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Author Topic:   Have You Ever Read Ephesians?
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 121 of 383 (689149)
01-28-2013 2:54 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by Jazzns
01-28-2013 11:14 AM


Re: Paul versus Jesus
It doesn't really matter what KIND of slavery you are talking about. People as property or people as debt still makes the message, that slave masters should stop malice toward their slaves, completely incongruent with the message from Jesus and the early Apostles in Acts that the rich should sell their property and share their resources. This would include presumably freeing your slaves regardless if it was physical bondage or debt bondage.
As I said, my own ancestors were black African slaves. So as a black man and a Christian you can believe that I have wrestled with these issues.
I well could have thrown my lot in with Elijah Mohammed or Louis Farrakan years ago and become a member of the Nation of Islam (ie. Black Moslems ). Don't think no attempt to recruit me was not made many times.
I could dismiss the Christian Gospel in total as "the white man's religion" (right or wrong) and become a militant Black Supremacist of some type.
I only repeat this to assure you that the issue does touch me personally.
Now, since I decided the follow Jesus and His Gospel and His apostles in the "great commission" (as you suggest) I have to more nuanced and careful examination of the issues.
It seems to me that you are saying that What Paul the Apostle SHOULD have filled his epistles with is, for example -
Instructions to Roman gladiators how to escape custody and ferment insurrections.
Instructions to bondervants on escape or assasination of their masters (that is legal ones in the eyes of the Roman government).
Plans for the churches to gather for public protests in Rome and Athens.
Explicit recommendations for all married women to take their husbands to court.
Recommendations for the rich women patrons of Paul's ministry to immediatly dump their husbands.
Instructions for soldiers, guards and members of the military to marshal their forces for armed revolution against their generals, masters, employers, authorities.
Is this the New Testament epistles by Paul which you think would be more an expression of the teaching of Jesus ? That is a full fledged activist zealot? Do you imagine his letters should read little more like a bullitin to the members of the Westfield Baptist Church only with a militant socially progressive agenda?
I think if this is the case then I wonder why Jesus didn't just dismiss most of the disciples and retain the ones from the Zealots.
What I see is not a militant social reformer on behalf of slaves, gladiators, soldiers, women, prisoners. What I see is a man presenting a resurrected Lord and Savior who, in ANY social situation, in ANY social circumstance, in ANY political system, is able to empower from within, apart from legal decree, the ability to overcome.
I do not see a preacher endorsing the current social customs. I see an apostle equiping the believer to know that there is no troublesome environment that can put the Christ within them down. They are "more than conquerors" through Him.
Laws will change. Governments will change. What is legal or unlegal with the world's governments will change. Whatever the change, Christ is prevailing in the believers.
I see Paul living himself by, and teaching of an all-fitting Christ who can cause the believers to be victorious no matter what the social order of the day is.
The value of their debt owed to the master would BETTER be spent working on the great commission.
Paul was in a Roman prison when he wrote some of these letters. His wisdom and words have been a sustaining encouragement to millions down through the ages.
On one hand we wish he had not been locked up. Perhaps he could have written more and accomplished more. Part of the reason his teaching is so effective is because he did not instruct anyone to do what he himself was not doing.
He lived by and in Christ in that hellish situation that God permitted him to be in.
I prefer that my ancestors had not been slaves on Southern plantations. But I know they were also sustained by Philippians, by Ephesians, by the Acts of the Apostles.
We certainly need a God of the free man. But we also needed a God of the enslaved man as well. Concerning any and all situations a man may receive the message of the great commission Paul wrote -
"But in all these things we more than conquer through Him who loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels not principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to serparate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 8:37-38)
You speak of "the great commission." But the result of the great commission is the testimony of the great endurance of the church to withstand every imaginable kind of attack, from within and from without.
Every kind of social order, political system, custom of the day legal or illegal, even supernatural attack (" nor angels ") ... that nothing can quench the faith and destroy the Gospel has been manifested through the centries.
So from a Roman prison, chained to probably to two guards, the apostle wrote us "According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I will be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death.
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." (Phil. 1:20,21)
I am glad the apostle wrote this word for the slave to hear, for the wife to hear, for the gladiator to hear, for the prisoner to hear, for the tax collector to hear, and every person who responds to the great commission to hear.
I am glad Paul did not write from prison "Oh, you are a married woman under the customary authority of your husband? Sorry. Forget about being a Christian. But let me know if you ever get free from that situation and I'll teach you about the Son of God then."
Keeping a slave after becoming a Christian is very similar to the husband and wife who kept back a portion of their land in Acts.
Very interesting point. That is because Ananias and Saphira did what they did to LOOK GOOD to the congregation. You might even say they wished to look "politically correct."
God was not concerned for the show of a facade. He wanted real freedom from riches and real trust in Christ. They pretended.
Likewise, it is not a show of social equity that Christ wants but a deep freedom in reality.
Once a art teacher made an assignment to his art students. She asked them to paint a picture and call it "Peace."
One student painted a nice sunset over the forest.
Another student painted sunrise over a quiet meadow.
Another student painted cloudless day over a still sea.
But one student painted a thunderous waterfall with torrents of water tumbling over rocks in what appeared as a deafening roar. And in front of the waterfall was a little branch of a tree with a little bird asleep upon it.
This was titled "Peace."
This is an important aspect of Christ's great commission. In the world we will have tribulation. But we should fear not because He has overcome the world.
The rest of your post is a tangent that I dont' care to get into. I am sorry. I don't feel like playing the equivocation game in order to rescue Paul here.
Any problem that you claim to have with your darling whipping boy Paul, can be easily noticed to be a problem actually with God and Christ.
We know Paul is the darling target of the modernist. But Paul's words in his letters can only be traced back in concept, for the most part, to something Jesus the Son of God already said.
Now, I don't know about tangents, but it does kill me to have to come down from the loftier aspects of the Ephesian epistle to spend a lot of energy on this offensive to many, single passage from chapter 5. But something should be said.
Now you tell me. In your revized Ephesian epistle, when you take a pair of scissors to the passage about wives submitting to their OWN husbands, are you also going to cut away the instructions to the husbands ?
So we Christian males may also throw off the exhortation to love our wives laying down our lives for them as Christ did for the church ?
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
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Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 119 by Jazzns, posted 01-28-2013 11:14 AM Jazzns has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 122 by Jazzns, posted 01-28-2013 3:40 PM jaywill has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 122 of 383 (689159)
01-28-2013 3:40 PM
Reply to: Message 121 by jaywill
01-28-2013 2:54 PM


