Hiya EgbertTheFourth,
Thank you for your replies.
No worries, I will maybe add on some additional info to thsoe that responses to other replies too.
So it's matter of personal interpretation? Though, in my opinion if God's word is eternal, why isn't that appropiate for our time?
We can all interpret things whichever way we like, in fact many arguments come about from misunderstandings in our daily lives when someone said something and meant something else, yet people interpreted it differently. The important thing I find with the Bible, is that the end result of what it says, I find to be true. I know, for example, that I often do things I dislike and know to be wrong. Therefore when the Bible says that we are fallen, I believe this. The
actual method of how that came to be, isn't so important, for me personally. Whether it was a historically accurate and literal Garden of Eden, or whether that was an allegorical story that was meant to convey a point, is not important. Just as I am quite confident God doesn't care about our master over theology, for example when we die and stand before Him, I do not believe that He will ever quiz us on the Bible. The hows and whys are not important to God, and therefore I don't think they are something we should get caught up in to such an extent to affect our relationship with Him. What
is important is the end result. Do we accept Christ's offer, or not. Not why.
If Jesus says he's the only way to Heaven, and you're not on his side, then according to him you're against him.
Matthew 12:30 - "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad."
Which is kind of black-and-white in my opinion. Just because I'm undecided for the moment, doesn't mean I'm totally against him. Though, according to him, it does mean I am.
Jesus must have been an odd character to be around. For example, when you stepped on someone elses foot, Jesus said that He forgave you. Which is quite crazy, it's like me insulting someone who you have never met, and then you telling me that you forgive me for it. Why? What power do you have to do so? Well, that's just it. It's not really an offense against that person, it's a sin against God. The real question is what power does that man have to pardon sin against God? Which is, none whatsoever. To put that into perspective, if you do not acknowledge God, then you have no way to be forgiven for your sins against Him and therefore, you very much -are- against Him.
Would you reward someone who runs around destroying your work, undermining your power? I don't think so, me neither.
But how can I be sure that it's the right thing to do? How can I possibly know? There are so many religions. How can I possibly know this is 'it'? I wish there was some way to decide.
Oddly, I think this is a matter of faith. As I wasn't sure it was right until I became a Christian. I put faith in God, trusted Him, accepted His offer and began living a life with Him as my visible leader and guardian, and the more I do so, the more I am convinced this is the way it was meant to be.
Thanks. Perhaps I can borrow it from a local library, or I might consider buying it.
Another excellent book is Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. It's quite flowery language, yet not that difficult to read and he was a great Christian of his time.
So when I accept Christ as my Saviour, God will consider me to have no sins at all? Just by accepting Christ as my saviour makes me 'good'?
It's not really about good and bad, it's more about a relationship with God. When you accept Christ, you acknowledge your dependance on Him, His complete power and thank Him for His offer of salvation, His sacrifice. It's basically saying, "I need your help, will you help me?" Christ, God, has said that He will answer all who call out to Him, and thus, will help you indeed. You will have asked for forgiveness from the person who matters, and even though you are still a sinful creature, you have a way
out of sin now, through God.
Well, I don't believe I'm a good person. Though, I admit that I believe that I'm 'better' (as in good, not better as in 'worth more') than a large amount of the world population. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't many people that are 'better' than me. I've been thinking about Christianity for about 2 months now and I'm still reading and thinking a lot. I'm not "throwing" stuff away just like that. It takes a lot of thought to finally decide that something is or isn't going to work. My pride might get in my way, but we'll see what happens.
I think the turning point for me, was when I was reading the Bible and something sort of clicked, and suddenly it turned from being a story book, to being a documentary, if you will. Suddenly, it formed such a believable picture, that I knew it was all real and then I knew what I had to do. I honestly believe you will find a
version of it that matches your liking, but I feel there are some important things to take into account.
First and foremost, recall that this is about you and God, not you and your friends, you and your family, you and some right-wing religious extremist group, you and your partner. It's just you, and God. With that said, no one need know about this, apart from you and, that's right, God.
