this may be a personal question, but how was it revealed to you?Dreadsox said:
My point is, that it is revealed to me. I have faith that this is one of the important examples provided by Christ.
You may need it explicitly. My faith and belief leads me to a different place than you.
I also think one of the messages of Christ is the dangers of man taking things to such a literal extreme that we are no longer doing God's will. There are plenty of examples of Christ standing up to the powers that be and their interpretations of the LAW.
The literalness does not equal righteousness.
shrmn8rpoptart said:this may be a personal question, but how was it revealed to you?
Dreadsox said:
I think there is a reason Jesus used parables. He could have just sat at home and written his own book, making everything easy for us now couldn't he? Unless he did not know how to write? If he did not know how to write, what was wrong with him. He is God. All of the other great prophets and people who communicated with God were able to get it all down for us. What was wrong with Jesus?
#1: i hope you read my reply about the conversation i had with my pastor. a note on the different Hermenuetics, some are obviously more correct than others, though none are perfect.Irvine511 said:
i think a good literature or creative writing class would be very beneficial. not that i think Scripture is either, but i do think it would benefit everyone greatly to understand the bias inherent to any and all language and just how we go about creating our own meanings in our own image. essentially, there are no "correct" readings of anything -- all we can hope for are valid, defensible readings that are necessarily in dialogue with one another.
i feel as if much of the justification of your faith, and that "faith alone" clause, flows from this, and for someone like me this becomes a bit of an impossible situation.
#2: science is, like reading, a cultural product, and any scientist worth his/her salt would never assert the infallability of a scientific finding in the same manner with which you are asserting the scripture. also, since the basis of religion is *faith* -- you choose to believe, rather than wait to be shown -- i'd think that humility would come much more easily to you. faith is predicated upon doubt, for if you had no doubt it wouldn't be faith, then, would it?
#3: you missed the point again. people treating the bible as if it were a dictionary. however, on the subjects of dictionaries, ever noticed how meanings of words shift and change over time? how new words are added as society changes and things are invented? it's malleable, and subject to reinterpretation and revision, and any good post-modernist knows that words only reference other words, so therefore it's a self-referential, closed system that serves as an authority, but we know it's subjective and not Truth. it's what we use as truth -- for spelling, for word meaning -- but it is not Truth.
#4: sounds more appealing to me than the "i'm saved and you're not" attitude. though, according to your rules, the vast majority of people on earth are not saved because most people do not accept Jesus as their personal savior. maybe if you loosened up your reading and focused on the message rather than the words you could find a way to save that child in Calcutta?
your last paragraph is how many people see the bible. and you seem to repeat, over and over, "salvation" and "eternal life" as if they were gifts to be won. just an observation.
shrmn8rpoptart said:#4: the fact is that the majority have people will probably not be saved. that is what i believe Christ meant with the "wide road/narrow road" analogy. and how would "loosening my definiton" help the kid in calcutta? if i believe that salvation is an objective fact, and that God exists apart from myself, how would my beliefs change the outcome of that child's life? now, if i were to go and give the gospel to that child, that would be a way to save the child in calcutta.
and no, i've said it before, and i will continue to say it: salvation and eternal life are not gifts to be "won" by us. they are gifts that are freely given by the grace of God, that i cannot gain by ANY merit of my own.
yimou said:
The grace of god ???,, IF salvation and eternal life are gifts freely given by the grace of god. Then why on earth does this Calcutta child even need the gospel to know about god ??.
Its a weak god you are worshipping, if it takes the scriptures to enter his kingdom and its not a believable god then.
If god was rightious, then he/she would disregard whatever knowledge of the bible that people have. And instead look at the way people have lived their life.
I am not trying to offend anybody, but throwing the gospel at the feet of people and claim their connection to god starts there, is insane and indeed narrow minded.
God should start within,, with no help,, Otherwise then its not god who tries to tell you something, but some eager worshipper who takes away the beauty of believing. By not making it a free choice or a real need. And then how can anybody say that their connection to god is real ?.
yimou said:
The grace of god ???,, IF salvation and eternal life are gifts freely given by the grace of god. Then why on earth does this Calcutta child even need the gospel to know about god ??.
Its a weak god you are worshipping, if it takes the scriptures to enter his kingdom and its not a believable god then.
If god was rightious, then he/she would disregard whatever knowledge of the bible that people have. And instead look at the way people have lived their life.
I am not trying to offend anybody, but throwing the gospel at the feet of people and claim their connection to god starts there, is insane and indeed narrow minded.
God should start within,, with no help,, Otherwise then its not god who tries to tell you something, but some eager worshipper who takes away the beauty of believing. By not making it a free choice or a real need. And then how can anybody say that their connection to god is real ?.
yimou said:If god was rightious, then he/she would disregard whatever knowledge of the bible that people have. And instead look at the way people have lived their life.
nbcrusader said:
It appears that you define God in your own way, as it is not Jesus Christ as described in the Bible.