Re: Paul versus Jesus
It seems to me that you are saying that What Paul the Apostle SHOULD have filled his epistles with is, for example -
Instructions to Roman gladiators how to escape custody and ferment insurrections.
Instructions to bondervants on escape or assasination of their masters (that is legal ones in the eyes of the Roman government).
Plans for the churches to gather for public protests in Rome and Athens.
Explicit recommendations for all married women to take their husbands to court.
Recommendations for the rich women patrons of Paul's ministry to immediatly dump their husbands.
Instructions for soldiers, guards and members of the military to marshal their forces for armed revolution against their
generals, masters, employers, authorities.
Absolutly not. Although I would not have a problem with the writings of a revolutionary to encourage his people in uprising, such words would ALSO be incongruent with the original Paul and Jesus.
A simple edict for masters to free their slaves from bondage and to witness to them so that they might also serve Christ would have been more fitting with the gospel message and the ideals of the apostles in Acts.
Laws will change. Governments will change. What is legal or unlegal with the world's governments will change. Whatever the
change, Christ is prevailing in the believers.
I don't think it was the law that people HAD to own slaves. THAT the slaves remained slaves seems to be at least somewhat up to the goodwill of the masters. If Christ was truly prevailing in the believers who were masters, it seems to me that a better message to have delivered by his supposidly inspired apostle would be to FREE those slaves if possible. Not to wallow in the institution of slavery.
I am glad the apostle wrote this word for the slave to hear, for the wife to hear, for the gladiator to hear, for the prisoner to hear, for the tax collector to hear, and every person who responds to the great commission to hear.
Paul did not write down the different types of people just to appeal to them. He did so in order to encourage them to ACT in a particular way according to their role. The criticism is not that this Paul chose to mention masters. The criticims is what he told them to do, in particular that they should remain masters. THAT is what is not concordant with the teachings of Jesus, what is described in Acts, and what the earlier real Paul actually taught.
Any problem that you claim to have with your darling whipping boy Paul, can be easily noticed to be a problem actually with God and Christ.
You are projecting again. I actually don't have that many problems with Paul the original. I also don't have that many problems with Jesus. I do have a problem with the faker Paul(s) and I do have a problem with God. But that has nothing to do with the fact that the people who supposidly speak for God can't get on the same message.
My problem with God, if he is as is described in the Bible, is that he is a sadistic and evil dictator who has no business appealing to the cause of human suffering. But that is for a different thread!
We know Paul is the darling target of the modernist. But Paul's words in his letters can only be traced back in concept, for the most part, to something Jesus the Son of God already said.
I have read the gospels. I really don't recall having read about Jesus saying anything that makes women to be inferior or that slavery is okay for believer to maintain. Can you tie Ephesians 5-6 back to something Jesus said? Please be specific.
Now you tell me. In your revized Ephesian epistle, when you take a pair of scissors to the passage about wives submitting to their OWN husbands, are you also going to cut away the instructions to the husbands ?
So we Christian males may also throw off the exhortation to love our wives laying down our lives for them as Christ did for the church ?
Don't get me wrong! Telling husbands to be good to their wives is a good and enduring idea! There are other things in Ephesians that are plainly just fine. But if you hand me a bowl of delicious ice cream with just a tiny little amount of shit mixed in it, I still will not eat it.
That is also besides the point I am making which you have yet to address. It is the incongruency in behavior, theology, language, all together that create the case that this "Paul", this writer of Ephesians, is a phony. The Paul of Ephesians is different than the Paul of Galatians. If Christianity is to have any credibility, it needs to stop basing its theology on people who feel they need to forge documents for their ideas to be accepted.

If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. --Carl Sagan

This message is a reply to:
 Message 121 by jaywill, posted 01-28-2013 2:54 PM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 124 by jaywill, posted 01-29-2013 9:47 AM Jazzns has replied

  
Richh
Member (Idle past 3738 days)
Posts: 94
From: Long Island, New York
Joined: 07-21-2009


Message 123 of 383 (689235)
01-28-2013 10:53 PM
Reply to: Message 111 by Jazzns
01-26-2013 2:47 PM


Re: Authenticity and Content - Content in this post
I am not sure if you consider your other quotes from Paul as adequately responding to the fact that there is nothing balanced at all. Nothing in the other quotes speaks to that point at all. Ephesians 5 is retrenching the existing IMBALANCE that existed at the time. Paul is essentially saying, "accept the imbalance and look to different things." I cannot possibly fathom how you can interpret those words in a different way.
Do you actually reject the entire section? Should not children obey their parents (even if you leave off 'in the Lord')? And should fathers exasperate their children? Do you actually reject the entire section?
Do you believe there is a divine order? Paul does:
I Corinthians 11:1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. 2 I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the teachings, just as I passed them on to you. 3 Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
If some abuse or misuse their position, God does not condone that. In fact that provokes His wrath:
Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ... 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
But I think it is true that Paul was not a social activist. He plainly stated his calling in a number of places, and that vocation (social activist) was not on the list. He had a higher calling. For example:
Acts 26:19 "So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. 20 First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.
I Corinthians 1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel-- not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Galatians 1:15 But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man,
Ephesians 3:7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power. 8 Although I am less than the least of all God's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ...
2 Timothy 1:8 So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, 9 who has saved us and called us to a holy life-- not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11 And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. 12 That is why I am suffering as I am.
Yet we have verses like these in Ephesians and Galatians that show God's life in man issuing in good works:
Ephesians 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-- it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.
It is not God’s order but man’s behavior within what God ordained that is evil.
Edited by Richh, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by Jazzns, posted 01-26-2013 2:47 PM Jazzns has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 125 by Jazzns, posted 01-29-2013 10:33 AM Richh has replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 124 of 383 (689270)
01-29-2013 9:47 AM
Reply to: Message 122 by Jazzns
01-28-2013 3:40 PM


