Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
Faith,belief in CHRIST JESUS alone...that, alone is what you needYou are deflecting. It's directly related, and you are in avoidance of addressing the actual concern. Salvation depends on belief (according to John 3:16-18, Romans 10:9-10). So how much belief is required? A mustard's seed, like I do with Vishnu? Or, do I need to be [above and beyond] the belief of existence, and the love for my own parents??? Or other (in between)? You are not addressing any of this. You are spinning it, and failing to address the many points in post #64. NICE TRY. We all see it
You are instead trying to smear my character to avoid addressing the tough questions
Great, then we can start over. Maybe you can actually address the concerns, in a way we all can understand. What does Jesus define as 'rich'? And in regards to the 'rich', how much is enough to give away? If anything you keep, demonstrates distraction from Him, as you cannot have love for both possessions and Him, then how many possessions can you retain exactly, and still be under His assigned kingdom? Luke 14:25-33 seems fairly clear....
The same goes for John 3:16-18. Maybe you can, again, actually address the concerns, in a way we all can understand. What does Jesus define as 'belief'? And in regards to the 'belief', how much is enough? If you doubt in the slightest, is He cool with that?
Salvation is through faith directed in and on CHRIST JESUS alone sir...You have yet to even address rudimentary requests, as I have asked above. So until you do, it would instead appear you are avoiding 'simply asked questions.'
Um, that's what that means sir. If I ask a Catholic how to achieve salvation, and they tell me I must confess my sins to a priest, but another denomination tells me salvation is reached by repenting directly to God, these claims conflict. At best, one of them is mistaken; especially for something as important as salvation - (your eternal soul).
I didn´t have to look into the claim...the same thing that happened to those first disciples yesterday, continues to happen to those disciples today...which is why, one will not have to look into the claim, but will believe it..and will be a witness to that TRUTH that yes, HE rose and ascended and lives...My point prior was that Muhammad marrying a 6-year-old, and you not liking that, has absolutely no connection to the claim that he later ascended to heaven. Each claim must be investigated independently.
Much the same, Jesus doing and saying things you like, has no relevancy, nor then proves or substantiates that it then must be 'more-likely-true' that He did rise from the dead.
And just for starters, the claim that you decided to reply to, was from @John Helpher . He claims 100's of eye-witnesses saw Jesus. I state there exists no evidence for that. I've studied that claim. The reason this is important, as that the Bible is asserting that I must believe this claim anyways. And if I don't, I will be condemned. Now, getting to the fundamental issues below..
1. In places, the Bible states you must believe He rose again. Further, you must believe, repent, and love Him.
2. How much belief, repentance, and love is enough? Is believing, as much as I do in Vishnu enough? Or, does the belief and love need to surpass that of my parents? Is it somewhere in between? And if I don't meet this criteria, is God going to smite me for eternity, for something that maybe I cannot control (i.e.) belief and love?
Again, I'm a side participant now... But wondering if you can answer the above?
No. I see self conflicting statements from the Holy Bible. It does not matter that the writings span 1500+ years, or not. The messages conflict internally. Is it?:
- Grace alone?
- Faith alone?
- Love alone?
- Works alone?
- Grace + faith?
- Grace + faith + love?
- Grace + faith + love + works?
- How much faith?
- How much love?
- How many works?
- Which one of these traits is more/less important; and how do you know?
Here's a question to stew upon...
If you died right now, do you think God would accept you into heaven?
If you can either answer (yes or no), this would mean you think you know God's criteria for salvation. So, do you know if the answer is yes or no? If so, please do tell? If not, then like I stated in the OP, God looks to be the provider of confusion. Why? For the bullet points listed up above, just for starters...
Then look into the claim. The claim of 100's seeing Jesus is in the Bible. Please check and see if the claim of 'eye-witness' is supported to your satisfaction? And if it is, then we can test this claim against other claims in divinity
And to answer your request... God would presumably be above natural law.
Well, I think we can agree to disagree.
this may be the problem.Christians I know of define repentance as not only saying “sorry” but also adjusting the behavior.
No, if you read the very similar passage in John 5:28-29, you see what that means in more detail just before he says this. In John 5:24, He explains who is actually doing the good and who is doing the evil. Those who believe in Him and follow His teachings are doing the real good. So obviously you are taking Matthew 25 out of context.
‘odd’ as in random, picking this part and that randomly.
You can look at my earlier post on that verse and respond to the question there if you like. Teach what is true - although I’m not sure which translation you are using there - is a long way from substantiating your notion that ‘god says truth is not debatable’. You’re making quite a leap there. That’s what happens when you don’t have a good grasp of the material, whatever it might be, that you’re trying to address, hence my suggestion earlier that, assuming you are trying to arrive at some understanding here rather than just pursue some trite point of your own invention, you try and develop a broader understanding of what you are asking about. Your mindset here is something like someone who, hearing about the existence of atoms and the forces (known and unknown) that lead them to configure into certain materials or shapes, refuses to accept that a table is anything other than a table - it’s solid, real, it’s a table - not a collection of atoms with space between them. For whatever reason your mind has locked in to some basic notion you think is supported by elements of a much broader picture, and that you can pursue your notion without having any understanding of that broader picture. To put it concisely, it doesn’t work.
