Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
That is your opinion, FK, not a fact. Hebrews 8 tell a different story. The entire OT is a series of attempts and failures to bring the Jews to stay with God. Apparently, even the New Covenant failed with them and had to be assumed by non-Jews (although that is revealed more as an afterthought than a plan). What purpose did God have to play dice with Hebrews?
Oh, but they would never admit that they follow traditions of men!
You got that right, Mark.
Very informative and well worth a read.
I guess. Thanks, but I’ll take my source from scripture and scripture only (sola scripture??).
Think what you like. As long as I’m lined up with scripture, I’m not worried.
Yup. We’re spoiled brats, as my mother and now my husband, would say.
And therein lies the problem with some of these “Church communities”, they are almost gnostic in their requirement for secret knowledge of scripture.
It appears that
The RC edifices
That WHEN an RC edifice believer is involved, it MUST be HOLY SPIRIT operating.
But when a NON-RC edifice is involved, it MUST be gnosticism.
I'm certain Holy Spirit is underwhelmed with such labeling.
I have no trouble believing that the RC priest upthread characterized as 'reading folks mail' during confession did so by Holy Spirit.
I have known a number of people in my life who've done so. Pastor Julia Coleman of Phoenix operates in gifts of Holy Spirit in a similar fashion. She's a precious elderly wirey black lady--full of love yet often minces no words. And, by God's Grace, on more than a few occasions, I've functioned in a similar fashion in counseling and other situations. Holy Spirit has been an incaluably constructive redemptive Agent in such situations--many times saving many hours of work.
I'll not be holding my breath waiting for comparable graciousness from the RC edifice side about Prottys full of Holy Spirit authentically operating in such giftedness. The RC edifice construction on spiritual pseudo-reality is
Their rules or the highway.
Their rules or hell.
Their fantasies or perdition.
Their politics or aposticism.
Their dogma or "error."
Their RUBBER HISTORIES or "lies" [which being interpreted = TRUTH uncomfortable to the magicsterical politicians].
Their RUBBER BIBLES or 'inaccurate translations/language/copying/versions' according to the magicsterical politicians.
Their RUBBER DICTIONARIES or 'lies,' 'inaccurate linguistic terms.'
Welllll, quite a number of us are underwhelmed with the RC edifice double standard. We don't find the God of the UnRubberized Bible to be a God of double standards.
I have persistently been rather egalitarian in talking about the idolatries of all religious groups. Such a stance of mine has been wholesale ignored by the RC edifice reps.
I've noted as above that I've known a number of RC folks to be authentic believers operating in the love and Spirit of The Lord Jesus. Such a perspective and conviction has been wholesale ignored by the RC edifice reps.
My fiercest satire--actually--virtually all of my satire and stimilar writing styles have been IN RESPONSE to outrageousness on the side of the RC reps hereon. That's been conveniently wholesale ignored.
Thankfully, God knows and understands and is keeping His own score, His way, according to His priorities. I can rest comfortably in that every night.
Both RC edifice and Protty camps reside wholesale in extremely different RELIGIOUS worlds and therefore, largely in different spiritual worlds according to their own very distorted, selective perception constructions on reality.
It is clear to me, from Scripture and my own exprience, that the Protty construction accounts for the largest number of factual data points and the RC edifice construction on reality displays the largest number of UNBIBLICAL, UNTRUE, IDOLATROUS, BLASPHEMOUS data points.
Of course the RC edifice magicsterical and reps are not going to roll over and play dead on such matters any more than we on the Protty side are going to.
Probably within a scant few years, God will have moved the sweep of history forward so dramatically and starkly differently that none of the above will matter very significantly because:
1. THOSE WHO TRULY LOVE GOD AND LOVE ALL GOD LOVES WILL HAVE MOVED ON BEYOND SUCH WATER PISTOL FIGHTS.
2. More urgent priorities of survival and miraculous ministry as very directed agents of Holy Spirit will consume all believer's waking moments.
3. The laws of concern will NOT be ARE YOU A KOSHER RC MAGICSTERICAL REP MARCHING STRICTLY TO ROME'S CONSTRUCTION ON REALITY AD NAUSEAUM VS A STRICTLY CALVINIST, PENTECOSTAL, . . . REP MARCHING STRICTLY TO THAT CONSTRUCTION ON REALITY AD NAUSEAUM.