Re: Paul versus Jesus
Absolutly not. Although I would not have a problem with the writings of a revolutionary to encourage his people in uprising,
Jazzn, Paul is encouraging them to death with and resurrection with Christ.
They are made alive with Christ (1:5).
They are raised up together with Christ (1:6).
They are seated above with Christ (1:6).
What comes out in resurrection can never be destroyed.
What is united with Christ in "organic" union of life cannot be oppressed, suppressed or depressed.
The reason that the saying went out that "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the saints" because they noticed that the more they were persecuted the more the truth of the risen Lord and Savior prevailed and spread.
You spoke of the great commission. You should realize that to baptize people into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is not there a ritualistic formula simply to pronounce. To baptize into the name of the Triune God is to immerse men in the Triune God. Utter identification and union of people with the Triune God. This is the great commission.
The uprising is oneness with a Jesus within them who cannot be put down.
Do you recall the story of Moses how he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.
Now that was revolutionary. It wasn't appreciated much by his fellow Hebrews.
He ended up running away and giving up his life's dream of being the Jewish liberator.
Then God worked on him and equiped him to lead the Israelites in the Exodus.
Man needs to take God's way for God's purpose and God's kingdom.
such words would ALSO be incongruent with the original Paul and Jesus.
Well, I really thing this Original Paul and Latter Fake Paul is purely of your imagination.
I think you and others have sought to concoct "Another" Paul so that you, perhaps, may selectively shop through the New Testament for ideas you want choose or discard. This is a rationale for nourishing pre-conceived biases.
I will try to demonstrate below that Paul was faithful to Jesus Christ and actually pioneered for us the Christian life.
A simple edict for masters to free their slaves from bondage and to witness to them so that they might also serve Christ would have been more fitting with the gospel message and the ideals of the apostles in Acts.
It is not insignificant that Paul instructs the slave masters of the church in Colossi -
"Masters, grant to your slaves that which is just and equal, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven." (4:1)
Since there cannot be slave and free man in the "one new man" the apostle instills the fear of God into the masters of that then legal system.
I do not see Paul demanding the Philemon free all his slaves. But I do see Paul telling Philemon that his slave is just as much a fellow worker and beloved brothers as any believer in his church or household, including his physical son. I see Paul telling Philemon to receive Onesimus as if he were Paul and Paul's heart. I see Paul reminding Philemon that he should do so because he owes his own life to Paul's preaching. And I see Paul demanding that any loss due to Onesimus be charged to Paul.
Finally I see Paul saying that he knows that Philemon will not just do what Paul asks but will go beyond what he asks.
In this way I see the apostle heaping coals of fire upon the conscience of the slave master which virtually amounts to the slave master having to free the slave. Yet the slave WAS afterall a member of the church in Colossi which met in the house of Philemon. So I do not see Paul instructing Philemon to get off to another city. Reconcilation in the Body of Christ is what I see and should see.
If Paul was interested in defending the kidnapping for slavery he would not have recalled that like murder, kidnapping was a transgression against the law of Moses.
Anyway, the apostle's priorities is nullifying social oppression and reconciling all equal members of the "one new man" where there cannot be slave and free man.
You know the northern Mennites and Quakers did mightily protest against the slave trade. But a good deal of them still would not like to have a black African living in their own neighberhood. They certainly were still afraid of intermarriage and intergration with the former slaves. I think the genuine liberation in Christ of the Gospel penetrates deeper than liberal social reform. For in the Body of Christ it is "Christ is all and in all."
I don't think it was the law that people HAD to own slaves.
Of course they didn't HAVE to own slaves.
In the spread of the great commission, which you seemed concerned for, men and women would come to believe in the Son of God, finding themselves in all kinds of situations.
How should the apostles help them to grow in Christ?
We do see Paul advizing slave to gain their freedom if they can.
But what if they cannot?
They should not abandon living in Christ the Lord for that reason. Rather they should use that to which they are obligated to as opportunity to testify of the life power of Christ. This was not something Paul himself was not living as he could not always be free from a Roman jailhouse.
" You were bought with a price; do not be slaves of men. Each one, brothers, in what [status] he was called, in this let him remain with God."
The words "remain with God" are key. It is not to remain without the God of resurrection. It is to remain but with the God who demonstrated His overcoming and victorious life in the resurrection of Christ.
Many times a person comes to Christ and as to his circumstances must "remain with God".
Indentured servants could not walk away because they are now Christians.
As for antebellum slavery of the American South, it has been overturned.
I believe that it was overturned by the soveriegnty of God so that He could bring about the "one new man" of the Body of Christ in practice.
THAT the slaves remained slaves seems to be at least somewhat up to the goodwill of the masters.
To the Christian master, Paul's word was to give to the slave what was just and equal.
This required them to live Christ as it required the servant to remain there with God.
I think to the unbelieving master, Paul's hope was that he would be won over to the gospel.
This was like the unbelieving spouse being won over if possible by the believing spouse.
"For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?" (1 Cor. 7:16)
If Christ was truly prevailing in the believers who were masters, it seems to me that a better message to have delivered by his supposidly inspired apostle would be to FREE those slaves if possible. Not to wallow in the institution of slavery.
I don't see any kind of encouragement to "wallow" in anything. I see Paul teaching the believers to be saturated and permeated with the living Lord Jesus in situations which they cannot be free from. The more the live Christ the more the habitation of in spirit is built up. All forms of human government are temporary until Christ's establishment of His kingdom on the whole earth. But He cannot and will not do this without a sizable group of those who have learned to be co-kings with him in his divine life.
Paul did not write down the different types of people just to appeal to them. He did so in order to encourage them to ACT in a particular way according to their role.
He taught them to live Christ, be filled with Christ, be permeated and saturated with the living and available Spirit of Jesus Christ.
The Good News is all about Jesus being alive and available. And in the seventh chapter of First Corinthians each kind of person is being encouraged to live in the sphere and realm of Christ. Christ is God incarnate. So Paul's word for them is to "remain with God" .
It is essentially the same in Ephesians. Each one is first instructed to be filled in spirit. And Paul prays that they would be strengthened into that realm of their inner man that Christ would make His home in their hearts through faith.
Circumstances drive us believers to faith in Christ. Then Christ makes His home in our mind, emotion, will, and conscience. It is not the acting as much as the REACTING. Spontaneously we believers learn to REACT out of the indwelling Jesus Christ because He has made His home in our hearts. And He is ever strengthening His jurisdiction over our souls.
"That He would grant you ... to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith,that you, being rooted and grounded in love, May be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints whatr the breadth and length and height and depth are ..." (See Eph. 3:16-19)
Here Christ is discribed as the limitless dimensions of the universe. He is of infinite capacity. He is the height. He is the depth. He is the length and the breadth. We cannot find the end of Him. Whatever situation we are in He can contain that and empower us. So He must strengthen us into the realm of His indwelling and make His home in our hearts. From His home in the heart He has His authority over the soul. We can overcome because He has been made Lord and we are subject to Him. Then all that He is is a supply to us.
More than how the Christian acts it is how he reacts with spontaneity.
But the acting and the reacting do also work together like a wheel within a wheel.
The criticism is not that this Paul chose to mention masters. The criticims is what he told them to do, in particular that they should remain masters. THAT is what is not concordant with the teachings of Jesus, what is described in Acts, and what the earlier real Paul actually taught.
I consider ALL that he told them. And the concept of TWO Pauls, I think, is a great error.
But with a little internet talk some of these things cannot be solved easily.
When I first became a disciple of Jesus in the early 70s, I could hardly stand to read Romans chapter 13 about human government.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was big on the college campus in my town.
You are projecting again. I actually don't have that many problems with Paul the original.
You are imagining a Paul you like and a another person saying he's Paul that you do not like. I see this only as a rationale to justify your selectivity, your bias. I can find just about all of Ephesians in the book of Romans. And there is so much of Ephesians in First and Second Corinthians. Probably it is because we live in the church life. We eat and breath these writings. It is not an academic matter of rocking chair theology for many of us.
I also don't have that many problems with Jesus. I do have a problem with the faker Paul(s) and I do have a problem with God.
I have some problems with Jesus. MYSELF. But I also realize that I am crucified with Jesus, buried with Jesus and raised up with Jesus to walk in newness of life. To follow Jesus I have to deny myself and pick up my cross and follow Jesus. I would rather follow jaywill. But I find it a far greater joy to follow Jesus. And what is in Jesus cannot be hurt or destroyed.
Paul was one Christian brother who pioneered into the deep Christian life. He wrote to help others to come foward into this life as he had done. There is no fake Paul in the New Testament. I think it would be more honest just to admit that some of what he writes you can take and some you just cannot at this time.
But to say "The Paul I like is the only real Paul" is self deception. Actually we are mentioning the name Paul too much. I regard it as the word of God.
Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through men but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead." (Gal. 1:1)
" ... we also thank God unceasingly that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but even as it truly is, the word of God, which operates in you who believe." (1 Thess. 2:13)
Fortunately, Paul does tell us when he is speaking his opinion apart from a specific command of the God. In the Corinthian letters Paul is careful that we know when he speaks his opinion and when he instructs from God's command.
I have read the gospels. I really don't recall having read about Jesus saying anything that makes women to be inferior or that slavery is okay for believer to maintain. Can you tie Ephesians 5-6 back to something Jesus said? Please be specific.
At the moment I agree that an instruction to wives I cannot find in the four Gospels. However much of your complaint is seen in this passage -
Luke 12:13-15 - "And someone out of the crowd said to Him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But He said to him, Man, who appointed Me a judge and divider over you? And He said to them, Watch and guard yourself from all covetousness, for no one's life is in the abundance of his possessions?"
It may be hard for some to realize this speaking comes from the same mouth as the one who said the meek shall inherit the earth. No doubt Christ said many things about giving to those in need. But here someone tries to hijack Jesus into being a social reformer to arbitrate a money matter. Apparently the man had no thought for the will of God or the kingdom of God. He only heard in Jesus' teaching a chance to even things out for his self centered earthly gain and materalism.
Jesus, says no one appointed Him to be his private attorney to handle his lawsuit. Our grumblings about social justice can often take on the flavor like this. That is no concern for the kingdom of God whatsoever.
Jesus said seek FIRST the kingdom and His righteousness.
That goes to the root of man's problem rather just putting on a bandaid.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 122 by Jazzns, posted 01-28-2013 3:40 PM Jazzns has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 126 by Jazzns, posted 01-29-2013 11:44 AM jaywill has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 125 of 383 (689276)
01-29-2013 10:33 AM
Reply to: Message 123 by Richh
01-28-2013 10:53 PM


