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Author Topic:   Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 540 of 1677 (841252)
10-10-2018 3:56 AM
Reply to: Message 538 by GDR
10-10-2018 2:02 AM


Re: loving God
I wasn't talking about myself but about the gospel. That's what you turn into something selfish and negative, the gospel itself, what the Bible says about the good news of salvation from sin. I quoted some of the best statements of it, that I think speak clearly of God's love, and I just don't get how you can reduce all that to selfishness or trying to control people or what all, it astonishes me that anyone could see it that way.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 538 by GDR, posted 10-10-2018 2:02 AM GDR has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 541 of 1677 (841254)
10-10-2018 4:56 AM
Reply to: Message 536 by GDR
10-09-2018 8:30 PM


Re: loving God
GDR writes:
The idea of being motivated because of being saved is not the message that we get from following Jesus. It is actually the opposite. Yes, the ability to love is a gift from God and we are called to be grateful for that gift, but we show our gratitude for it by spreading it to others and to all of creation for that matter.
Seems to me you've got things upside down.
1John 4:19 writes:
We love him, because he first loved us.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 536 by GDR, posted 10-09-2018 8:30 PM GDR has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 544 of 1677 (841258)
10-10-2018 11:11 AM
Reply to: Message 538 by GDR
10-10-2018 2:02 AM


Re: loving God
I keep rereading your post and want to answer more of it.
I do have a problem though with your doctrine. I know that you have retained a message of love from your Christianity.
It is the most magnificent glorious message of love from God to man imaginable.
Not everyone can do that however. When you hold to your understanding of how the Bible is to be understood you have to explain to others that God was capable of ordering his followers to commit genocide and engage in public executions by stoning, but that He doesn't do that anymore.
I never felt any necessity to explain this until I came to EvC where people refuse to learn from God and instead talk about Him as if He weren't the God who made all things. God is a God of justice and that's what you are describing, His judgments on peoples for sin. Public stoning was the method of execution of the day and Israel was a theocracy. I don't apologize for any of that. If someone wants to accuse God instead of hearing the gospel I just figure they aren't really interested in Christianity.
You also have to explain to people why it is that God will assign to hell if they don't get their doctrine right.
Christianity did not invent Hell, a belief in an afterlife where the wicked are punished has been held in many cultures and religions of the world. When the gospel first went out I'm sure nobody had to explain anything about Hell because most people already believed in some version of it, there were words in all languages already available to translate the concept, and the Bible doesn't even bother to explain it, just refers to it as to any commonly understood concept. The Good News (Gospel) of salvation could therefore have been accepted as the answer to worries engendered in their own cultures, whether of suffering for thousands of years or coming back as a rat or whatever. That's what is meant by the term Good News, it's good news in the context of beliefs that your sins determine your fate, destiny, karma or whatnot: the idea that God loved us enough to save us from that brings enormous joy and gratitude for some.
I just contend that trying to scare people into becoming Christian is not what God wants. It is no wonder that so many completely reject Christianity when it is presented that way.
That is not how the gospel is presented. Jesus said "Repent and believe" and that's the basic format of the gospel.
I'm suggesting that from an evangelical POV what God wants us to respond to His love and often they respond because they can see God's love in His followers.
Scripture says it is "the goodness of God that leads to repentance." (Romans 2:4) There is nothing preached about Hell.
I didn't come to EvC as an evangelist, I came to debate evolution. Often when I join threads about religion it is to respond to such accusations as you are talking about, about "genocide" or about Hell and so on. I try to answer them according to my understanding of the biblical view. You seem to be confusing this kind of discussion with a presentation of the gospel.
Sure, tell people that there is life after death where the pain goes away but again I suggest that it shouldn't be used as a carrot on stick.
That is just weird. It is salvation itself one wants to bring about, not some other goal a carrot on a stick implies. You really have no idea what this is all about. If we are not born again, if we are not saved, we simply do not have the life of God in us. It doesn't matter how much we do in the way of good works if it is not done through the power and life of God and we get that by repenting of our sins and believing that Jesus came as the Messiah and died in our place.
It is just a gift from a loving God and that all of mankind, Christian or not, is called to respond to that love by reflecting it out into the world.
We are to become a "new Creation" by the power of God through the gospel. God is remaking the whole Creation that was destroyed by the Flood and the death and disease brought by the Fall, starting by restoring humanity to the state of Adam and Eve before the Fall, or actually much better than that since we will participate in His own life. He is rescuing the entire Creation from the Fall. He is changing us from fleshly selfish fallen humanity to His own image. This begins with receiving Christ as the seed of that new life. Good works are the natural result of this new life. If you don't hold out salvation as the gospel before you preach good works you've got everything upside down and backwards.
'
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 538 by GDR, posted 10-10-2018 2:02 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 545 by ringo, posted 10-10-2018 11:58 AM Faith has not replied
 Message 548 by GDR, posted 10-11-2018 2:38 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(1)
Message 549 of 1677 (841289)
10-11-2018 8:06 AM
Reply to: Message 548 by GDR
10-11-2018 2:38 AM


