Christian Laws

"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." (John 1:4)The implied exhortation is that we should enter into the realm of His life, His Person and His presence. Then His life which is the light of men would be our light also.The receiving of Christ is the receiving of "the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man." (v.9)Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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I thought it also concerns Christian principles. You said in essence "no laws, only Christian principles are in the NT. And they are in the spirit of the OT Law and advance them forward."

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Actually I said: I am referring to the present, not the NT. Again we are dealing with actual behaviors not creative concepts.ABE: This discussion has shown that the behaviors required in the NT followed Jewish Laws.

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Each of these prinicples I mentioned effects behaviors. And note, I only asked you to indentify the OT laws being brought forward in these Christian principles.

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Again we are talking about actual behaviors, not what effects behaviors. If this was a true statement we wouldn't be having this discussion.They all go back to stopping wrong behavior (repent) and starting right behavior, which is what the OT also expects.What this thread is supposed to be listing are what is considered specific right behavior for Christians, not the creative writings skills of the writers used to influence their audience.Edited by purpledawn, : ABE

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

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"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." (John 1:4)

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The implied exhortation is that we should enter into the realm of His life, His Person and His presence. Then His life which is the light of men would be our light also.

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The receiving of Christ is the receiving of "the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man." (v.9)

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But how is this manifested in reality and day to day living which is what we are talking about in this thread?

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

It surprises me that you would say that. I tried to talk about subjective experience of Christ on a practical daily bases before.I talked about the encrease of light leading to confession leading in turn to more light, and more confession. That is the cycle of the ever deepening enfluence of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life.Life, in the New Testament is derived from three Greek words. Depending on the context we ascertain what is being spoken of.Bios - is the physical life and usually involves the body.
Psuche - is the pschychological life and involves the soul.
Zoe - is the divine and eternal life of God."In Him was life [zoe] and the life was the light of men" pertains to the life of God.For God's life to be light to men, I feel refers mostly to the human conscience. The conscience of sinful man is dull. What we do as sinners we have no sense of the corruption and evil of.The life of God entering into man as she receives Jesus into the heart, encreases the inward sense of the conscience. The gradual shining of the light of life (with our cooperation) starts to cause us in our daily life, to see things through God's eyes. It causes us to begin to view and hear more and more matters with the mind of Christ.Our attitudes, tastes, and actions begin to take on more and more the personality Christ.It is not a matter of "What would Jesus do?" It becomes "What is Jesus in me doing?"To the extend I surrender to what Jesus is doing in me, I am being set free. It is very comfortable. And the reason we are so sure that Christ is alive is that we could not draw up these actions in ourselves before. Imagine power steering. He empowers us.At the same time He is very gentle. The symbol of the Holy Spirit in Bible is a dove. He never coerces. He never usurps the human will. But like power steering compounds more power to a simnple human action of turning the steering wheel, so we are empowered by His grace as we abide in Him.

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Our attitudes, tastes, and actions begin to take on more and more the personality Christ.

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Actual manifestation today please!

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At the same time He is very gentle. The symbol of the Holy Spirit in Bible is a dove. He never coerces. He never usurps the human will. But like power steering compounds more power to a simnple human action of turning the steering wheel, so we are empowered by His grace as we abide in Him.

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That is not the face of Christianity today. Christianity is very much about coercion. The dove is irrelevant.So a Christian should not be blowing up abortion clinics, or killing abortion doctors. A Christian should not be knocking on my door selling religion. I shouldn't see billboards advertising Christianity.What you say and what we see in reality aren't the same.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

I never mentioned Christianity. When I set out to follow Christ, I asked Him to put me with Christians who would encourage my faith and not discourage it. He answered that prayer.I realize that many people are upset about religious activists. But I did not let these things stop me from learning to abide in Christ. It is not as if Jesus did not warn us. I think you are prone to follow media hype. You are upset and angered. Maybe I have had even more reason to be turned off.But all in all I focused my eyes on Christ and I asked God to put me with brothers and sisters that gave me reasons to continue with Jesus. That was over 30 years ago and God has been faithful.The church life is glorious in many cities over this globe.Sucuri WebSite Firewall - Access DeniedAnd we feel victorious. We're not going to lay down and die because some nut case blew up a clinic. You don't trash Evolution because some highschool kids without a sense of meaning to human life shot up their fellows students at Columbine.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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I never mentioned Christianity.

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Christianity is not a living entity. Christianity is made up of Christians. So when we talk about what Christians are supposed to do, we look at what is taught within the Christian religion, Christianity.I'm not interested in what you personally do. This thread is looking at what behavior all Christians will be held accountable for.Like Hillel before him, Jesus brought a more humane and universal notion of Torah interpretation. The spirit of the law as opposed to the letter of the law. If one gets the spirit right, the details will take care of themselves.We look at what the authors are trying to tell their audience and bring that spirit forward when obeying the laws of our own individual nations all the way down to our communities and families.There are no Christian laws, there are only Christian principles derived from the spirit of the ancient writings and the experiences of people who have gone before. (Message 114)

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I think you are prone to follow media hype. You are upset and angered.