Either Paul is different, or he is immoral.
Do you actually reject the entire section? Should not children obey their parents (even if you leave off 'in the Lord')? And should fathers exasperate their children? Do you actually reject the entire section?
No. You are misreading me. I think you are completely missing my point. Even in this new quote of 1 Cor 11, you can't seem to see that what exists is not a description of a situation that is "balanced" (your words mind you) and "sweet harmony among all parties with the rights of all respected and the needs of all met". There wouldn't be any problem with you retracting those words. Just say what I think you are getting at in your roundabout way. Just say, "YES there IS an imbalance and that is okay because ...." You are essentially saying that anyway. Just be clear about it and don't try to pretend that those words in Ephesians 5&6 don't exist in the way that they do.
I am also not convinced that 1 Cor 11 is original because of other additions to 1 Cor that were placed there specifically to make Paul sound like a misogynist. It seems like later writers just really were sort of peeved at Paul for not smacking down women enough since many of the things written in his name after the fact seem to emphasize that. But that is beside the point. Even if Paul DID agree with his future forgers on the status of women, it only makes BOTH writings fail the modern morality test.
Either, like I am contending, there is a difference in the writings of the undisputed and disputed epistles in this regard in which case people who claim that they are all God inspired have some explaining to do; or Paul is congruent with "Paul" and they are both BAD guides for how we should treat women and that owning people is still okay.
Do you believe there is a divine order?
No, I don't. Thats bullshit. If anything biology tells us that it is the exact opposite. A male is a altered female not the other way around.
If some abuse or misuse their position, God does not condone that. In fact that provokes His wrath: (inc Romans 1:18)
If that is true, God certainly is ineffective at his wrath delivery. The slaves of Christians continued to be beaten, tortured, and killed for centuries after this. It took the other guys having more guns and determination to finally put a stop to the fact that CHRISTIANS OWNED OTHER PEOPLE. God's wrath is most certainly NOT being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness. Either he is saving his wrath for a time and place that will conveniently produce no evidence of it, or God is fake.
It is not Gods order but mans behavior within what God ordained that is evil.
But the point is, which still has not been addressed, is that this supposed enduring moral delivered by God's inspired apostle, is inferior to the morality of today. Assuming that we continue to progress, it will be even more inferior to the morality of tomorrow.
Women should not in fact be subordinate to men. The concept of a slave master should be illegal and stricken from our society and has been for the most part. If you want to claim that these words are inspired, then show me the inspiration. Alternatively, be honest and admit that they are not, like PD. That would be far more honorable than this full throated defense of the indefensible.

If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. --Carl Sagan

This message is a reply to:
 Message 123 by Richh, posted 01-28-2013 10:53 PM Richh has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 131 by Richh, posted 01-30-2013 9:05 AM Jazzns has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 126 of 383 (689288)
01-29-2013 11:44 AM
Reply to: Message 124 by jaywill
01-29-2013 9:47 AM


Re: Paul versus Jesus
As a side note, could you please not use yellow in your posts. I am often reading your responses in email which does not have the blue background of the website. Feel free to bold or use other emphasis if you like of course. To try to simplify, I have reordered some of your points that favor a common response. If you feel that this causes any misrepresentation please let me know.
Absolutly not. Although I would not have a problem with the writings of a revolutionary to encourage his people in uprising,
Jazzn, Paul is encouraging them to death with and resurrection with Christ.
You are the one who brought that up. I am just trying to correct your mistaken assumption about my opinion. You did not have to go into depth about how I also wouldn't care if Paul did call for uprising. It is beside the point. The point is ....
such words would ALSO be incongruent with the original Paul and Jesus.
Well, I really thing this Original Paul and Latter Fake Paul is purely of your imagination.
In which case you are focusing too much on the fakery part and not enough on the incongruence. Richh seemed to also have this problem. If it really was the same Paul then these words are NOT inspired. It is obvious that these teachings are not aligned with the message of Jesus.
But if Ephesians is a fake, then you should take heart! There is something potentially to salvage. If you continue to revere the Paulean flavor of Christianity then there are his original letters left which actually do contain some useful things amongst the alterations over the millennia.
Why disregard this possibility? Why are you married to the canon created by men 300 years after Paul lived? Are you Catholic? Do you believe in apostolic succession? If not, then you should NOT regard the opinions of that institution when it comes to deciding what is holy scripture.
If you are Catholic, well then I dont know what to say other than apostolic succession seems silly.
A simple edict for masters to free their slaves from bondage and to witness to them so that they might also serve Christ would have been more fitting with the gospel message and the ideals of the apostles in Acts.
...
In this way I see the apostle heaping coals of fire upon the conscience of the slave master which virtually amounts to the slave master having to free the slave.
(reordering quotes to make the same point)
Anyway, the apostle's priorities is nullifying social oppression and reconciling all equal members of the "one new man" where there cannot be slave and free man.
Virtual freedom? Really?
Why virtual freedom when actual freedom is so easy? Jesus and the apostles ALREADY asked believers to give away everything they owned, and you are saying that it was too hard to just say....free your slaves. With fewer words, or even no words at all, Paul could have done better.
Just like you said, he ALREADY instructs people in brotherhood and oneness. Yet we have him here going out of his way to raise a specific guidance for slave masters that involves them maintaining the master slave relationship.
Why do you wonder that people take issue with the authorship when you have situations like this?
If Paul was interested in defending the kidnapping for slavery he would not have recalled that like murder, kidnapping
was a transgression against the law of Moses.
You are the one who brought up the non-kidnapping slavery. I responded to that by saying that it doesn't matter if the slave is a slave by force or by debt. You never responded to that and you are here just repeating the excuse. I don't think that the people who sold all that they owned and followed the apostles were holding on to a few stock options in Ali's Pita Emporium. With the information we have from Acts, the ones that did got killed by God!
I think to the unbelieving master, Paul's hope was that he would be won over to the gospel.
But that is in the instrucitons to the SLAVE who is a Christian! The message that is an affront to modern morals is in Paul's instructions to the MASTERS!
For a slave to be Christ like and try to convert his unbelieving master is one thing. It is not his choice to be anything other than a slave! Incredible!
I have read the gospels. I really don't recall having read about Jesus saying anything that makes women to be inferior or
that slavery is okay for believer to maintain. Can you tie Ephesians 5-6 back to something Jesus said? Please be
specific.
At the moment I agree that an instruction to wives I cannot find in the four Gospels. However much of your complaint is
seen in this passage -
Luke 12:13-15 - "And someone out of the crowd said to Him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.
But He said to him, Man, who appointed Me a judge and divider over you? And He said to them, Watch and guard yourself
from all covetousness, for no one's life is in the abundance of his possessions?"
I don't get it. You claimed, "Paul's words in his letters can only be traced back in concept,for the most part, to something Jesus the Son of God already said."
I challenged you to provide evidence. And you have produced none.
Jesus' refusal to resolve a civil dispute is not the same as him failing to respond to social injustice. I really just do not understand how this quote from Luke in any way has relevance for what you claimed was support for Paul from Jesus.
And finally, on a person point.
I think you and others have sought to concoct "Another" Paul so that you, perhaps, may selectively shop through the New Testament for ideas you want choose or discard. This is a rationale for nourishing pre-conceived biases.
(reordering to make the same point)
You are imagining a Paul you like and a another person saying he's Paul that you do not like. I see this only as a rationale to justify your selectivity, your bias. I can find just about all of Ephesians in the book of Romans. And there is so much of Ephesians in First and Second Corinthians. Probably it is because we live in the church life. We eat and breath these writings. It is not an academic matter of rocking chair theology for many of us.
I am NOT trying to justify a bias! How dare you! I came to these realizations kicking and screaming but you wouldnt know that because you do not know me. You do not know how painful it is to watch your faith crumble. To what illicit motivations have I ascribed you? How dare you presume that I enjoin this discussion only to be a scoffer? This is knowledge I sought because it is vitally important to me.
I didn't concoct anything. I discovered the evidence that many of these writings were forgeries in my lifelong pursuit to better value their truth. It is not theology, it is history.
I am not necessarily asking you to agree with me about Pauls authorship. I continue to have an argument in either case. These debates rarely end with both sides agreeing about something but what I will ask you to stop doing is assigning a malicious motive to my truth seeking.
Furthermore, why shouldn't we discard ideas that are bad and not from God? Wouldn't you be glad to find out the truth that something was a fake? Then you could focus on what was not a fake. Most people WANT to separate wheat from the chaff because they want the wheat free from chaff! It seems very simple to me and also very odd that people would question the motivations of others who would dare try do the separating.