Re: loving God
We agree that God is the creator. I would agree with you as creator and as the one responsible for our existence that He would have the right to order genocide and public stoning.
God always acts righteously and justly. He cannot commit "genocide" because that is defined as a crime and God cannot commit a crime. He cannot do anything wrong, sinful, unrighteous or criminal. He has no such "right" as you are claiming. Therefore when He has a people killed it is the death penalty for THEIR crimes, sins, idolatries and so on. In the cases so often referred to the peoples had been given hundreds of years to repent, and it was only when their iniquities had reached "the fullness of time" that God sent judgment against them. We cannot possibly understand this from our modern vantage point, but we are certainly in the wrong if we impose our understanding on God's judgments and judge Him when we are to be judged by Him.
He would also have the right to have his followers fly airplanes into buildings taking thousands of lives. Well how do we decide if God actually did command His followers to do those things?
I have no problem at all deciding that because I know the Bible is "God-breathed" so that I know what it says is the truth. As for the WTC attack I believe nothing happens without God so that too is His judgment, though this one was more like God's bringing the enemies of His people, the Assyrians and Babylonians against Israel and Judah, something they initiated but served God's purposes anyway, in the case of the WTCD a judgment which nobody heeded of course, except a very few preachers I happened to hear at the time. All the rest were saying God doesn't do such things.
Well they have no knowledge of God's judgments then. 9/11 should have been followed by a great movement of repentance toward God to restore the nation to His favor, but instead we did what ancient Israel also did when under judgment: God destroyed the trees so they replanted the trees; God knocked down buildings so they rebuilt the buildings. I think that is in Isaiah 10 though I'd have to look it up.
{ABE: Turns out it is in Isaiah 9:
Isaiah 9:10-13 writes:
The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.
/ABE}
Instead of repenting and owning their sin Israel ignored their sin, felt sorry for themselves and rebuilt what God had destroyed. And God says that He will judge them even more because of that.
And that's what America has done as well. This was all written about in the book "The Harbinger" by Jonathan Cahn who saw the connection between our destroyed trees and buildings and Israel's in that passage, some pretty uncanny connections as a matter of fact, a direct pointing to the teaching about defying God's judgments and bringing more as a result.
We never learn. As long as people hate God for His judgments we'll just go on reaping judgments. Too many have a sappy view of Jesus as having nothing to do with judgment. If you read Isaiah 61, which He quoted in the synagogue about His mission as Messiah, you might note that He read only the part about His coming as a savior and a comforter, and stopped at the point where it goes on to say "the day of vengeance of our God." That's His mission too, but on His second coming. He came once to save us, but He'll come a second time to judge the world. Same Jesus, same God of the Old Testament, the one you hate.
You and I are both Christians so what is it we believe about Jesus?
Honestly, GDR, I really don't know if you are a Christian. Sometimes I accept that you are and other times I think you reject too much of the truth to be a Christian. And you even reject salvation, the gospel itself, actually talk about it as an unworthy human manipulation -- the thought makes me shudder.
As I read through the rest of your message I realize it can't be answered without more thought than I can give it right now. I can say, glibly enough, that you are comparing apples and oranges, but since apparently this is the core of your thinking I have to spend more time on it. Hopefully soon.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 548 by GDR, posted 10-11-2018 2:38 AM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 550 by PaulK, posted 10-11-2018 8:39 AM Faith has replied
 Message 560 by GDR, posted 10-11-2018 2:38 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 551 of 1677 (841292)
10-11-2018 9:00 AM
Reply to: Message 550 by PaulK
10-11-2018 8:39 AM


