Dan,
The book of Isaiah, chapter 1 and verse 18, reads as follows:
"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."
God sought to reason with Israel, to bring her back to righteousness before the Lord, and though this was written some twenty-five hundred years ago, give or take, God doesn't change; He still seeks to reason with us. But how does one reason with unreason... Or with sarcasm? Because reason is not possible with you-- at present --I won't bother trying. I've stated my position countless times here and elsewhere for months now, yet you are no closer to grasping my meaning. I am therefore not going to be drawn into another pointless, profitless argument with you. I don't know everyone who is reading this blog. I am sure there are some who read and never bother to comment, so why would I wish to continually serve them a steaming bowl of bitter contention? The simple truth, which you seem unwilling to accept, is "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." The Bible speaks plainly and clearly on what is and is not sin, and what is His people's proper response to sin and the sinner.
The Bible also says, "A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident." And there is too much contention within the Church as it is.
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" And there is too much acceptance of what is unacceptable with the Church today.
But what do I know? I am stuck in the Old Testament, as someone once said; as though the Old Testament no longer had ANY relevance to us today.
Here's a question; the only question I'll address with you from here on out...
Comparing the first century Church-- that of Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon Zelotes, Judas the brother of James... And Paul --with today's church, are the divisions we endure today-- doctrinally speaking --comparable with the divisions of the aforementioned first century Church? And if not? Why? Where has today's Church gone wrong?
The fact that I chose to add 'And if not?' should be enough of a clue as to where I side on this question. Let's discuss why today's Church has chosen to forsake morality in favor of inclusion, and ecumenism.
That is the only question I will entertain with you. Come now, let us reason together... And let the chips fall where they may.
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Follow Jesus? Otr worship the Christ?
Faith or works?
Continue in the Law, or live in Christian liberty?
Perceive Jesus mainly as Son of Man, or mainly as Son of God?
Paul? Peter? James? or Jesus?
God has spoken? Or God is still speaking?
Those are the things the earliest believers aegued over, among others.
One thing they did not argue over, not until at at least the third century, were inerrancy, infallibility, literal reading of Scripture, etc. etc. Of course, from the beginning of the gathering of what we now regard as Scripture, some were guilty of bibliolatry, as are some -- nay, many are -- today.
Anyway, I reject your premise, right off the bat: " ... why today's Church has chosen to forsake morality in favor of inclusion, and ecumenism."
The Gospel is inclusive, by definition. Ecumenism is meaningless unless one insists that some Christians are not *really* Christians. The Church as not "forsaken morality" -- whatever that means to one whose sins have been washed away -- although many individual people have forsaken morality, and even more knew it not in the first place.
So, I'll try to sit the rest of this one out. :-)
Umm...uh...it is also condemning.
"Depart from me ye workers of iniquity!"
"I never knew you!"
Reject my premise all you wish, but the Church at Ephesus left their first love. And the Church at Laodicea were all but dead, fit only to be spewed out of the saviors mouth.
If the church at Ephesus represents the Church in the latter part of the first century, and the Laodicean church represents the Church at the end time, then the Laodicean church has lost far more than the church at Ephesus... TODAY'S Church has fallen far from the Grace enjoyed by the church at Ephesus.
The Church today should heed the warning given by Christ in the letter to the church at Laodicea...
"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent."
--Revelation 3:15-19
[Emphasis mine]
The fact is, there is a vast difference between the first century Church and the Church today.
The NT Church – in a quick perusal of Acts – encountered these problems:
Confrontations, accusations, death threats and executions from the religious establishment and the governmental powers that be
(Acts 4, 5, 7, 9, 12, 18, the last several chapters, and on and on) – I’d suggest, according to the Acts account, that this seemed to be the most recurring problem.
Difficulties sorting out how best to live in community with each other and the poor (Acts 2, 4, 5)
Difficulties confronting greed within and without and with living in an egalitarian manner, trying to side with and care for the poor, equitable distribution of resources (Acts 5) – I’d suggest, according to the Acts account, that this seemed to be the second most recurring problem.
