What is Christianity?

I'm not sure how many "literalists" would agree with you about this, but there are some of us who consider every word of the Bible to be authored by Christ, even consider the words themselves in a sense to BE Christ Himself who is called The Word of God. He quoted from all the Old Testament books, He told the men on the road to Emmaus that ALL the scriptures testify of Himself. So Moose would be right to enforce the idea that following the teachings of ALL scripture is the subject of this thread. Those who say anything else are wrong, even perniciously wrong.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I am proposing that he should broaden his idea of what Christ taught.Trust you to make it into a lie. You're getting awfully good at that. Are you proud of yourself?

It's God's Word. Jesus is God, therefore of course He authored the Bible. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all acting as one through the Spirit.And yes, jar, Jesus is the Logos, the Word of God incarnate, He quoted from all the scriptures, He said all of them testify of Himself, the Bible points to Christ without any part of it being exempted.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Your own belief that YOUR ridiculous theological revisionism represents the true Christianity is Exhibit One for this ridiculous historical revisionism you push here.

So the more inclusive you are the more true your version of Christianity, but that's not claiming your view is the truth? What kind of gobbledygook is that?

You've been viciously slandering me for quite a while now. You consider yourself a Christian? Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You are judging me with your vicious slanders. Unbelievable evil stuff you've said over the last few weeks.Slanders ARE lies, I wanted to be more to the point. But you make a lie out of that too,.It IS the Christian's job to judge false doctrine, not personal sin but false doctrine. JW's follow false doctrine but you wouldn't judge them though they are going to hell because of it? Typical false Christianity. I've never attacked Catholics as individuals because some of them may be saved but I know the institution of the Roman Church is a Hell-bound set of pagan lies and if you don't know that you are badly misguided. I don't know if you are saved, but if you are it is by the skin of your teeth because you are pursuing a lot of evil lies.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Citing my past actions? You mean slandering me with your lies?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I've been having problems with you twisting my words for weeks at least, on many threads. But I'm just making myself sick complaining about it. So forgive me for all of it, I don't want to get caught up in this stuff any more, I'm leaving.