Re: loving God
The term "genocide" is the moral equivalent of the term "murder." God cannot commit murder, but He does execute the death penalty against criminals, idolators, and so on, in whatever numbers they are guilty.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 550 by PaulK, posted 10-11-2018 8:39 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 552 by PaulK, posted 10-11-2018 9:07 AM Faith has replied
 Message 556 by Phat, posted 10-11-2018 12:22 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 553 of 1677 (841302)
10-11-2018 9:17 AM
Reply to: Message 552 by PaulK
10-11-2018 9:07 AM


Re: loving God
Oh let's not get into one of those interminable semantic messes. The definition failed to identify it as murder but that's what it means. They didn't have God in mind who judges entire tribes and nations.
ABE: "Justifiable genocide" wouldn't work because it still implies less than the absolute perfect justice enacted by God.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 552 by PaulK, posted 10-11-2018 9:07 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 554 by PaulK, posted 10-11-2018 9:39 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 558 of 1677 (841341)
10-11-2018 2:34 PM
Reply to: Message 554 by PaulK
10-11-2018 9:39 AM


Re: loving God
I can't be wrong about this because God cannot commit sin and what is being called genocide is in fact justice. We don't call the death penalty homicide, nor should we call it genocide.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 554 by PaulK, posted 10-11-2018 9:39 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 562 by PaulK, posted 10-11-2018 2:48 PM Faith has replied
 Message 563 by caffeine, posted 10-11-2018 2:51 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 559 of 1677 (841342)
10-11-2018 2:38 PM
Reply to: Message 556 by Phat
10-11-2018 12:22 PM


Re: loving God
All that just illustrates the unfortunate fact that American Christians are biblically illiterate, which was demonstrated amply enough by the general inability of Christian leaders to recognize that 9/11 was God's judgment on the nation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 556 by Phat, posted 10-11-2018 12:22 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 561 of 1677 (841345)
10-11-2018 2:47 PM
Reply to: Message 560 by GDR
10-11-2018 2:38 PM


Re: God's Justice
So you are going to limit God by saying that He can’t do anything wrong.
Limit God? By understanding that He is absolute Perfection? What on earth has happened to bring such a nonsensical idea about? I can't fathom this weirdness. Why would you even WANT an imperfect God? I ADORE His perfections, His perfect beauty, His perfect understanding, His perfect moral law, His perfect judgments, His perfect righteousness, His perfect power, His perfect knowledge . I'm aghast at such an idea as an imperfect God.
Presumably then you are saying that because He is God then whatever He does is right.
Absolutely, unequivocally, unquestionably, right. That is why we can use the Bible as our standard for judging absolutely everything and don't have to second guess anything or wonder which part is true etc etc etc.
I'm so flabbergasted by this idea there may be nothing else to say about the rest of what you wrote, but I'll come back and see.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 560 by GDR, posted 10-11-2018 2:38 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 569 by GDR, posted 10-11-2018 3:07 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 565 of 1677 (841350)
10-11-2018 2:52 PM
Reply to: Message 562 by PaulK
10-11-2018 2:48 PM


Re: loving God
All I'm trying to do is get the standard idea about this recognized. You want to change definitions and fool around with words in such a way as to obscure my simple point that God cannot be wrong or unjust. I'm not insisting that you agree with me, but I am insisting that you stop confusing things so that my opinion can't even be correctly stated.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 562 by PaulK, posted 10-11-2018 2:48 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 566 of 1677 (841351)
10-11-2018 2:54 PM
Reply to: Message 563 by caffeine
10-11-2018 2:51 PM


Re: loving God
I'm not talking about some kind of prissy pedantic legal definition, I'm talking about how ordinary people talk about these things. Yikes, why can't a simple point get recognized around here?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 563 by caffeine, posted 10-11-2018 2:51 PM caffeine has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 568 by caffeine, posted 10-11-2018 3:04 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 571 of 1677 (841366)
10-11-2018 7:21 PM
Reply to: Message 570 by PaulK
10-11-2018 3:15 PM