Divisions within the church (between Jew and Gentile, legalists and libertines,) (Acts 6)
[Significant debate about who can and can’t be saved, I like Peter’s answer to those who’d pile on rule after rule that the Gentiles needed to follow:
God made no distinction between us and them, for by faith he purified their hearts.
Why, then, are you now putting God to the test by placing on the shoulders of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?
On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they. ~Acts 15]
Difficulties figuring out when it’s okay to set aside OT rules and traditions (Acts 11)
Figuring out a working structure for the churches (deacons and their role, elders, apostles, presbyters, who can and can’t preach – and why) (Acts 6, 15,)
Various relatively petty disagreements and problems associated with missionary work (Acts 15, 19)
Does that sound like a fair summary of Acts?
Some in the church get hassled by the religious community and by governmental powers. I'd suggest that the church at large (in the West, anyway) tends to be more closely related to the religious oppressors and government toadies rather than the Church as represented in Acts.
We do manage to continue to still have debates about how to embrace the blessed OT teachings and prophetic voice without being legalists.
We largely have given up the central theme in Acts of living in community and sharing resources and those related problems.
Greed remains a problem.
Thems my thoughts.
"Because reason is not possible with you-- at present --I won't bother trying."
Why is reason impossible with me? Are you assuming that you're a reasonable person and I'm a blathering fool? What have I done to become unreasonable in your eyes?
Could it possibly be that I've simply answered questions that you're not prepared to answer and therefore it's easier to say "I HAVE answered and won't answer again!" and try to change the subject.
IF you have answered my question (Do we all have to agree on every sin and when we don't agree, it's an indication that someone is hellbound?), all you have to do is copy and paste the answer again, or point me to the reference.
It is entirely possible that you've answered it in a way that I didn't recognize, and so I'm asking - brother to brother - for a little assistance. Help this fool understand.
IF you truly believe that we must agree, then it is not sarcasm for me to ask for a list of sins that I need to agree with you upon, right? It's essential, according to you.
My guess is, when it comes right down to it, you recognize that we don't have to agree upon every sin - that we can disagree and still be in God's family. If you agree that we are a fallen race, prone to error, it really IS the only answer - unless you're prepared to go to heaven by yourself (believe me, there's probably not another christian in all the world who agrees with you on EVERY sin).
Some people refuse to see the truth even when it hits them between the eyes. Rather than say, "Oh my! The scripture is right and I, a simple fallible being, is wrong!" they instead say, "I am right and the scripture has been misinterpreted or is flat out wrong, or is no longer applicable."
"Where has today's Church gone wrong?"
My gut reaction would be that we tend to follow the traditions of our culture rather than the lessons of the Bible. Church-goers tend to look at the Bible and figure out how what we read makes sense with what we already believe rather than taking it for what it means in and of itself - or even better, rather than what God is trying to teach us through God's Word.
We've also gone wrong in seeking ease, entertainment and comfort rather than faithfulness.
I suspect that you might agree at least partially with my assessments of where we've gone wrong, but then you'd think, "And that is exactly what YOU'RE doing!"
"they instead say, "I am right and the scripture has been misinterpreted or is flat out wrong, or is no longer applicable."
Mark, does the passage in Leviticus where God tells us to kill disrespectful children mean that we ought to do so? How about "men who lay with men," are they to be put to death as Leviticus says?
Ought we be following the Jubilee Laws, in which we're commanded to return land to its previous owners every 50 years and where captives are released every seven years?
Ought we sell all we have and give alms to the poor, as Jesus tells us to do in Luke?
Or do we have to figure out our own fallen selves what these passages mean? How and if they apply to us today?
What say ye?
Having said that, the first century church endured a period of formation, where disagreement did occur, ESPECIALLY as to the Law and Gentiles, but please note that once Peter received his vision and agreed with Paul, the true nature of God's revelation of His New Covenant (salvation by Grace alone, for the Jew first, and the Gentile) with mankind, the divisions all but ceased. Even when scisms began to rear up, Paul immediately put them down, saying we are all followers of Christ not followers of Paul, or Timothy, or Peter... Paraphrased, of course. By the time of Revelation's writing, the Church was solidified into one true denomination. That's not to say there weren't still some divisions, but it was agreed that there was one faith, and one faith alone.
