My Beliefs- GDR

Some people need glasses and some don't. You can look at wearing glasses as a weakness or an enhancement (depending on whether the glasses are half empty ot half full).People who don't need glasses shouldn't look down on people who do need glasses - but it's okay to point out that they look dorky.

It's hard not to see the need to wear glasses as a disability and that science is required to correct the error.

Maybe you need glasses to see my point.I deliberately avoided using crutches as an example. What about sweaters? Some people "need" a sweater to feel comfortable and some don't. Is the need for a sweater a disability? For some people, religion is a sweater. It could be an ugly sweater that their grandmother knitted but they're more comfortable with it than without.The need to look down on ugly sweaters could be seen as a disability too.

How could I miss a point that obvious?Btw, I like sweaters.

My point would be that you have the cart before the horse. If someone becomes a Christian because it means that they get to live forever, (ie be saved as that's what that means to people), then they are becoming a Christian for selfish reasons. Christianity is about unselfishness.The Christian God that we see incarnate in Jesus is a loving, forgiving and just God, and if that is who we choose to serve then yes, He will be with us in having our hearts softened so that we truly love what He loves, which will show up in how we live our lives. If we simply say the sinner's prayer, get baptised and go to church without opening out heart up to God to change, then nothing has changed no matter how much we believe the Bible. There is the sense that one can just carry on as they were before knowing that they are forgiven so what they do doesn't really matter. That is why, I contend that trying to bring people to Christianity in order to be saved makes being a Christian on that basis a selfish thing and a non-Biblical thing as well.God's spirit speaks to everyone and we choose how it is we respond. Some as Paul writes in Romans 2:

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13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

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As Paul writes the requirements are written on the hearts of all and in the end it is their hearts that makes them right with God. Your idea is a Pharisaical view that requires having the right theology in order to do the right thing. Frankly, what your view does is to turn faith into a work.

Well, that isn't what scripture says, and it isn't what the Church for 2000 years understood sripture to say, which got partiularly elaborated by the Reformation, but I can see your mind is made up.

Good post and in a lot of ways I don't disagree. By cherry picking a verse I can even find scriptural support for that. This is from Matthew 9:

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Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

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That is repeated again in Mark 2 and in Luke 5, so we can be confident that they have accurately reported what Jesus actually said. However there are verses in Paul's epistles that have a different take on it.First off as a point on interest it is a repudiation of the Jewish sacrificial laws and by extension a repudiation of the idea that we can but our way into His good books by sacrificial giving whether it by by money, goods or time, or more specific to that particular audience the keeping of the laws.Jesus is saying is that He wants merciful hearts and that it is those that don't have merciful hearts that He is calling to repentance.However, I'd suggest that if someone is hedging their bets because God just might exist and go to the food bank once a week and don't run around on their spouse, then I don't think that would constitute having a merciful heart.At any rate I won't look down on people that don't wear glasses if they won't look down on me.

....and your mind isn't made up. - interesting in that I quoted scripture and then you say that isn't what scripture says.

I'm glad you don't disagree because I was trying to explain why you wear glasses.

I thought of something I would add to that. Just because the Reformers, many of who had just got their hands on the Bible for the first time after centuries of having it denied to them came up with their theology. Why are we to assume that they got it exactly right anyway?Today Christian scholars and theologians have access to far more material, (such as the Dead Sea Scrolls etc) than ever before. With the additional data they are able to translate the Bible more accurately, but even more important they have a better understanding of the culture in which Jesus taught than ever before.It seems to me that maybe instead of dismissing current scholarship out of hand because it doesn't fit with our pre-determined beliefs is a big mistake. After all, it is truth that we are supposed to be seeking and we should be open to the idea that maybe there is a better understanding to be had.Edited by GDR, : Typos made in haste

In spit of the fact that I am now of an age that I'm sitting here with reading glasses, I did pick up on what you were saying.

I choose to believe that there is more wisdom overall on the planet now there was then.The source of wisdom is, in my belief, God.

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Isa 11:2-3
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him--
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD--
3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.

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jar may (i say may ) argue that I am speaking of source versus content and that source is irrelevant. I would disagree, claiming that content is source.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Oh no my mind IS made up, of course. All I mean is that there is no point in arguing further when it's clear there's no hope of persuading each other.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I think the wisdom was always there, it is just that we have acquired more of it. I think that we have a lot of acquiring left to go.

You are probably right but I do know that I have refined what it is I believe over the years.I have one question. How is it that you or anybody decided that the Bible should be read as the inerrant Word of God.If the Bible in its entirety is inerrant then that has to be the starting point for what we believe about the nature of God and how that should impact our lives.However, we are Christians. It seems to me that as Christians our starting point should be the Christ. I understand that the only real reference we have for learning about Jesus is in the Bible. However the Bible is not one book but a collection of books. As Christians what reason is there to give for example the author of Deuteronomy the same credibility as the book of John.The basis of Christianity is that God confirmed to mankind by the resurrection of Jesus that we can trust what it was that Jesus had to tell us. He didn't do that for any other prophet or Biblical author. John says this at the end of his Gospel.

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24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. 25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

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Here we have a man, (although it could be someone else writing from what John had to say), who had intimate contact with Jesus who embodied the Word of God. As I say, what is it that makes you believe that the words of the author of the book of Deuteronomy should carry the same weight as the words of John.It is my contention that we should start with Jesus and understand the rest of the Bible in that light. So, I would be very curious to know on what basis, other than that others have believed it in the past, do you believe that we should understand the Bible as being inerrant. What is the reason that you came to that conclusion?