The God That Paul Marketed Over Time.

Did he define imminent as two thousand years and counting? A lot of people have life-transforming events. Sometimes they transform your life for the better, sometimes for the worse.

You said yourself that Paul believed Christ's return was "imminent". Today's end-timers say Christ's return is (still) imminent. Tell them that the "signs" they are seeing are meant for a much later audience, two thousand years from now. No. That distinction doesn't work. Being paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair would definitely be a life-transforming event but few people would say it was for the better. Of course transformation can be something you do, like overcoming an addiction. You seem to be obsessed with the idea of somebody else doing it for you - or to you.

No, he says that HE (and the other apostles) received "grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.""We" are not all apostles. "We" are called by the apostles to obey. How can "we" obey without doing? You're imagining that emphasis. Again it comes back to what I have asked you many times: What does it mean to believe in somebody? Does it just mean believing that the messenger existed or does it mean believing in the message?What does it mean to "have God in you"? Doesn't it mean to internalize the message?If you internalize the message - i.e. if you DO what Jesus told you to do - you do "have God in you" whether you say, "Lord! Lord!" or not.And if you DON'T do what Jesus told you to do, you DON'T "have God in you".

YOU don't get it. The messenger is irrelevant. Whether he exists now or whether he ever existed doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you believe about the messenger. HE wanted you to believe in the message. I have never said any such thing. I say that we have to take responsibility. If we just sit around having faith, watching our fellow man suffer, we will never have inner peace.It is not the faith that brings inner peace. The faith is supposed to produce the works. If there are no works, there is no real faith. Faith without works is dead.And frankly, the inner peace is less important than the works. You keep ignoring the question: What does it mean to "know God"? What does it mean to "have God in you"? What does it mean to "believe in God"?How can you know God without doing what He wants you to do? How can you have God in you without doing what He wants you to do? How can you believe in God without doing what He wants you to do?The DOING is the sign that your faith is real. It's the fruit that keeps your dead branch from being thrown into the fire. It's what distinguishes the sheep from the goats. You're twisting the metaphor. The root is not a source that gives the plant purpose. It's a part of the plant. The root nourished the plant and the plant nourished the root.

I should have been more explicit with my quote. I was referring to, "...you think that it is we who determine our own inner peace." I can do this all day: What does it mean to love God?Does it mean to blather mindlessly: Or do we love God BY loving our neighbour?

I don't think there was much difference between Saul's belief and Paul's. What changed on the road to Damascus was the way he externalized that belief. Why did Winston Churchill change from a Liberal to a Conservative (or vice versa, whichever it was)? Was it because he changed? Or was it because he thought one party could forward his aims better than the other? Both Saul and Paul did what (they thought) God wanted them to do. Saul took the Jewish hierarchy at their word and Paul took Jesus at His word. Who's to say which of them, if either, was right? It shows that his idea of what God wanted him to do changed. He would, wouldn't he? That was the message he was selling. It's like Henry Ford telling you that God wants you to buy his cars.Edited by ringo, : "Whose" --> "Who's"

That's nonsense. Our own problems are ongoing. We can't sit and watch the world burn until our own petty problems are solved. We HAVE to solve the world's problems alongside our own. On the contrary, we need to have our own internal source of wisdom and love. How it gets internalized is optional. If you want to believe it came from God or Long John Silver that's fine, as long as it's internalized and not just an outward profession.

And I will continue to point out that the only sign that "we actually have Gods Spirit within us" is when we bear fruit:

quote:

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Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

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How on earth would that enhance responsibility?

What does any of that have to do with responsibility?You're suggesting that you're more comfortable "with God in you" and thus you're more capable of helping others? But the reality is that people who profess to "have God in them" often make excuses for not helping others - the old "feed the soul before the stomach" nonsense, for example.I would say that seeing other people in need makes me uncomfortable, which enhances my sense of responsibility.

I don't think I've ever said that works are a justification. The doctrine was that "by grace are ye saved through faith" - i.e. faith is the justification. BUT, as I keep trying to tell you, real faith is manifested by works. Works are the only outward sign of real faith. If you don't do the works, you ain't got the faith, no matter what you profess. The only real value of the faith is the works that it produces.

Matthew 25. What would that add?

And my question is why don't you frame every envelope that comes in the mail? How do you decide which envelopes are more important than their contents? I'm asking you. What does a framed envelope on your wall add?

We're talking about neither. We're talking about putting the container before the contents. That's just meaningless gibberish.The message is, "Love God and love thy neighbour as thyself." How can you love God except by loving your neighbour?But that isn't even the message that Jesus brought. We already had that message. Paul said so.The message that Jesus brought was, "Don't let religion get in the way of what you already know. You know it's right to help people so don't let arbitrary rules like the Sabbath get in the way of that." Jesus brought that message to the Jews and Paul extended it to the Gentiles.You're doing exactly the opposite. Will Matthew 25 convince you?

Genesis agrees that we inherited the knowledge of good and evil from Adam and Eve. And Paul agrees that the Gentiles follow the law instinctively. That's just mumbo-jumbo. That still isn't true, no matter how many times you tell yourself it is. In fact, I would love to be able to believe in a sky-daddy who would make everything better. It just isn't true. I don't need to be reminded. Ask Paul. That's what I'm asking you: Why do you ignore the general principle in Matthew 25 and attach yourself to a few specifics that seem to contradict it? You should be starting from the general and judging the specifics by the general, not using the specifics as an excuse to discard the general.

That makes NO sense. I keep asking you, do you frame the envelope and throw away the letter? Of course you don't. That would be stupid. So why do you keep making the same senseless response? We're gonna trust the friggin' MESSAGE. I think your interpretation is mumbo jumbo. It says, "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God." Your interpretation about Jesus existing from the beginning is nonsense. Do you read anything I write at all? I have told you time after time after time that I believe we have a responsibility to do what we can to make the world a better place. Nobody is going to do it for us. And yet you can't demonstrate that power.