Skip forward two-thousand years and there aren't just a few divisions, there are thousands. Today's Church (and honestly, there is only one real Church) is inundated with belief and dogma that have nothing to do with the Faith of Christ... the Christian faith. Some of these divisions aren't even Christian, though they name the name of Christ, like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.
And this is where the Church is today. Everyone clings to their brand of Joe, I belong to 'Faith Harvest' 'I'm a Joel Osteen man!' 'Benny Hinn Rules!' Everyone is preaching a gospel, but not everyone is preaching THE Gospel. This is where we are today.
On top of all this, the REAL Church has grown complacent. The REAL Church mirrors what Revelation 3 describes as the church at Laodicea. Did John the Baptist compromise on sin? The fact that he lost his head makes me think he didn't. Jesus certianly didn't compromise, He was God in flesh! James? He only went so far as to say, "To him therefore who knoweth to do good and doth it not, to him it is sin."
If sinners are genuinely unaware that the things they do or do not do are sin, it then fall to me and you and every other Christian to point it out, in love, in hopes that they will repent and be saved. But the way the Church is today, bickering amongst itself, marginalized, and a laughing stock... In short, we have become ineffective. And we are losing the harvest.
Are you saying that the catholic church had it right before the Protestant Revolution? Was Martin Luther a false prophet?
The problem I have with Christianity is that its a religion hunting for solutions to modern problems in a book millennium old. Would you read Gilgamesh for advice on dealing with a rude neighbor?
If the spirit had moved John or Paul to write about vegetative states, would they have understood? Would the bishops who were formalizing the canon have understood those passages? What about internet dating? Euthanasia? Partial birth abortion?
Christianity/ Islam/ Mormonism/ Catholicism/ Judaism are religions that feel they already have all the answers for the rest of human existence. That deity no longer has anything to tell humanity. Its an arrogance that doesn't witness to me. Probably a lot of other people too.
There are precepts and principles and examples galore in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament, that can help people today make decisions about how to live their lives and how to define a relationship with God and "work out" their salvation. To keep insisting that the Bible is inerrant, infallible and unreviewable keeps God, for people many people, in a tiny box with a label: "Irrelevant."
You may want to work harder on your seed-planting techniques.
To answer BenT's points...
--No. The Catholic Church did not have it right. There was no Catholic Church in the first century however many earnest Catholics insist there was. Nor was Peter the first pope. The Catholic Church is wrong on several points, not the least of which is Mary worship, Purgatory, and Transubstantiation (or, the Eucharist being the real and genuine flesh of Christ). The Catholic Church is wrong on many points of doctrine... Man-made doctrine. But that is not to say there were not, nor are there now, genuinely saved Catholics.
--Martin Luther merely sought to expose the Catholic Church for its contradictions in practice, to the truths spelled out in scripture.
--Internet dating? Euthanasia? Partial birth abortion? Relevance can be found in the bible for each of these subjects-- in terms of our moral obligation.
--The fact that BenT has a problem with Christianity doesn't make Christianity null or void. It simply means the BenT chooses to rely on his own wisdom to make his way through this life; a decision he's free to make. I would rather he choose Christ, but I doubt he will listen to me-- we have argued too much on politics and other inconsequential philosophical disagreements for him to take me seriously on anything religious.
But that's on me, and someday I'll answer for it.
----
Hmmm. It seems BenT has replied before I could post this, which only compounds my error.
He is of course right. I was dismissive and rude. And condescending.
Again, sincerest apologies to BenT and anyone else thereby offended.
Jesus said, while praying to His Father, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." --John 17:17
He also said to the devil, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
--Matthew 4:4
Furthermore, 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says that, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."
And Titus 1:2 says (as does Hebrews 6:18 and Numbers 23:19) that God cannot lie. How does this put Him in a box and make him irrelevant?
How, if some portions of scripture are true and others are not, can anyone have assurance that the verses that say we have eternal life who believe on Him (Christ), are true? How can we say the bible is not inerrant and believe, as the New Testament claims, that we can KNOW we have eternal life?
When I read these kind of statements from you...