We should not create our own version of God. "You shall have no other gods before me." Exodus 20:3
yimou said:I guess my question is,, What are you own thoughts of what i wrote ??
nbcrusader said:God Himself must define the nature of our relationship with Him. If someone asks the question "How do you get to Heaven?" I can only respond by describing what is said in Scripture.
The self-defined God is in essence another form of god. We cannot say that God is so great that He will let me approach Him any way I want.
yimou said:
The grace of god ???,, IF salvation and eternal life are gifts freely given by the grace of god. Then why on earth does this Calcutta child even need the gospel to know about god ??.
From The Book of Concord, The Smalcald Articles, Part VIII. Confession
In these matters which concern the external, spoken Word, we must hold firmly to the conviction that God gives no one his Spirit or grace except through or with the external Word which comes before. Thus we shall be protected from the enthusiast-that is, from the spiritualists who boast they possess the Spirit without and before the Word, and who therefore judge, interpret, and twist the Scriptures or spoken Word according to their pleasure. [Thomas] Munzer did this, and many still do do it in our day who wish to distinguish sharply between the letter and the spirit without knowing what they teach. All this is the old devil and the old serpent who made enthusiasts of Adam and Eve. He led them from the external word of God to spiritualizing and to their own imaginations, and he did this through other external words. Even so, the enthusiasts of our day condemn the external word, yet they do not remain silent but fill the world with their chattering and scribbling, as if the spirit could not come through the Scriptures or the spoken word of the Apostles but must come through their own writings and words.
nbcrusader said:God Himself must define the nature of our relationship with Him. If someone asks the question "How do you get to Heaven?" I can only respond by describing what is said in Scripture.
The self-defined God is in essence another form of god. We cannot say that God is so great that He will let me approach Him any way I want.
so, if i take this right, i can't quote scripture and i can't quote documents that interprete scripture...basically, if it disagrees with your viewpoint, it holds no value to you, and you can feel free to dismiss it off hand without even discussing it...fair enough.AvsGirl41 said:I had forsworn this thread, but I'm going to jump in with one criticism...
Quoting the Book of Concord (or a Catholic, Orthodox, or Mormon confession) does nothing to sway my convictions, such as they may be.
I give very little authority to post-Gospel texts, frankly. And few realize how much of what Christians believe to be Truth is mere conjecture by early church fathers.
shrmn8rpoptart said:so, if i take this right, i can't quote scripture and i can't quote documents that interprete scripture...basically, if it disagrees with your viewpoint, it holds no value to you, and you can feel free to dismiss it off hand without even discussing it...fair enough.
i take most posts here to be merely the conjecture of sceptical post-modernists, who instead of interpreting Scripture, simply say whatever pops into their heads. i see not why i should assign more significance to their thoughts than the church fathers.
Dreadsox said:I would ask you this, do you feel that there is literal as well as non-literal content in the Bible? Are there truths given to believers that can be inferred about the nature of God, without it being spelled out literally?
AvsGirl41 said:I had forsworn this thread, but I'm going to jump in with one criticism...
Quoting the Book of Concord (or a Catholic, Orthodox, or Mormon confession) does nothing to sway my convictions, such as they may be.
I give very little authority to post-Gospel texts, frankly. And few realize how much of what Christians believe to be Truth is mere conjecture by early church fathers.
shrmn8rpoptart said:
i take most posts here to be merely the conjecture of sceptical post-modernists, who instead of interpreting Scripture, simply say whatever pops into their heads. i see not why i should assign more significance to their thoughts than the church fathers.
i seem to remember posting that i was wrong when i said "literally" what i meant was inerrant. i agree with what nbc says above, symbolism is clearly used, and we have to interperate that. i also agree that those interpretations have to be made in regards to the context of the verses in context and with the bible as a whole.AvsGirl41 said:
I never said (and i don't think *anyone* here has) that you can't quote scripture. I didn't even say that it disagrees with my viewpoint. What a way to infer, eh?
But, if we're discussing whether or not to take Scripture literally, it seems you ought to be looking to Scripture for the answer, as you argue everyone (even in Calcutta) should be doing, and not Martin Luther.
The skeptical post-modernists you dismiss and the church fathers have done *exactly* the same thing. There's no Scriptural basis for much of what we hold as dogma. It was created in the minds of men. God never came down to St. Augustine or Martin Luther and give them a one-on-one chat. So if you're going to dismiss one school of thought based on "it popped into their head" theory, you'll have to dismiss the other. If you're judging Luther to be more weighty because he wrote in the 16th century, well, I'm not sure what to say.
I just turned in a research paper around this very topic and had the eye-aching pleasure of reading Methodius on down to Aquinas. I'm not dismissing that what they wrote isn't brilliant or poetic, or saying there aren't things I agree with. But no, in a case of "Who does God save and what did Jesus say?" I don't give them the top seat of authority.
shrmn8rpoptart said:
i take most posts here to be merely the conjecture of sceptical post-modernists, who instead of interpreting Scripture, simply say whatever pops into their heads. i see not why i should assign more significance to their thoughts than the church fathers.