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The media doesn't necessarily show reality. I don't put much stock into the news media.

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Maybe I have had even more reason to be turned off.

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Don't fret. You don't have any influence on me. Just remember, it's dogma I battle; not God.

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And we feel victorious. We're not going to lay down and die because some nut case blew up a clinic. You don't trash Evolution because some highschool kids without a sense of meaning to human life shot up their fellows students at Columbine.

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You implied in Message 229 that one who accepts Christ will be changed. Their attitudes, tastes, and actions will change and take on the personality of Christ. Then you gave characteristics of Jesus: These characteristics are not evident in all Christians.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

WTF?? What does Columbine have to do with evolution?I eagerly await your answer and rationale.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Refering to the personal journal of Eric Kliebold: Now, dance for us."But ... But .... But ... But ... you don't understand Evolution!"Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Hi jaywill,You miss the point. The point of the theory of Evolution is not whether it is comforting or morally uplifting. It is not even whether Eric Kliebold understood it correctly or not.Evolution is supported by the evidence. It is supported by all the available evidence and it is not contradicted by any evidence.Evolution is true. There is no other point. The ToE is not expected to contain moral lessons or values, nor should it.The same cannot be said of religion, which should have moral lessons and values. The criticism that religions and religious practitioners only have a patchy track record in this regard seems fair to me.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

I like your description of your practical experience of Christ. I don't know for sure what was the original premis of this 'topic' was, but I think this experience of Christ growing in us is the culmination of the purpose of the law.I wanted to mention Hebrews 8:8-10, a quotation of Jeremiah 31:31-34. These are verses regarding the new covenant. (Pardon my quoting from memory) 'I will impart my laws into their mind and on their hearts I will inscribe them'. What was formerly outside on tablets is now inscribed within. In my experience, I liken it to being given a new appetite.Once I saw a robin strenuously pulling an big night crawler our of my garden. It was obviously motivated by some relish. I was thinking, I'd never like to eat an earthworm, but it occurred to me that the earthworm probably tasted good to the robin. I sure people who saw me read the Bible when I was a young Christian in the Army thought I was strange too. They had no appetite for it, but I had received a new appetite - new laws were insctibed in my heart.The law is called the testimony of God, and, by inscribing His laws into our hearts and on our minds, He is making us into His expression.Jesus did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Matt 5:17). (However, He is the end of the law unto righteoussness (Rom 10:4). Righteous is imputed, and based on imputed righteousness, His divine life is also imparted.)I also like Romans 8:4 - 'that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.' It is fulfilled in us, but not by ourselves alone, as you mentioned, like power steering.

Some lunatic high school kids mention natural selection, therefore TOE is responsible for Columbine?With this rationale then christians are responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing and every other act of violence committed by a christian.It is unbelievable the levels you have sunk to try to discredit TOE, but all you do is make yourself look silly and ridiculous.OH ignorant and uneducated too.Yeah and WTF is this supposed to mean? DO you think you made an evolutionist look stupid because you quoted Eric Kleibold? This isn't new. What is news is that someone would be so out of touch that they would equate this as saying TOE or "evolutionists" are responsible for Columbine.Please build on this and explain how this all works. I am still waiting for your rationale. So far you havent backed up your comment with squat.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I think Jaywill's point is that "nutcases" do bad things. Some may use a religious justification, some may use an evolution justification. He thinks both are equally wrong. Or something like that.The topic title/theme is "Christian Laws". All messages should connect up with that theme.NO REPLIES TO THIS MESSAGE.Adminnemooseus