"To keep insisting that the Bible is inerrant, infallible and unreviewable keeps God, for people many people [sic], in a tiny box with a label: "Irrelevant." "
...I seriously wonder how you can have any faith at all... any HOPE at all.
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On a completely different note, in regard to the upcoming bowl game between our two states...
"ROLLTIDE!"
The Word of God can be found *in* the Bible. The Bible is not the Word of God. And don't be so literal as to think I mean the Word of God can be circled or underlined in the Bible. I mean that the Word of God, as in the Logos, as in God as the writer of John understood Him to have been expressed through Jesus of Nazareth, recognized by the earliest Christians as the Christ, without whom nothing else in he Bible matters, undergirds the whole thing.
The Bible, rather than being written, or "breathed" or dictated or whatever, *by* God through men, was written by men inspired *by* God and by their search for Him and His truths -- and the stories of the ways they FOUND Him. As such, it is THE main guide for the Christian life, mainly the New Testament, the Old Testament mainly for understanding where the first Christians were coming from. Other guides include traditions and what God is still saying to and among believers today. God. Is. Still. Speaking.
"God cannot lie." OK. But humankind sucks at hearing what He's saying; and as that has improved, or unimproved, over time, the image of God that we have *has* changed.
My faith would be shaken by the above only if my faith was based solely on the Bible and the words in it (as it really, secretly is by many, I suspect), rather than the inscrutable God of the Universe. And, my faith would be shalen if I insisted on the kind of certitude that you apparently insist on.
It's not that "some portions of the Scripture are true and some are not." That is a simplistic dichotomy. Rather, Scripture is true when seen as humankind's inspired attempts to explain his search for, and experience of God, and his inspired attempt to explain Jesus and the Jesus movement. Scripture is a false idol when those words are held up to be the Word of God! There is no perfection in the world. None. Not even the Bible. Although he is said to have claimed to be God, at one point Jesus himself said "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God."
Faith originally was a verb, wasn't it? And we don't even have a verb form of faith in our language. In any case, it's not a static "thing" and I don't keep it in in the same small box with God-on-a-leash, like so many do.
My faith, my hope, is in Jesus, in the inherited, centuries-old Christian message of love, which has survived illiteracy, the big-bad Catholic Church, the wars of reform, and now the my-way-or-the-highway insistence by American fundamentalists that the Bible be taken literally, which is ridiculous on its face.
(Quick: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." There are no quote marks around "gods," and no asterisk or footnote. If God said that to Moses, then He was saying there are, in fact, gods beside Him but that He is the main one. Or, Moses was believed to have experienced what he experienced on Sinai, and others who came after him couched that experience in their own belief system, which at the time pitted Yahweh against other tribal deities. Oh, and golden calves. Which is it?)
Finally, not one of the verses you mention contradicts anything I've said above.
Personal note to Ben T. Find a UCC church. They not only let you bring your brain in, they pretty much insist on it.
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EL, I thought you were in Georgia, not 'Bama. ??
GO POKES! :-)
"Yes, we must be in agreement. For how can two walk together unless they be in agreement? If you can't recognize sin, having read God's word, what hope is there for you? Or anyone? The Spirit within us will speak to each conscience what is and is not sin. But the Holy Spirit does not reside in us all, which is why the message preached by Warren is so dangerous.
We MUST be in agreement on Sin... "
And so I apologize, you did answer it. So just to be clear: what I'm hearing you say here is that "we MUST be in agreement on Sin" and that if we aren't in agreement, then one or both of us is hellbound? (That was my full question - "must we agree and if not, then one of us is hellbound?")
That seems pretty amazing to me. You think you're correct on every possible sin in the world? Really?
I truly suspect that you don't think that - that you are humble enough to realize that no one is always correct. I further suspect that what this means is that you are trusting God's grace to cover you in those areas where you've sincerely sinned in error - not realizing it was a sin.
After all, what of those times where you've said something mean without realizing it - hurting another's feelings? Is that a sin and are you hellbound for what you didn't even realize you were doing?
I suspect that we actually agree on this point - that we are imperfect humans and will not always know perfectly which actions are sins and which are not and that if we sin in ignorance, God's grace covers us.
Am I correct?