So many times I've seen people put off because of any number of things, like what they see 'Christians' doing on the news, what their friends will think, what THEY themselves think a Christian must do. Ultimtely the Bible makes a clear distinction between sin and personal sin. There are sins that we know to be wrong, like murder, that we are commanded against doing by God Himself. Then there is personal sin, things we feel personally convincted off, the problem here is that Christians in general tend to overlook the latter, and it merges with the former, and then you have Christians using the Bible as a weapon, to support
their way of life. Really, it's not about that at all, and in fact the image of Christianity as perceived by others outside of it I imaging to be quite different from the reality.
Second of all, God does not want you to be ignorant, or to trick you.
1 Thessalonians 5:23
"Test everything. Hold on to the good."
Make sure you check what you are told, and presented and only hold on to the things you find pleasing and that are pleasing to God.
Lastly, many answers will be out of reach to you. Just as answers were out of reach to those people who were seeking them a hundred years ago - that we have answered today, so do we have new questions which are unanswered, and out of our reach. In these situations, have faith in God. Faith is not only believing in what we cannot necessarily prove, but also placing trust in God, that He knows best.
Hebrews 11 deals with faith in a stark way that shows what challenges some people faced.
The reason I have for not accepting Christ as my Saviour is that I can not be sure that it is 'right'. As I said before, how can I know this is the truth? How can I be certain? Should I perhaps get a trial on Christianity to see how it works?
You are not sure about what precisely? The easiest way to find out, is to reduce this to the lowest common denominator, just like mathmeticians do. What is the one, single thing, that right now, prevents you from being a Christian? Is it evolution? The morality and ethics in the Bible? Stoning of children? Slavery? Wars in God's name? Preconceptions of what a Christian life is like? Did Jesus ever really exist? Was Jesus really divine? Name it, and take it from there, I can't really see you making much headway until you address that.
Do you believe that the life of slave is better than death?
This depends on the definition of slavery. Don't be duped into thinking that a word from 2000+ years ago, has an exact translation to a word of todays times, given our history of slavery. As I said, slavery back then, by all accounts, was not much different than military service is now. Considering that people of today
volunteer for that, I would say it's a great deal better than death. Also think about this from God's point of view, all those people have a chance at salvation now too, which is the ultimate thing at stake here.
I have read the Book of John. I liked the story, but I can't be sure whether it is the truth.
I guess really, we have to ask why would so many writers lie about so many events. You know, scientific fact is something that is a repeatable observation. It used to be scientific fact that the sun revolved around the earth. Not one of sciences finer moments, but we base so much on what we see and observe, yet even that has been proven to be wrong. What does your heart tell you about the matter? Truth has a way of standing the test of time. So many religions have come and gone in our history, yet Christianity still stands firm, it even overcame the Roman pagan religion, during a time where the Christians were pursecuted and fed to lions for entertainment. I guess there are many examples, but ultimately Christianity is either a lie, and in that case there are many questions which are raised about it, it's creation and purpose, or it's the truth.
I agree that is a mistake I made, even though I primairly used it to express the differences between Christians and non-Christians, because I don't believe you're a 'good person' by definition if you only accepted Christ as your Saviour. It just doesn't feel... right.
Exactly! It doesn't feel right because it's not true, we don't suddenly become fantastic people when we have God in our lives. We are, to all intents and purposes, exactly the same people. The singular and only difference is that we are now aware of God, and that has tremendous impact in our lives. We live differently, when others would take the easy road out of a conflict, we try to make amends, even at our own cost. We sacrifice of ourselves to please others and we do our very best to live a life that would please God. The ultimate test of character is what someone does when they know no one else will find out. Look at software piracy for example. People pirate music, games, applications because they don't get caught. What truer testiment is there to our fallen nature than that? Would these same people walk into a shop and steal something? Of course not, the risk of discovery is too great. What did Adam and Eve do the first time they sinned? They hid from God, they were
ashamed of it. Do people actively talk about their experiences with pornography? No, because they are ashamed of it if ever it were to become public knowledge - but they still do it and enjoy it when they are alone and in private, they are bonded to their sin. I get the definition of sin here from the Bible, in that it means, basically, to miss the mark. I think it was originally an archery term. Essentially God has intended various things for us, and really, the more you discover what God intended for us, the more you see how badly warped that intent has become through our choices in our lives. Then things begin to make sense.
I hope this finds you well, and Happy New Year to you!
Cheers,
Digit