4. The laws of concern will be DO YOU LOVE GOD OVERWHELMINGLY ABOVE ALL ELSE; ARE YOU IN HIS LOVING SERVICE ONLY, TOTALLY, ABOVE ALL ELSE? Nothing else will matter.
5. Holy Spirit will instantly vet individuals coming in and out of one's local arena of association. Those insensitive (i.e. deaf or hard of hearing to the still small voice of The Lord) to such Holy Spirit vetting will be at a decided disadvantage and many will leave this life prematurely with less fruit than they otherwise could have had.
6. Until then, some of us will continue to engage in the dubious activity of water pistol fights (since the more graphic phrasing is verbotten on the Rel forum). From time to time, some of us will have MORE loving, spiritual, altruistic goals than we will have at other times. Some of us will be more ego driven, turf driven, pride driven than at other times. Some of us will pat ourselves and our cohorts on the back for being smart enough to have fallen into God's graciousness about facts and truth than we will at other times. Some lurkers will learn a lot of truth. Some will walk away shaking their heads at the idea that ANY of us are Christian. Some will be thrilled that their team scored some "points" and some will be outraged at the 'points' and style of the other side.
The sadistic abuse accusation is an interesting one. Perhaps it deserves it's own thread some time. But for now, a few comments.
1. The RC edifice has been as fiercely abusive in spots as the Protty side has ever been.
2. I wish someone else were saying the following . . . but it tends to appear . . . that the major outrage that the RC edifice side has in terms of fierce, satirical etc. styles and posts . . . is that . . . the RC edifice side has had a lot of trouble raising up reps of sufficient starkly vivid fierce fiesty cleverness to routinely counter that from the Protty side. So, the best thing they can do is to label all such as SADISTIC ABUSE. Very tidy. Very powerful. Very silly hogwash.
3. No side has a monopoly on abusive words in this arena. No side has a monopoly on harshness. No side has a monopoly on saintliness. No side has a monopoly on 100% of absolute Truth.
4. God Himself has made certain of that. WE ALL SEE THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY. EVERY INDIVIDUAL AND EVERY GROUP.
5. God will not have vain glorious pontificators vaunting themselves above the station He has assigned for them . . . nor above all other groups. Not His script.
6. He is gleaning, sieving, sifting out the folks who LOVE HIM OVERWHELMINGLY ABOVE ALL ELSE AND WHO FROM THAT LOVE, FIERCELY LOVE THOSE HE DIRECTS THEM TO LOVE--more or less all He brings across their paths.
7. When HE IS DONE, there will be NO other groups. There will be NO "I'm of Appolos!" "I'm of Paul!" "I'm of Jesus Christ!" CHRIST'S UNITY OF BLOOD BROTHERHOOD IN HIS BLOOD AND IN HIS SPIRIT !!!!WILL REIGN!!!! OVER ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS AND DISTINCTIVES which, will then, have been washed away as chaff or become decorative embellishments in inconsequential but attractive 'facets of the diamond' sorts of ways.
8. ALL reps of ALL magicstericals who cling to the distinctives of their group's magicsterical pontifications as their salvation and raison d'etra . . . will be left out in the cold . . . without oil . . . without an argument . . . without a leg to stand on . . . without hope.
This warning from The Lord is for all of us.
Where in all of Scripture
has God ever
as in
ever
shown a preference . . . that is a positive preference for
TRADITION?
Even in the Old Testament . . . God frequently sliced right through HIS OWN traditions.
Paul’s mention of tradition in the New Testament is hardly very emphatic or grand. It’s more of an after-thought. Kind of a . . . remember the things we’ve taught you. Avoid abandoning good sound teaching and practice.
But the RC edifice has raised !!!!TRADITION!!!! to a sacred doctrine of the unfaith in it’s own right.
What idolatrous blasphemy.
Actually, The God of All Creation . . .
The God who loves to say
BEHOLD, I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW
is getting ready to toss millenia of !!!!TRADITIONS!!!!
in the trash.
All ‘believers’ who cling to their own traditions instead of to God . . . will end up in the trash with their traditions.
That Jesus spoke Hebrew amongst the Jews --
The people that Jesus had hacked off most were the religious hierarchy. Why would they not have written in Hebrew?
Why -- indeed.
The inscription that also was in evidence was in Latin. Almost none of the Jewish people knew Latin.
