vessel He chooses, regardless of the perceived biblical knowledge they have.
??? God once communicated His will through a donkey but that didn't make the donkey a genius or a common source of wisdom and guidance, did it? Of course not. God's
usual means of communicating His truth and will to us is not through some wicked servant of the devil or a biblically-ignorant and spiritually-immature believer but through His word and those who have carefully and patiently made themselves students of it. It is truly a fool who ignores the common methods and means of divine wisdom in favor of a word from God from the mouth of an ass.
