Posted on 01/17/2014 7:36:38 PM PST by NYer
“Hmmm, the problem in modern American churches in a nut shell. You have tell them both. You can describe light, but you need form to help describe its function. When we stand for the light of Christ, we have to teach what his light shows as good and evil. We have to teach both what we stand for and what we stand against!”
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Well said.
Please quote any apostle that you think I have a problem with, anywhere. And I will robustly affirm that apostle IN CONTEXT.
Andrew... assenza me’! Tu se proveno Sfacheem. And he is.
I guess you have a hard time believing that the mind of Christ has the love of 1 Cor 13.
You forget love, which tells how to transform the evil situation into a good one. Without that all you can do is stand and blame the evildoers.
Evil is not half of a dualistic system. It is a misuse of things that were created to be good. If you recover the good use of those things, you have vanquished the evil.
Now that must be too simple for you.
“a face that looks like a sphincter on a baboon!”
ROFL! In Cuomo’s case, the ugly is much, much deeper than skin deep, but I have to admit you’re right. That IS a fitting description.
“I think we are watching a nemesis situation begin to form.”
Please explain. I’d don’t understand your point.
Wow. Can’t we all just get along?
You can’t describe the function of light only by what is lit but by shadow as well. Hebrews, for example displays the full light of Christ by describing not only his grace but his judgment of those who reject that grace.
By all means, rejoice in the great grace of Christ, by which men are forgiven and cleansed from their sins...but warn those who persist in error of the consequences. We say we follow the example of Christ who meekly gave himself up to be sacrificed for us. Yet this same Christ took whips to the thieves who profaned his Father’s house...( in his great love he only hit them he didn’t kill them) Should we not at times speak boldly with anguished righteous anger against those who corrupt our children, would profane marriage and the notion of Godly families, and would demand that we worship what is created and not the Creator? Are there not times that we should “sell our cloaks and buy a sword”...even if such a sword is no more than civil disobedience, like the Hebrew midwives who, fearing God, refused to obey Pharoah’s edict to kill the first born Hebrew males at birth?
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Good luck with a tax base consisting of the black welfare class, illegal immigrants, and a fruit-basketcase of urban liberals. I’m sure you can get them to pay up on time and in full, as well as behave themselves well enough that they don’t need to be babysat like toddlers.
Equally good luck with and the next ‘generation’ being ‘raised’ by an increasingly disparate bunch of people whose only claim to parenthood was neglecting to use birth control or dillydallying too long to get an early-stage abortion.
I was where you are, not all that long ago.
What made the difference was personal encounters with the Holy Spirit. I had, like a whole lot of evangelicals, been trying to figure out, by the balance of gloomy and happy words in the bible, what God was about. And I was coming up with a confused, critical fog.
Once the Holy Spirit told me from the Father that I was indeed His son... bearing witness... the story began to fall into place. God has a STORY to tell, and CLAIMS to make. And the story is one of efforts to love a stubborn humanity, but also a humanity that has an eternal dimension, not just a temporal one. And the claims for those who believe are amazing.
I can’t stuff God down anybody’s throat, but I can make my sincere best effort to champion a saving gospel to him (or her).
One interesting thing to notice about all the events that occurred in Jesus’ life up to His sacrifice on the Cross... they were in the context of the OLD covenant. Not the new!
Incidentally Hebrews is mainly about chastisement in context for believers. It was an exhortation to Jews who had been saved but then were tempted to return to an Old Testament worship system. It does not posit loss of salvation, anywhere. It is about microcosms, not about eternity.
Well, one thing we know is that one can’t baptize the USA into Christ. It has to get there one soul, one acceptance, at a time. And straying Christians have to be corrected one soul at a time.
I guess I am simple minded. Like a child coming into the kingdom would be. I don’t want to jawbone about theory for the intellectual satisfaction of it, or the moral feeling of being better than all those sinners. I just want to see, and share, what can be done to help spread goodness and displace evil.
The wickedness is a symptom of an issue of eternal dimensions. I don’t want a civic Christ to save public morals. I want an “everything” Christ to save souls to heaven, and if public morals improve as a result (and I’d hope they would)... it will be a wonderful testimony to God’s grace.
It would be fun if all pro-life NYers all hopped into their cars on a given day and drove out of the state for 2 weeks. The place would crash. A Galt Vacation.
I’m not Calvinist or Arminianist. Are you sure you aren’t answering another’s post? ;)
I’m with you when it comes to Salvation....once God has got you, he isn’t going to let you go. The verse about losing one’s salvation kind of gets plucked out of the context of surrounding verses and chapters. Plenty of passages in the New Testament about how to restore a fallen Christian back to a state of grace and fellowship. Annanias and Sapphira were taken out quickly before they could cause a detrimental effect on the early church, but I doubt they lost their salvation over their lies. When it ever does happen, it was more likely that such a person never was of the body anyway as other verses in the NT would attest.
Such controversies are why one needs to be a student of the whole Bible and to read verses contextually. It is true that some verses always stand out like Gems...say like John 3:16, but other controversial verses need to be need to have their meanings tempered by their surrounding scriptures in context as well as by what other books or epistles may say about the same subject!
When Christ marveled at the faith of the Sydonian Greek woman and of the Centurian, he marveled! Faith was found growing where it was not expected. Christ came to the Jews first but here were Gentiles showing more faith than his own disciples... Truly we have a master who can ‘gather where naught has been sewn’, though, no doubt, it was the work of the Spirit who sought out those who will worship God “in spirit and in truth”! And when Christ said...”What the Father has placed in my hands, no man may pluck out”...he meant it!
(The verse in context:John 10:22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. 23And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch. 24Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. 25Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. 26But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 27My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. 30I and my Father are one.”
tell that to gov. cuomo.
how do you know max isn’t judging righteously? you don’t.
read the psalms where david writes about God making his enemies his footstool. and celebrating their destruction. people rejoice when the wicked fall. it’s not hypocrisy to want the wicked to fail, or fall. and be happy they have fallen/failed.
I don’t think I have to “figure out a balance of gloomy or happy words”.... just reading the Bible and praying for guidance as the Spirit wills should be enough. The book of Jude describes how the mix of “compassionate grace preaching” and “fiery” condenmnation
preaching should be used.
Jude1:17But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; 18How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. 19These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. 20But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, 21Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. 22And of some have compassion, making a difference: 23And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
There is a place for both loving gracious witness as well as hell fire preaching! Sometimes, we must be willing to try and “shove” Christ down another’s throat...if led by the Spirit’s desperate earnestness to do so!
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