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To understand what Christians should do we should look to what the New Testament teaches.What the New Testament teaches seems secondary to you. For your purpose of discrediting the Gospel you desire to look at what religious people do as an "anity" focusing on the media's sensational leading stories of violent activism.This bias you dignify with such language as "we look at what is taught within the Christian religion, Christianity." This is contradictory. You are saying we want to examine what "all Christians do" but exclude the one you are presently speaking with.Secondly, what we should be focusing on is what the New Testament teaches. You do not have to go to modern day media hype to find Christians behaving poorly. You would only have to go to the first epistle of Corinthians and see that there were many failures, defects, problems, sins with the Christians in the church in Corinth.But the record of what some of them did is not the record of what is taught by the New Testament as principles to live by. There is a difference between what the Bible teaches and what the Bible records as having happened.The church in Corinth was no utopia. There were varying levels of maturity among the believers. Some were discribed by Paul as being fleshy and fleshly, not a positive discreption for disciples of Jesus. Some Paul rebuked as being carnal.This letter to Corinth was a glimpse into the typical church life of the believers, frought with problems. At the same time we do see many positive testimonies of mature believers throughout the epistles. They were not all a mess.The ones who overcame degradation are the ones who are normal in their following what the New Testament teaches. They are consistent with it. And they became that way often through patience and growth and not because they instaneously became upright people.They learned as Paul and his co-workers did, to walk by the Spirit, to abide in Christ, to let Christ abide in them, as the New Testament TEACHES.In this topic I take "Christians principles" or even your usage of the phrase Christian laws" to mean what the Christian Gospel teaches. Yes, you have said that. And I agree somewhat. But I gave you several cases which you apparently were not too easily able to show were "carried forward" Old Testament laws.In the Old Testament you have no regeneration, no indwelling of God, union of the human spirit with the Holy Spirit - "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17). You have in the Old Testament no imparting of God's life into man and no co-death with Christ. The revelation of the Bible is progressive and dispensational.For this you do not have to take my word for it. The Old Testament itself tells of God's desiring to make a "new covenant" with the house of Israel not according to the old covenant. I think you are attempting to basically blur the distinction or perhaps prove that there is none.It is true that the distinction is blurred in the minds of many Christians oft times. But that is not the fault of what the New Testament teaches. So you have a book like Galatians in which the Christians were not clear about the difference from the old covenant and the new.Paul labored with them because they had been "bewitched". They had evilly been distracted from the Gospel of grace and were being cheated into going back to Old Covenant Law keeping in the strength of thier flesh. Paul was trying to bring them into walking by the Spirit. And he labored to have Christ formed in them. That is the living and resurrected Jesus imparting His own available nature and Person into them, taking shape, devloping, maturing, and comforming them to His own image.That is what the NT teaches. That is a slight improvement over looking at the shooting of a man at a clinic and claiming and implying that this is a norm for Christian behavior.However, I gave you several principles taught in the New Testament and you seemed unable or unclear about locating what Old Testament laws were being brought forth.You could have turned to question to me to see if I could locate the "seed" commands of these principles. Since I regard that Old Testament as a picture and the New Testament as the caption under the picture, I am pretty certain somewhere in the Old Testament is at least the shadow of the substance of these New Testament exhortations. Some of them would be in typology. Some would be in ordinances delivered in the Mosaic law.And it is through the New Testament experience many of the shadows and types of that reality can be seen more clearly in the Old Testmanet. God's economy was progressively revealed. Yet you could not identify what laws were being brought forward in several cases that I asked you about. So you really haven't proved your case in those instances. I could probably mention many more.Why have you not been able to demonstrate what Old Testament law was being brought forward? You could simply admit that you cannot find them. I am not freting at all. That was my point. That is true, if they grow. So many parables of Christ teach this. The parable of the sower and the different kinds of soil in Matthew 13:1-23 teaches that the heart the receives the word of the kingdom of the heavens needs cultivation.There was the seed sown by the wayside. There was the seed sown on rocky soil. There was the seed sown among thorns. There was the seed sown on cleared and cultivated soil. It is painfully obvious that the life of Christ sown into the hearts of men must fight through much and grow. Hence we also have Paul laboring with the Galatians that Christ would be formed in them.There is no magic wand that produces mature overcomers in Christ instantaneously.Regeneration is instantaneous. Transformation is not. Birth takes only a moment. Growth into adulthood is not quick. Being born again only takes a second. Dispositional sanctification and transformation of the soul takes a lifetime. I wonder what percentage of your thought is only motivated by the desire to accuse. It is comforting for skeptics to continually point out bad behaviors of anyone lifting of the banner of "Christian" whether they are or not, to rationalize that the Gospel is not worth their serious attention.Some of us are interested in the "normal Chrisitian life" not in the average Christian life. And some of us are interested in what the New Testament teaches not in what it or anyone else simply records as having happened.I showed you I could play your witch hunt game with Evolution.Anyway, if the normal overcoming and victorious walk were evident in all Christians that would be wonderful. In the mean time some of us have a lot to do to cultivate and help the saints to grow as we ourselves also grow.Had I written the Bible I would have not had the letter to the church in Corinth as a representative of a Christian church at all. I see much more maturity in Ephesus or Philippi. Even the letter to the Romans had many examples of relatively more victorious Christians in chapter 16 where Paul recommends so many.I have never been impressed with the rational that because all Christians are not instantaneously victorious from the moment they beleived therefore the Gospel is not valid.And we seek to "become imitators of those who through faith and longsuffering are inheriting the promises" (Heb.6:12) We rejoice that some of us are indeed inheriting the promises of abiding in Christ to be "more than conquorers".So the New Testament has 27 books rather than just a few chapters about people magically changed to moral perfection in an instant. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Nope.I pointed out that it is easy to be bias. Kliebold proposed helping your beloved natural selection by mass murder.Not much difference in me doing that from PD pointing to the murder of a doctor at a clinic as standard Christian behavior - BIAS.But some skeptics have glass jaws. They want to dish it out in spades to Christians but whine when a serving of the same type comes around to them. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.