You appear to be avoiding my basic inquiry...
"Going back to Matthew 12:32, have we figured out what this one conclusion is????"
Namely, what IS the author's intent? Was is meant to be literal, or, does it mean something else? And if it means something else, what? And how did you arrive at this conclusion?
If this is your 'criteria' for odd, than the entire Bible is randomI again ask you....
How is Matthew 25:31-36 odd? And why must I consider it less pronounced, verses say... John 3:16-18 or Romans 10:9-10?
Sure. I'll be more than happy to tell you 'why' you're wrong. You're wrong because the narrative offered involves blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in an instance where the Holy Spirit indeed "shows up" and does something superlative and marvelous (....like, say, healing an amputee or something), but then all the onlookers (Pharisees) can do, being the rigidly minded, envious, pompous spiritual bastards that they are, is to then spew out something like the following, in articulations befitting a 5 year old ....
.........."NO! NO! NO! NO! ................ IT'S THE DEVIL'S WORK !!!"
And then we know they've committed something rather dastardly because we see, then, Jesus saying in that same narrative to those unfortunate criticizers of the Holy Spirit that they are refusing the very person they so say they...............................worship.
So, IF they refuse, directly and essentially to the face, the very God they think they worship, then there's really nothing else that can be done for them, or in them, by which they can be reconciled to God. They've cut themselves off from God.
But to blasphemy God simply because one hasn't been directly demonstrated to by God, or to do so because one isn't in a good frame of mind, is bad and a form of blasphemy, but it isn't necessarily 'blasphemy' of the Holy Spirit.
So, again, Context(s) is King as it always is when we read and attempt to understand the Bible.
No, you see the above. And then, see about a dozen books and/or sources on hermeneutics and the bible.
3) These verses remain ambiguous/vague/undefined.
We already addressed it multiple times, and I showed you again and again (to the point you starting to ignore me since you don't like what I said), that when the text clearly separated blasphemy against God and against Holy Spirit, you keep mixing the 2.
So while @thomas_t @dcalling, @Silly Uncle Wayne 's rendition MIGHT NOT be totally correct, we all know your rendition is incorrect since you are trying to mix what's clearly different (but related), i.e. God and Holy Spirit.
It is like when I say that spit on my foot is forgivable but spit on my face is not, you insist that food and face is the same.
It does, however, mention righteousness and righteousness requires Faith.
a) parables aren't a good method of determining theology: they generally have a purpose that isn't necessarily about the story being told but rather the story is an analogy for real life;
and b) this parable was spoken to Jews in a Jewish context and later written down in a gospel aimed at Jews. It does not appear in either of the other synoptic gospels, both written with a gentile audience in mind.
So as a Jew (1st century at least) this is an indictment on the idea that the rich and privileged are more righteous than the poor and despised. And as a Christian we see it in the light of Faith and Works; i.e. faith in Jesus has consequences.
But then so do Hindus but somehow you excluded those. Make up your mind.
No its about knowing what the original Christians thought and it is quite clear from the first century writings by Christians that they thought Christ was God incarnate. It is only in the second century onwards that other ideas tried to rear their heads. The fact that the ongoing church opposed such groups with letters and other things that we know that there is some kind of orthodox belief that these new groups did not have.
As such Unitarians are not Christian any more than you or Muslims (who believe Jesus was a prophet).
Well if you are going by Matthew 25 as the only arbiter of this fact, which it is not. How do you reconcile this with:
'through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand' (Paul)
'I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me' (John)
'And their is salvation in no-one else' (Luke)
even Matthew says 'The Son of Man... will repay each person according to what he has done' and 'Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.'
Your interpretation means that a good person gets saved (sheep), ours that there are other criteria involved and that this parable is just one part of the bigger picture.
Me: I haven't actually said anything about Matthew 12:32 at all (unless my memory is going). So you certainly don't have 4 brave soldiers - at most 3.
Your response:
I don't know if you can see the numbers after the word Matthew in each case, but they are different. Completely different.
All passages regarding blasphemy, i.e. Matthew 12:31-32, Mark 3:29-29, and Luke 12:10 are cryptic. Period.
1) To 'speak against', 'blaspheme', or 'speak a word against' are not clarified.
2) The verses do not speak about the point of when you have gone too far, and are damned eternal, no-matter-what.
3) These verses remain ambiguous/vague/undefined.
4) Many, whom read the Bible as literal, would read these, and worry obsessively about not committing such and act. Or, worry that one of their close loved ones may have already committed this act. It appears to present reckless/obscure language; with a rather large threat attached.
Again, we are speaking about God's forgiveness here. And you know what happens to the ones He does not forgive or pardon, right?
And further still, going with your 'conclusion', let us explore; just for goofs...
What if a 'pharisee-like' individual, did exactly what you eluded to, but, a year later, had a complete change of heart? He realized the error of his ways, dropped to his knees, professed to the real almighty, confessed as a sinner, and committed to follow. According to the undefined and less-than-clarified verses provided, he's toast.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?