If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. --Carl Sagan

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by jaywill, posted 01-29-2013 9:47 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 127 by jaywill, posted 01-29-2013 3:11 PM Jazzns has replied
 Message 128 by jaywill, posted 01-29-2013 3:52 PM Jazzns has replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 127 of 383 (689320)
01-29-2013 3:11 PM
Reply to: Message 126 by Jazzns
01-29-2013 11:44 AM


Re: Paul versus Jesus
In which case you are focusing too much on the fakery part and not enough on the incongruence.
I don't see any incongruence of any significance.
Richh seemed to also have this problem. If it really was the same Paul then these words are NOT inspired.
Are you now using the word "inspired" in the sense of, for example, an "inspired" poem, an "inspired" piece of music, an "inspired" lecture on philosophy ? Or are you using "inspired" as the evangelical Christian would regard the "inspiration" of Scripture ?
This would really be another discussion on how I as a Christian think of the "inspired" Scripture, or the epistles written under the inspiration of God. I would regard this a calling for another discussion and possibly another Room on the Forum.
It is obvious that these teachings are not aligned with the message of Jesus.
I don't think you are appreciating how much Ephesians Five and Christ's words do concur.
I mentioned that we should not over look Paul's exhortation that the living Christ make His home in the believers hearts thorugh faith. This is Paul's starting point in gospel preaching and church building. And this is also the starting point of Jesus in John 14 -
" ... If anyone lovs Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him" (John 14:23)
This is a teaching of Christ being alive and available. This is a supernatural possibity for Jesus to blend the life of He and His Father with the life of the believer and lover.
Paul echoes exactly the same teaching - "That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith ..." (Eph. 3:16,17)
Your political starting point may be social reform. Christ's starting point is to allow Himself and His Father to enter into the believer to make an abode with him.
Your social starting point may be for the enactment of laws requiring masters to free slaves and wives to resist cooperating with thier husbands. Paul's starting point is the by faith Christ would make His home in the hearts of the believers. His exhortation is that they be energized and strenthened to live in that sphere of Jesus Christ mingling Himself with their inner being.
The exhortations of chapter five are preceeded with the command to be filled in spirit. Many take these words for granted. Many feel Christ can only "come into your heart" in some sentimental way. But some of us take this exhortation to be filled in spirit as crucial to all that is associated with actions to follow.
To be filled in spirit is verses being filled up with SELF. To be filled in spirit is verses Self Pity, Self Centered, Selfish, and preoccpation with the question "How will this effect ME?" It is to actually blend with this One who cannot be oppressed, depressed, supressed by anything the world can throw at it.
The starting point of Christ and His apostles is to be filled with the available victorious Jesus who has become in a form in which He can mingle with man - "The last Adam [Christ] became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45) . Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom - "And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom." (2 Cor. 3:17)
The foundation of the kingdom Christ builds and His apostles further is for God to dispense the living Christ into man as the "life giving Spirit" to GIVE God and GIVE the victorious Christ to man for subjective enjoyment.
I don't think you show signs of caring for any of this. You're looking for requiring no contact with the indwelling Christ, no enjoyment of the living God, and primarily in the realm of social work or politics.
Jesus told His disciples that apart from Him they could do NOTHING -
"Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing." (John 15:4,5)
The natural mind may protest. "Jesus, without You we can do a lot. We can enact social programs. We can pass new laws. All these things we can do without abiding in You."
Yes we may do a lot of things apart abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in us. In terms of God's eternal purpose it will all amount to NOTHING. For the building materiar of the eternal kingdom is Christ dispensed and wrought into man's being. Apart from a union with Him all that we do do will amount eventually to nothing for His kingdom.
The exhortations of Ephesian five are only samples. They are not exhaustive by any means. Paul could not possibly include an infinite number of circumstances to cover. He selects some as representative. But the overreaching exhortation is to have the available Christ so fill up the men and women that He is expressed in their circumstances whatever they may be, as cultures and government laws evolve and change through the ages.
But if Ephesians is a fake, then you should take heart!
I have no problem regarding Ephesians as the early brothers in Christ, nearly 2,000 years closer to the man's life regarded it. That is as a genuine epistle from the Apostle Paul.
Your exhortation sound to me like "If the Holocaust did not happen, then you really should take it to heart." Of course I should. But I strongly persuaded that the Holocaust did happen and the conspiracy theorists and Holocaust Deniers are self deceived.
There is something potentially to salvage. If you continue to revere the Paulean flavor of Christianity then there are his original letters left which actually do contain some useful things amongst the alterations over the millennia.
Why disregard this possibility? Why are you married to the canon created by men 300 years after Paul lived? Are you Catholic?
I am not a Catholic. Neither really am I a Protestant. And you are going to find me gravitating back to the contents of the book of Ephesians rather than extending too much more time to textural critical arguments of the authorship of this book. Interest, it may be to discuss. But I am assuming Pauline authorship. You are welcomed to have a different opinion on that.
Do you believe in apostolic succession?
I do not believe in any kind of automatic apostolic succession.
If not, then you should NOT regard the opinions of that institution when it comes to deciding what is holy scripture.
It is one thing to be cautious of man made traditions too heavily instituted. It is another thing to be hoodwinked by some Johnny Come Latelys who raise an issue in the 19th centure AD which was largly settled over 1,000 some years ago.
Our God (as Christians) took great care to design the sting of a wasp and the machinary of a cell. Why would He be sloppy with directing His lovers to recognize apostolic writings under divine inspiration ? Your thesis suggests either that there is no God or that He is so incapable of forming on earth a book through the recognition and discovery of the authority of the Holy Spirit upon it.
I do not expect that without exception any human being will like everything he or she reads in the Bible with no exception. My answer to troublesome portions of the Bible is not to rationalize that the prophet or apostle didn't say that.
In the book of Jeremiah the remnant of Jews went to Jeremiah to get the word of God. But it was exposed that they didn't really want to subject themselves to God. So they accused Jeremiah of fabricating a message. "God didn't tell you to say THAT!" was their reaction. We have a similar problem here with Ephesians. There is "the Paul we like" verses "the Paul we don't like which is a fake Paul. He didn't write THAT."
I know that fake letters did occur in early church history. This, however should not be an excuse to deem as "fake" what I have a problem with. I would be suspicious if a apostotic writing contained ONLY things which conformed to my views about life.
When I encounter difficulties in the Bible (and I have had many) I put them on the back burner and endevour to continue growing spiritually. Often previous problems are resolved with greater spiritual maturity.
If you are Catholic, well then I dont know what to say other than apostolic succession seems silly.
I am not Catholic. Yet then again I am the true kind of Catholic in that every person in the world whom Christ has received I also must receive as my brother. So, no, I am not Roman Catholic. But in the true meaning of the word I am a member of the church universal.
\
Virtual freedom? Really?
Let me put it this way - Freedom from the INSIDE OUT. I once read about David Henry Thoreau being put into jail. He said that he felt more free than his jailors did.
We disciples of Jesus see His crucifixion as a great victory, a great triumph. We do not see His death on the cross as the execution of a defeated man. We see rather a victorious Godman within Whom Satan had nothing.
And His resurrection is a further victory over death. It is that Person whom God desires to wrought into our being. God's purpose is to dispense this available Person into our being so as to mingle with us in a blended way.
This mingling of the Son of God with our being is a true freedom working not from the outside but from the inside of man out.
I am not saying this to undermine physical liberation. I am saying this in harmony with both Christ and His apostles that God's liberation works from the inside of man first.
More importantly, Paul is building up the habitation of God in spirit, a living dwelling place where God dwells within man on this earth. You seem to care very little for this. Without a vision the people run wild. Chapter Five was not the first chapter in Ephesians. First Paul paints a grand picture of what all our experiences are for in Christ. The vision and the fact of being strengthened into the inner man where Christ has come to join Himself with the believer, and to be filled in spirit enable us to pass through the unavoidable tribulations of life on earth.
We know that Christ will at the end smash all the world governments and the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Rev. 11:15) .
Why virtual freedom when actual freedom is so easy?
I know many African American descendents of slaves. I am really glad I and they are free from the institution of antebellum Slavery. Tragically, many are still in terrible bondage. So we continue to preach the Gospel which frees from the inside out. Yet it also makes us bondservants to Christ the Lord.
Your priorities do not need God to be dispensed into man. God's priorities require the duplication of what Christ is - a man in union with the living God. And Christ's will was to reproduce others like Himself, (not to accomplish redemption) but to be men and women mingled with God in a life union.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit." (John 12:24)
Christ wants to germinate more human beings with the life of God in them. So He would not abide alone. He went to the cross to break the shell of His humanity and release the eternal and divine life within Him into forgiven sinners. He would duplicate men mingled with God.
He follows this saying about His duplication with an exhortation to deny ourselves that we may find ourselves truly -
" ... but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his soul-life loses it; and he who hates his soul-life in this world shall keep it unto eternal life." (v.25)
No one who comes to Christ can forever postpone the mandate to deny himself, deny herself. No social status in life will exempt any Christian from having to deny himself. It is better to lose the fallen Adamic soul now and gain the God filled soul in the end. It is inferior to save the Adamic soul now only to lose the soul's enjoyment during Christ's kingdom and reign on the earth.
It is obvious from Paul's letter to the slave master Philemon that both parties equally were called to deny the self and let Christ live in them. This was liberating. This was building up the "one new man". This was also something the world could not destroy.
Jesus and the apostles ALREADY asked believers to give away everything they owned, and you are saying that it was too hard to just say....free your slaves. With fewer words, or even no words at all, Paul could have done better.
In Acts the churching people gave all that they owned. Not by an outward decree. And they were not to do so as a facade or show. If they were so capable of such faith they did so willingly. You should notice that it also says that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
So then Paul's exhortation in Ephesians Five to be filled in spirit (with the Holy Spirit) is spot on consistent with what happened in Acts.
At least in Philemon we see Paul encouraging the slave master that Paul knows that he will do beyond what Paul asks of him -
"Having confidence in your obediance, I have written you, knowing that you will do even beyond the things that I say." (Philemon 21).
This apostle was confident in the Christ who indwelled this slave master. His condence was in how Jesus would regulate the Christ lover from within. Withing the sphere of the Christian church Paul carried out this ministry. We do not see him directing this exhortation to the general public. And this seems to be what you think he sould have done.
But Christ has no ground in the unbeliever. First the unbeliever must believe into Christ have Christ enter into his heart. And then to make His home more and more in his heart by faith.
Just like you said, he ALREADY instructs people in brotherhood and oneness. Yet we have him here going out of his way to raise a specific guidance for slave masters that involves them maintaining the master slave relationship.
Yes. In the church life there is need for much shepherding, exhortation, teaching and being an example. There is much to do. Most important is doing it in oneness with the Lord Jesus. Paul ministered out of what he WAS. His person and his message were one. He ministered the Christ that he himself LIVED. It was powerful. And it is the norm.
I did not say that it was the average. I said that it was the normal.
Why do you wonder that people take issue with the authorship when you have situations like this?
Occasionally I may give a benefit of a doubt. You have unfurled the flag though pretty clearly. I left out the paragraph in which you nearly write blasphemous things about God.
So when I see this kind of bias I suspect one is going though the Bible like a grocery store. That is to pick and choose what fits their disposition. There's a saying that has much truth I think - "What kind of person you are determines what kind of Bible you have."
Your kind of New Testament has to accomodate for your need to say God is a sadistic dictator. I think you have been enfluenced by Richard Dawkins. I think you want to "salvage" something. But I think if you examine your so called "authentic Paul" that you like, you'll also come across passages that you'll have to decide someone else wrote.
For length's sake I will stop here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 126 by Jazzns, posted 01-29-2013 11:44 AM Jazzns has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 133 by Jazzns, posted 01-30-2013 3:34 PM jaywill has replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 128 of 383 (689328)
01-29-2013 3:52 PM
Reply to: Message 126 by Jazzns
01-29-2013 11:44 AM