You did a good job of showing the New Testament basis for Sunday worship, while denying it.Ellen G. White must be your inspiration, right?What do you do with the fact that ALL the Christian churches worshiped on Sunday in the early years? This guy I quote next sorts it out pretty well: The Sabbath is a day of rest, not of worship. Worship can be done on any day of the week. The early church made it Sunday which has been universal ever since, except for the SDAs of course. Those who attribute the origin of Sunday worship to the Roman Church are wrong because the RCC didn't exist in the early centuries as we know it today, the papacy only becoming official in 606 AD. HERE's another discussion: We are not to make an issue out of which day of the week any church chooses for their worship service, so SDAs are within their rights to worship on Saturday, but we can and should raise questions about the SDAs denying Christian freedom and bringing their people back under the law by making Sabbath worship mandatory. It is a serious violation of the gospel of grace to require the observance of the Law, it's the same offense the Judaizers committed by requiring circumcision of converts, which prompted Paul to condemn them severely. They were depriving Christians of the true grace of faith and bringing them under the damnation of the Law.Those who believe that Saturday worship is essential to salvation may in fact not be saved because they are denying the pure grace of Christ's atonement and His fulfillment of every jot and tittle of the Law.The essential answer to the question of What is Christianity is the preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ's death for us, which is really THE definition of a Christian church. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Wow. You show yourself to be a true legalist in this post. You totally misunderstand law and grace, which I guess shouldn't surprise me, it just proves that SDA theology IS legalistic.Not being under the Law doesn't mean we don't obey God, far from it, what it means is that through God's grace we now CAN obey it, and not just outwardly as the Jews and other legalists do, but from the heart in love, in Jesus' strength rather than our own. Because Jesus FULFILLED the Law, "every jot and tittle" of it, and we have the immense privilege of being able to rest in His finished work on our behalf, now able to obey from the heart what before we could only obey partially and outwardly.Being freed from the Law means being freed from condemnation for our inevitable failures. It's the "burden" Christ lifts from us when we believe on Him ("Come all ye who are heavy laden... My yoke is easy and My burden is light.") Legalists are subject to the Law's condemnation because they trust in their own human strength to obey it and fail to come anywhere near God's standard of obedience.To be saved you have to give up any idea that you are capable of obeying the Law as God requires, which means absolutely perfectly ("every jot and tittle") and from the heart, and throw yourself as a hopeless sinner on God's mercy and the sacrifice of Christ. THEN you will be able to obey the Law from the heart, never perfectly but from the heart because Christ's death makes that possible.ABE: As for the Sabbath, the word means "rest" and we understand that also to be fulfilled in Christ: HE is our rest from all our works.ABE: In fact, what "works" means in this context is the ever-unsuccessful struggle to obey what we are incapable of obeying, and the Sabbath is then our resting in Christ's having done it for us, taking our heavy burden and giving us His light one in exchange. Perhaps it's fair to say that the whole thing is a metaphor for salvation, so it does make sense that a church that insists on a literal obedience of the Sabbath also teaches a legalistic works-righteousness and has no idea of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Now I'm thinking SDA's aren't saved at all. Wow, you really need to reconsider all this.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Oy, Phat, you are making this way too complicated. There probably are some issues you need to understand better but that's true for all of us, and for those you should probably talk to a pastor who knows all this theology better than I do.HOWEVER, I'll venture a word or two: We don't give up exerting ourselves and just become limp silly putty, that's not the idea. For most of us it takes a while to learn not to rely on our own strength for anything we do as Christians because it's so ingrained in us, but since you say you often do throw yourself on the Lord's mercy I'd say you're on the right track. It might help to keep reminding yourself of all the scriptures that tell us it's only through Him that we can do anything good, because it FEELS like it's our own strength even when it's Him empowering us. We ALL make this mistake. We won't ever be completely free of the fleshly stuff in this life, it's just a matter of keeping the focus as much as possible on Him. Pray for His strength and ask for faith to depend on His strength. .The gambling habit is a good example of something you can't get rid of in your own strength, but in Christ's strength it should be possible, but that would have to do with learning how to rely on Him when the addiction strikes.But a practical thought occurs. I haven't looked it up but that book Iano recommended, The Easy Way To Stop Smoking, which I've never read but from what he says about it sounds like how I gave up smoking, except I gave it up primarily by praying God would take it away from me. Still my own will was engaged in the work, but TOTALLY engaged so it really WAS easy to give it up, the urge just couldn't stay in my mind for half a second without being forcibly expelled because I truly did not want to smoke any more, truly, completely, absolutely and unequivocally, and I think that's the frame of mind the book brings people to.Allen Carr is the author of that book and some others aimed at other addictions such as drugs and alcohol and overeating. I don't know if he has one on gambling. I'll look some time but you could look too. If you would LIKE to give up gambling that is. I don't know how bad your addiction is but I've known gamblers who pretty much destroy their own lives by it.

The book does exist, I found it at
Amazon It only got two reviews, but both very satisfied customers. May be worth a try.Be sure to pray for the Lord's strength if you do try it though. I have a feeling it's very effective for anybody but I quit smoking because I gave it all to God even if the method was similar as I think it was.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I read Phat as describing what all Christians should experience, a sense of commonality and shared assumptions and relatedness with other Christians that we don't have with unbelievers no matter what else we may have in common with them. He may have overstated his experience of being "uncomfortable" with unbelievers or that may be the personal part of his experience, but the sense of family a Christian gets with other Christians is to be expected. It's the Communion of the Saints.

Possibly, though I'm not sure on what basis since you've said some pretty harsh things against me.But JWs aren't Christians so not part of the Communion of the Saints so I'm not sure what would be proved. I spent quite a bit of time a few years ago with a JW neighbor who was of course trying to convert me, and I her. We had knowledge of a lot of scripture in common, but no basic agreement on the important points. I enjoyed her company for the most part though. But she was interesting in herself, "seven eighths" Cherokee with a beautiful face though she was 85. She died a few years ago.