Re: Genocide - clearing up the confusion
God is perfect. He can do no wrong. Like it or not it is justice when He wipes out a tribe of people, and we should learn from it what God considers deserving of such punishment because some nations are ripe for it today. The kinds of punishments are listed in Deuteronomy and Leviticus and we are already suffering the beginnings of some of them, but very few of us take the Bible seriously enough to recognize this. In any case the word "genocide" has criminal connotations, therefore it does not apply.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 570 by PaulK, posted 10-11-2018 3:15 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 576 by PaulK, posted 10-12-2018 12:22 AM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 572 of 1677 (841368)
10-11-2018 7:31 PM
Reply to: Message 569 by GDR
10-11-2018 3:07 PM


Re: God's Justice
You see God as perfectly embodied in Jesus, as He came to us in His first advent. That way you limit Him to His work as savior and Suffering Servant and conveniently ignore that He is going to come again to destroy the enemies of God (Isaiah 61:2 and Revelation 19). He's God, GDR, He's God the Son; He was at the Creation; all things were made through Him. There is no way His character is any different from that of God the Father, who wiped out whole tribes for their idolatries. You are deceiving yourself.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 569 by GDR, posted 10-11-2018 3:07 PM GDR has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 578 by Phat, posted 10-12-2018 10:00 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 573 of 1677 (841369)
10-11-2018 7:40 PM
Reply to: Message 568 by caffeine
10-11-2018 3:04 PM


Re: loving God
Yes, legally, strictly speaking, you are using the terms correctly. The problem is that "genocide" carries connotations that do not apply to God. Yes, God may wipe out a whole tribe of people in judgment for their sins.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 568 by caffeine, posted 10-11-2018 3:04 PM caffeine has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 599 by Aussie, posted 10-15-2018 9:29 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1445 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 574 of 1677 (841372)
10-11-2018 7:50 PM
Reply to: Message 560 by GDR
10-11-2018 2:38 PM


Re: God's Justice
You go even further and justify the actions of the 9/11 terrorists and agreeing that they were simply acting as agents of God.
I knew you would misread this. No I am not justifying the evil perpetrators of 9/11, I'm simply saying that God can use people with evil motives to perform His will in this world. He used the Assyrians and the Babylonians against His people Israel in the same way. But He will punish them in the end for their murderousness. {abe: on a smaller scale Joseph tells his brothers who had sold him into slavery in Egypt years before, that they had intended it for evil but God intended it for good./abe}
And 9/11 was also a display of great mercies by God. There are many miracle stories from that day, people who know God protected them in various ways. Overall it was a love tap of a judgment compared to what judgment can be. a reminder to repent. But we haven't and we won't. Some churches may have repented on behalf of the nation, I hope so, but very few because it was clear from the Christian reaction on that day that most of them wrongly thought of it the way you do.
so unbelievably far from what Jesus lived and taught, and this is what happens when Christians make a false idol out of the Bible instead of actually following Jesus. Your understanding of God becomes no different than the god of the 9/11 terrorists.
Well, not at all because the God of Islam has his followers murder people who reject him. The true God makes precise judgments for known sins. Understanding how God functions in this world is something we are charged to do: the Old Testament was "given for our admonition" it says somewhere in the New Testament. We are supposed to understand God's workings in the world, His judgments for sin and so on. It's supposed to benefit us to know that. We remain ignorant of most of the things that happen in the world if we treat the OT the way you do and unfortunately so many so called Christians do.
Yes God was involved that day. He was active in the hearts of those who risked their lives rescuing people and in the hearts of those that reached out to the families of the victims. He suffered with those who lost their lives and their families.
All that is ALSO true. But since you hate the God of the Old Testament you will never get the whole picture and will always miss God's judgments against sin, and when they are missed and denied they accumulate and bring on worse judgment.
Again, Jesus came to suffer and save, but He's coming again to judge the earth. You see Him only in the role you like.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 560 by GDR, posted 10-11-2018 2:38 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 575 by Hyroglyphx, posted 10-11-2018 11:15 PM Faith has replied
 Message 586 by GDR, posted 10-12-2018 1:03 PM Faith has replied

  
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