Re: Paul versus Jesus
I am NOT trying to justify a bias! How dare you! I came to these realizations kicking and screaming but you wouldnt know that because you do not know me.
Okay.
You do not know how painful it is to watch your faith crumble. To what illicit motivations have I ascribed you? How dare you presume that I enjoin this discussion only to be a scoffer? This is knowledge I sought because it is vitally important to me.
Okay.
I didn't concoct anything. I discovered the evidence that many of these writings were forgeries in my lifelong pursuit to better value their truth. It is not theology, it is history.
I am not necessarily asking you to agree with me about Pauls authorship. I continue to have an argument in either case. These debates rarely end with both sides agreeing about something but what I will ask you to stop doing is assigning a malicious motive to my truth seeking.
Hey, if you accuse God of being a sadistic dictator don't be upset if someone questions your own motives.
Furthermore, why shouldn't we discard ideas that are bad and not from God? Wouldn't you be glad to find out the truth that something was a fake? Then you could focus on what was not a fake. Most people WANT to separate wheat from the chaff because they want the wheat free from chaff! It seems very simple to me and also very odd that people would question the motivations of others who would dare try do the separating.
So the book of Romans you have no problem with imagining Pauline authorship ? Every chapter?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 126 by Jazzns, posted 01-29-2013 11:44 AM Jazzns has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 134 by Jazzns, posted 01-30-2013 4:00 PM jaywill has not replied

  
Richh
Member (Idle past 3738 days)
Posts: 94
From: Long Island, New York
Joined: 07-21-2009


Message 129 of 383 (689348)
01-29-2013 11:07 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by Phat
01-13-2013 11:38 AM


Re: Ephesians 4
Eph 4:1-5:1--As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.(*yes,jar...works *)2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace...
This chapter shows me that works and grace go hand in hand. We are taught to do certain things ourselves and are also taught that some things were and are done for us by the Holy Spirit. Comments?
I don't think anyone replied to this, but I agree. This is the consistent word of the New Testament, starting with John the Baptist:
Luke 3:1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, ... the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. 3 And he came into all the region round about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance unto remission of sins; ... 7 He said therefore to the multitudes that went out to be baptized of him, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. 9 And even now the axe also lieth at the root of the trees: every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 10 And the multitudes asked him, saying, What then must we do?
11 And he answered and said unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath food, let him do likewise.
12 And there came also publicans to be baptized, and they said unto him, Teacher, what must we do? 13 And he said unto them, Extort no more than that which is appointed you.
14 And soldiers also asked him, saying, And we, what must we do? And he said unto them, Extort from no man by violence, neither accuse any one wrongfully; and be content with your wages.
I think the last 3 chanpters of Ephesians are somewhat the practical application of Eph 2:8-10:
8 Because by grace you have salvation through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is given by God: 9 Not by works, so that no man may take glory to himself. 10 For by his act we were given existence in Christ Jesus to do those good works which God before made ready for us so that we might do them.
I like Darby's translation of this verse - maybe because I am more used to translations like this.
8 For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God's gift: 9 not on the principle of works, that no one might boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has before prepared that we should walk in them.
The good works are not just any good works, but good works prepared by God for us, and that we might walk in them. There should be the presence of God, the element of God in these good works.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by Phat, posted 01-13-2013 11:38 AM Phat has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 130 by Richh, posted 01-30-2013 7:01 AM Richh has not replied

