Thank you for posting. I guess this is where we part, not on our core faith in Jesus (his commands and teachings), but on the precepts of it (how it is based). I base mine on your core and mine on Jesus (his commands and teachings), so we are brethren, how about that! You go further and base yours upon the infallible Bible that didn't even exist within the early primitive faith (for even the Torah was deeply influenced by other writings read along with it). You say there be no weeds (tares) and refuse to admit this possibility, for you hold your silence to it. Was Jesus Greek?
I am trying to not get you riled up or me being mean or angry. I don't think that I am doing a great job.
Your assumptions are based upon what you seem to call divine, the Bible, so it hard for you to make believable claims to me. I know what the Bible says, yet, I hold my worship to God alone and through his son Jesus alone. The Bible is an important book, but it is definitely not divine or infallible from all that I have discovered about it. Yet without it, we would not have our faith, to believe in Jesus' Gospel and follow & obey him.
You do not believe in what Jesus stated:
Matthew 13:24-30Good News Translation (GNT)
The Parable of the Weeds
24 Jesus told them another parable: The Kingdom of heaven is like this. A man sowed good seed in his field. 25 One night, when everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 When the plants grew and the heads of grain began to form, then the weeds showed up. 27 The man's servants came to him and said, Sir, it was good seed you sowed in your field; where did the weeds come from? 28 It was some enemy who did this, he answered. Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds? they asked him. 29 No, he answered, because as you gather the weeds you might pull up some of the wheat along with them. 30 Let the wheat and the weeds both grow together until harvest. Then I will tell the harvest workers to pull up the weeds first, tie them in bundles and burn them, and then to gather in the wheat and put it in my barn.
So, you can not understand our discussion, but it is all like Greek to you. Think again.
Let us be friends here, if not then to love each other as enemies, obeying Jesus. I am not mocking our faith, but trying to keep the glue between our faiths in Jesus together.
May Jehovah bless you and your churches always.
Your position that the Bible is fallible or flawed is nothing new. This shows that it is not the "kind of faith" that Jesus described of the widow at Luke 18, in fact shows a gross lack of faith. Many are pulled in that direction because of some religious leaders casting doubt on the Bible, causing some to suffer "shipwreck of their faith".(1 Tim 1:19) Paul mentions two individuals who wrecked their faith because of their failure to have firm conviction in the "holy writings".(1 Tim 1:20)
Can a person say that Jesus teachings is at the core of their faith and yet say that the Bible is fallible ? Can they rightly say that they are Christian ?(see 2 Cor 11:4 about accepting a "Jesus" other than the true one) Can they expect any blessing from Jehovah God ? The high priest Eli was told by "a man of God", that "those honoring me I will honor, but those despising me will be
treated with contempt."(1 Sam 2:30)
Jesus told his once "brother" Satan: "It is written (at Deut 8:3): Man must live, not on bread alone, but on every word that comes from Jehovahs mouth.(Matt 4:4) Jesus fully recognized that those who call themselves "Christian" are to accept that the Bible (66 books which does not include the apocrypha) "is inspired of God".(2 Tim 3:16) But Jesus also recognized that imitation "Christians" would begin flourishing, which among those are ones who challenge the infallibility of the Bible.
You said that "the Torah was deeply influenced by other writings". It was not the Torah, which means the "law"in Hebrew (as at Ex 12:49 and Lev 7:7), that was "influenced by other writings" but the Talmud that began with the Mishnah.
The Torah consisted of the first five books of the Bible, also called the Pentateuch. The Talmud is a consolidation of Jewish traditions of oral law that was compiled over the course of 150 years after the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 C.E. and then eventually written down.
You then mentioned Matthew 13 and the "tares".(
KJV) Let's carefully examine Jesus words there. When Jesus gave the illustration of the "wheat" and "weeds" ("tares",
KJV), what was he "bringing to the table" ? That the pure "form of worship" (or religion) that he established would become contaminated with pagan practices and doctrines, being twisted and distorted.
At Matthew 13, Jesus says that "the Kingdom of the heavens may be likened to a man who sowed fine seed in his field. While men were sleeping, his enemy came and oversowed weeds in among the wheat and left."(Matt 13:24, 25) Who is the "man" that "sowed fine seed in his field" ? Jesus identifies that "man" as himself and "fine seed" as "sons of the Kingdom".(Matt 13:37, 38)
But who is the "enemy" that oversows "weeds in among the wheat" and then leaves ? Jesus points out this "enemy" of the Kingdom as the Devil.(Matt 13:39) Now at this point, what is Jesus teaching ? That the "pure religion" (James 1:27) that he started and went into operation on Pentecost 33 C.E. would in time become apostate (apostasy means "a falling away" from "the truth", see 2 Tim 2:18).
Since the "wheat" is the "sons of the Kingdom" or right-hearted ones, then who are the "weeds" that was planted among the "wheat" ? Jesus identifies them as "the sons of the wicked one", counterfeit Christians. How do we know this ?
Because in the illustration, after one of the "slaves" points out to the "master" that somehow "weeds" (Jesus used the Greek word
zi·za′ni·a that is possibly the bearded darnel that closely resemble wheat until maturity) came to be growing among the "wheat", the "master" (Jesus Christ) tells the "slave" to "let both grow until the harvest season" (Matt 13:30a), at which time the "weeds" or fake Christians will be clearly distinguishable from the true Christians and gathered to be "burned" or destroyed and then the "wheat" or genuine Christians will be gathered "into my storehouse".(Matt 13:30b)
What did Jesus mean when he said that "while men were sleeping", that the "wheat" would be infiltrated with "weeds" ? That upon the death of the apostles ("while men were sleeping"), then the "weeds" or counterfeit Christians would begin to flourish.
Hence, upon the death of the last apostle John in about 100 C.E., apostasy began in real earnest, in which such ones as Ignatius began to promote the thought that there should be divisionary class in about 110 C.E., that later came to be called the clergy, making for a clergy-laity arrangement that began to come into play near the end of Cyprian's life (200 ?-258 C.E.) and was in full force by the 4th century C.E. when Christendom came on the scene.
The apostle Paul noted that the apostles acted as a "restraint" while alive against the tide of apostasy that had already began not long after Jesus death, by writing: "True, the mystery of this lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who is right now acting as a restraint is out of the way."(2 Thess 2:7)
So the acceptance of the fallibility of the Bible is not new, but has been on the scene since not long after the apostle John died. Even during the time of the apostle Paul, he told Timothy in about 64 C.E.: "Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, turning away from the empty speeches that violate what is holy and from the contradictions of the falsely called knowledge.(1 Tim 6:20) Gnosticism (or supposedly supernatural knowledge) was infecting the Christian congregation.
So, when Jesus asked "When the Son of man arrives (at Armageddon), will he really (Greek
ara, that denotes "an interrogation to which a negative answer is presumed",
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance) find this faith on the earth ?"(Luke 18:8), he recognized that there would be an apostasizing of his teachings, but that during the "harvest season" that the one "pure religion" or "wheat" would once again be standing strong and separate from the "weeds" or counterfeit Christians. He also knew that many would cast doubt on the authenticity of the Bible, though professing to be Christian, but that these ones would be among the ones to be "burned" at "the conclusion of the system of things".(Matt 13:40)
came and sowed weeds among the good seed. Then he went away.