  
Richh
Member (Idle past 3738 days)
Posts: 94
From: Long Island, New York
Joined: 07-21-2009


Message 130 of 383 (689384)
01-30-2013 7:01 AM
Reply to: Message 129 by Richh
01-29-2013 11:07 PM


Re: Ephesians 2:10 and Ephesians 4 - 6
Eph 2:8 For ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God's gift: 9 not on the principle of works, that no one might boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has before prepared that we should walk in them.
Eph 4:1-3 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace...
Every word is significant in Ephesians 2:8-10, but the phrase 'For we are his workmanship' is pregnant with meaning. The word translated 'workmanship' or 'act' in the NIV is he Greek poiema. One lexicon I use has these definitions: Something made, a work, workpiece, workmanship. The Recovery Version translation has the word 'masterpiece' in verse 10, For we are His masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared forehand in order that we would walk in them.
God is still working! He was working in the Ephesians and in Paul and He is still working today. The works of God did not end with creation. Let me mention a few other verses.
Hebrews 11:10 says, For he eagerly waited for the city which has the foundations, whose Architect and Builder is God.
Ephesians 2:21-22 say, In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Jesus says in Matthew 16:18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
The building of the city, the building of the whole building and the building of the church are all taking place today. Paul's word in chapters 4 - 6 is for this building. I believe those words build up the church in Ephesus and they also build us up.
I remember how surprised I was when I learned that God is still working today. I had come into contact with a missionary organization to whom God had given a ship (to use for evangelism) in answer to prayer.
But it is closer to home than even things like this. Again I will quote the Recovery Version translation for the verses in Eph 4,
1 I beseech you therefore, I, the prisoner in the Lord, to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called, 2 With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing one another in love, 3 Being diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace:
When God works in my heart lowliness or meekness or long-suffering (or humility, gentleness and patience as translated in the NIV) I believe this is part of God's building - it counts. And it also contributes to the dwelling place of God mentioned in 2:22. This building is both individual and corporate. God is working on us individually and on the church corporate to make it and us His workpiece, His masterpiece. I think this is the thought of Ephesians 1 - 3 and some of the details and application are covered in chapters 4 - 6.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 129 by Richh, posted 01-29-2013 11:07 PM Richh has not replied

  
Richh
Member (Idle past 3738 days)
Posts: 94
From: Long Island, New York
Joined: 07-21-2009


Message 131 of 383 (689387)
01-30-2013 9:05 AM
Reply to: Message 125 by Jazzns
01-29-2013 10:33 AM


Re: Either Paul is different, or he is immoral.
If some abuse or misuse their position, God does not condone that. In fact that provokes His wrath: (inc Romans 1:18)
If that is true, God certainly is ineffective at his wrath delivery. The slaves of Christians continued to be beaten, tortured, and killed for centuries after this. It took the other guys having more guns and determination to finally put a stop to the fact that CHRISTIANS OWNED OTHER PEOPLE. God's wrath is most certainly NOT being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness. Either he is saving his wrath for a time and place that will conveniently produce no evidence of it, or God is fake.
I'll need to take some of these bit by bit as I have some time contraints, but, yes, God is saving His wrath. There are many verses that confirm this. For example, Romans 2:5 uses those exact words. Ecclesiastes also alludes to this.
Romans 2:5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God "will give to each person according to what he has done."
Ecclesiastes 8:11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
The coming judgment of God is mentioned throughout the New Testament. There will be judgments prior to the second advent of Christ, judgements at His return and a final judgement after the millenial kingdom. Death is not the end.
2 Timothy 4:1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:
Acts 24:14 But this I avow to thee, that in the way which they call sect, so I serve my fathers' God, believing all things which are written throughout the law, and in the prophets; 15 having hope towards God, which they themselves also receive, that there is to be a resurrection both of just and unjust. 16 For this cause I also exercise myself to have in everything a conscience without offence towards God and men.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by Jazzns, posted 01-29-2013 10:33 AM Jazzns has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 132 by jaywill, posted 01-30-2013 1:41 PM Richh has not replied
 Message 136 by Jazzns, posted 01-30-2013 4:11 PM Richh has replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 132 of 383 (689410)
01-30-2013 1:41 PM
Reply to: Message 131 by Richh
01-30-2013 9:05 AM


Re: Either Paul is different, or he is immoral.
Richh,
The poster wrote this:
If that is true, God certainly is ineffective at his wrath delivery. The slaves of Christians continued to be beaten, tortured, and killed for centuries after this. It took the other guys having more guns and determination to finally put a stop to the fact that CHRISTIANS OWNED OTHER PEOPLE. God's wrath is most certainly NOT being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness. Either he is saving his wrath for a time and place that will conveniently produce no evidence of it, or God is fake.
I have decided that as we draw closer to the second coming of Christ this kind of complaint will be made more often.
There have always been people who looked around at the world and decided that there must be no God or that He doesn't care.
I think we can only expect that those who make this objection and really believe it, well grow bolder in this complaint.
I expect that the coming Antichrist will voice something like this:
" ... And the whole earth marveled after the beast [Antichrist]. And they worshipped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshipped th ebeast, saying, Who is like the beast? And who can make war with him?
And there was given to him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, which tabernacle in heaven ..." (Rev. 13:3b-6)
Yet we believers have seen that Christ has overcome the world, Christ has terminated the fallen man, Christ has judged the Devil.
They do not understand the working of these realities from the inside out. They do not understand the battle won by Christ from the center of the believers outward to the circumference. We have been crucified with Christ. We have been raised with Christ. We have ascended with Christ, and we have been made to sit far above all in Christ.
The seeds of these realities operating from the kernel of the believers' beings progressing out to bring our out beings into the coming age from the inside, escapes the unbelievers.
But we hasten that day when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
It is hard to help some people to see the radical nature of God dispensing Himself into man. I mean "radical" as in going to the ROOT of man's problem.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 131 by Richh, posted 01-30-2013 9:05 AM Richh has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 135 by Jazzns, posted 01-30-2013 4:09 PM jaywill has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 133 of 383 (689418)
01-30-2013 3:34 PM
Reply to: Message 127 by jaywill
01-29-2013 3:11 PM


Re: Paul versus Jesus
It is obvious that these teachings are not aligned with the message of Jesus.
I don't think you are appreciating how much Ephesians Five and Christ's words do concur.
Well, you did make this claim. I did challenge you on it. It seems like you tried to respond with the quote from Luke to which I expressed my befuddlement. And now here we are and as far as I can tell, the challenge still stands. This remains a claim you have made with little conclusive support. I desire to be shown wrong. Please show me where in the gospel Jesus supports a social ordering of man to women and master to slave.
Your social starting point may be for the enactment of laws requiring masters to free slaves and wives to resist cooperating with thier husbands. Paul's starting point is the by faith Christ would make His home in the hearts of the believers.
...
I don't think you show signs of caring for any of this. You're looking for requiring no contact with the indwelling Christ, no enjoyment of the living God, and primarily in the realm of social work or politics.
No. I have never asked for laws or the introduction of politics. You keep building things into my position that I have never said such as the idea of social revolution. That is not necessary. Paul doesn't have to speak out about how the Roman government allows slavery. All he has to do is either argue that Christians themselves should make their OWN CHOICE not to own slaves, or simply say nothing about the institution of slavery and let his previous exhortations override the issue of slavery.
Instead, Paul goes out of his way to mention Christian slave masters in their position of continuing to own slaves after their conversion. It really is that simple, this has nothing to do with overall social progress, being a revolutionary, or trying to change overall attitudes about slavery or women's rights.
This characterization of my position is your own fabrication.
The exhortations of Ephesian five are only samples. They are not exhaustive by any means. Paul could not possibly include an infinite number of circumstances to cover. He selects some as representative. But the overreaching exhortation is to have the available Christ so fill up the men and women that He is expressed in their circumstances whatever they may be, as cultures and government laws evolve and change through the ages.
Yes. Thats fine. But what examples he chose ARE telling of what the power of his message is. He chose entrenchment of the subordination of women and the entrenchment of the insitution of slavery. It shows that this message is shrouded by the primitive culture of his time which makes it FAR less likely that this is an enduring moral axiom. Worse, what it has helped to create is an enduring immoral axiom.
Your exhortation sound to me like "If the Holocaust did not happen, then you really should take it to heart." Of course I should. But I strongly persuaded that the Holocaust did happen and the conspiracy theorists and Holocaust Deniers are self deceived.
...
It is one thing to be cautious of man made traditions too heavily instituted. It is another thing to be hoodwinked by some Johnny Come Latelys who raise an issue in the 19th centure AD which was largly settled over 1,000 some years ago.
You are equating having skepticism about the author of a book with holocost denialism? Please jaywill. Please stop.
Nobody is hoodwinked by anyone because I don't have to trust the words of the people who have raised the issues about authorship. I can go look for myself and see the evidence and make my own decision.
The only reason this issue was "settled" (by the way it was not 1000 years ago, try ~500) is because some pope or bishops said so by their supposed authority. I don't trust their authority the same way I don't trust the pope today.
What you are basically saying, is that it is better to trust the opinions of the unscholarly, biased, and ancient over the objective self examination of evidence using modern tools and scholarship.
Furthermore you drag your own argument into the gutter by associating that with something as awful and offensive as holocost denial.
Our God (as Christians) took great care to design the sting of a wasp and the machinary of a cell. Why would He be sloppy with directing His lovers to recognize apostolic writings under divine inspiration ? Your thesis suggests either that there is no God or that He is so incapable of forming on earth a book through the recognition and discovery of the authority of the Holy Spirit upon it.
I never said that God was incapable of preserving his word. God, if he exists and intended the Bible to be his word, chose not to do that based on the evidence. The Bible HAS BEEN modified, extensively, over its history with no apparent peep from God.
We know that Christ will at the end smash all the world governments and the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Rev. 11:15) .
A book that has far far worse attestation and reliability than Ephesians. Id love to take that up in another thread if you like.
So when I see this kind of bias I suspect one is going though the Bible like a grocery store. That is to pick and choose what fits their disposition. There's a saying that has much truth I think - "What kind of person you are determines what kind of Bible you have."
But that is what the early church did. They went through the early christian writings like a grocery store and made determinations based on what fit what they thought was orthodoxy. But this time we have the advantage of history and the modern tools of scholarship. How can you complain about someone going through a detailed examination based on evidence and yet NOT complain about those same people on the basis of their mere beliefs (who probably had beliefs you would today call heretical)?
Your kind of New Testament has to accomodate for your need to say God is a sadistic dictator. I think you have been enfluenced by Richard Dawkins. I think you want to "salvage" something. But I think if you examine your so called "authentic Paul" that you like, you'll also come across passages that you'll have to decide someone else wrote.
I have never read once single page of Dawkins. I came to these conclusions as a Christian seeking the truth.
You talk about my "need to say God is a sadistic dictator"? Amazing. Still, even after my previous post, you use your opportunity to respond in the debate to question my sincerity and motive.
I even said specifically, that I did NOT reject God on the sole basis of the failures of the Bible. Yet it remains your tool to try to discredit me on the basis that I require these things to be true for my own personal reasons.
Please stop making this thread about me jaywill and start addressing the issues I have raised instead.

If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. --Carl Sagan

This message is a reply to:
 Message 127 by jaywill, posted 01-29-2013 3:11 PM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 137 by jaywill, posted 01-30-2013 7:01 PM Jazzns has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 134 of 383 (689421)
01-30-2013 4:00 PM
Reply to: Message 128 by jaywill
01-29-2013 3:52 PM


Re: Paul versus Jesus
Hey, if you accuse God of being a sadistic dictator don't be upset if someone questions your own motives.
Yes I can be upset. If you feel the need to protect God from me calling him names, then perhaps you should say so instead of flinging mud like a child.
The God that I call names is a character in a book, a mythology invented by people to claim their right to exploit their neighbors before we knew what it mean to live in large civilization. I am sorry if that offends you but I don't feel the need to hold reverence for an imaginary being.
You are the one who's tactic involves questioning my motives rather than engaging in honest debate.
I came by this knowledge while trying to SAVE my faith not destroy it and YOU are the only one discredited by this infantile tactic. Because as it turns out, I did not spend years upon years of my life studying for the purpose of calling God names. I did NOT start from the new atheist perspective and I don't even call myself one.
But you would't know that. You couldn't know that because you didn't ask. You took it upon yourself to assume that my goal was to destroy God therefore perhaps you feel justified in ignoring my points.
You started out this thread having to walk back your knee jerk reactions to my questions and here we are now responding to my posts, not with rebuttals, but by calling me a blaspheming holocost denier.
I don't think your composure has improved jaywill and I certainly don't feel like I am the one stained by this at all.
Furthermore, why shouldn't we discard ideas that are bad and not from God? Wouldn't you be glad to find out the truth that something was a fake? Then you could focus on what was not a fake. Most people WANT to separate wheat from the chaff because they want the wheat free from chaff! It seems very simple to me and also very odd that people would question the motivations of others who would dare try do the separating.
So the book of Romans you have no problem with imagining Pauline authorship ? Every chapter?
I haven't looked in depth into Romans specifically. What I know about it applies to all of the original epistles in that it is consistent with the body of work of the other original epistles. The evidence is that it is likely the same author who wrote them all and the person claims to be Paul.
ON THAT BASIS, we have evidence that Ephesians is not the same author from language, theology, and history. This person would have reason to assume the name of Paul given the fact of the other epistles. If the original epistles were not original and widely accepted, then there would have been no reason for the author of Ephesians to take the name of Paul because no authority would have been bestowed by it.
It could be that neither of them were by anyone named Paul. But we certainly have no evidence that Romans was NOT written by Paul.
As a follow up to my point, do you not care that you may be basing your faith of a fake book? Wouldn't you want to know if you were? Why is it so offensive to you that other people WOULD want to know?
Luther himself questioned many books of the Bible. One does not need to hate God in order to feel the need to critically study if the Bible is what people claim it to be.
Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. --Carl Sagan

This message is a reply to:
 Message 128 by jaywill, posted 01-29-2013 3:52 PM jaywill has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 135 of 383 (689423)
01-30-2013 4:09 PM
Reply to: Message 132 by jaywill
01-30-2013 1:41 PM


Re: Either Paul is different, or he is immoral.
(responded to the wrong poster, sorry)
Edited by Jazzns, : deleted

If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. --Carl Sagan

This message is a reply to:
 Message 132 by jaywill, posted 01-30-2013 1:41 PM jaywill has not replied

  
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