The Latin was there on the cross for the Roman soldiers. The Greek was there for visitors or outsiders to the area -- as the common language of the empire. But the Hebrew [Hebraisti] was there specifically for Jesus and the Jews. Aramaic was not generally spoken by Jesus amongst the Jews around Jerusalem who were very protective of their nationalism and religious heritage which was recorded in Hebrew. If Aramaic was spoken by Jesus amongst the Jews, then it should have been on the cross instead of the Hebrew.
This is grasping at straws.
Those who refuse to acknowledge that Jesus and the Jews in Judea spoke Hebrew are the ones grasping at straws and prefabrications.
Jesus spoke Aramaic and probably Greek.
Jesus could speak any language he chose, but since Hebrew was the language that issued forth from the Tables of the Law of Moses and the rest of the scriptures that He gave to them, Hebrew was the language of choice for the Messiah that Moses prophesied would come, and the Jewish people whose heritage issued forth from those Hebrew scriptures.
Aware of that possibility, I always have a "supervisor" of some kind to yank my chain when I see a pattern, to oblige me to distinguish between what I bring to the seeing and what is "out there".
Everything can be a Rorschach, from seeing in what I say something that is not there (like saying that I attribute pure will to people) to seeing unresolved mommy issues in Marian (is that really hard to spell?) devotion.
And once an appeal to tabloid psychology is made to deride what someone says, well, the genie is out of the bottle, isn't it? It's good to have skeptical professional friends around. And it's good to remember that wise old saying, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
An effective defense against unwarranted and persistent attacks is often called, "projection" by the attackers. The implicit rule is "I'm allowed to say nasty things about you, but you should just shut up." Like many implicit rules, its articulation makes its absurdity undeniable.
And the winner of the 2008 Religious Tautology Prize is ....
But it's important. When I'm reading along and something yanks my chain - for example my oft-quoted line from James, there seem to me to be three general ways to respond. One is to reject the writing openly. I think it may be unfair to say that Luther really rejected the inspiration of James, but I can certainly understand his wanting to. One of my history profs, after James was read in chapel, muttered theatrically "Epistle of straw!"
Another way to react is to explain it away. "James just means ...," and to preserve the theological "system" while seeming to gut the verse or passage. Jeremiah says of God that He does "... not willingly afflict the children of men." I remember an Episcopal bishop (is that redundant?) explaining that away with a learned discourse (mercifully brief) about "contingent will."
But contingent schmontingent! God is described in inspired Scripture (and I'll arm-wrestle anyone to the death who says Jeremiah is not inspired!) as doing something unwillingly! This is not something to explain, it's something to fall back before, to fall to one's knees before. It's something to wonder at. Then, yeah, sooner or later some scholastic explanation ought to be put up for the gentile scoffers. But I think that line, as much as any in the OT, presages the cross and Christ crucified, and the mystery of God emptying Himself.
So the bishop can have his explanation, and much good may it do him. But may God do Him better and greater good and stop his mouth with the wonder of Himself and His self-disclosure, self-gift, in manger, cross, tomb, altar, and freely and lovingly given Breath.
And while we lament the lies sown by their father, we may trust that all of us may be drawn from our error into Truth and Life, and may tread upon Him who grants himself to be our Way.
As are the Greek scriptures wherein the word "Aramaic" is never found but the word "Hebrew/Hebraisti" is all over the place as the language that Jesus spoke, taught in, spoke to Paul in from heaven, that Paul spoke to the Jews of Jerusalem in, and that was thus inscribed on the cross.
Proof is also found in the claim of the early church fathers that Matthew's Gospel was originally written in Hebrew [Hebraisti], then translated into Greek and then into Aramaic [Syriac, specifically Peshitta Syriac].
If no Jew spoke Hebrew or understood it, then how was he able to accomplish the task or why would he have done so in Hebrew if no one was going to be able to read it.
***None of these men were inspired, but they all have made good contributions to Christianity. Because of this, and out of the goodness of my Christian heart, I have allowed all of them to be wrong on certain issues. :)***
Very good of you.
But there arises the most definite of questions: what is right and what is wrong? How is the truth to be judged? What makes FK right in a particular instance and Calvin or Luther or Augustine or Cyprian wrong? The indwelling HS?
That is a tremendous error on the part of the Reformers which has given rise to the thousands of different denominations, as well as declaring fair game for any individual to develop his/her own theology and hang up a church shingle if he/she chooses.
***If I may be hyper-technical :), a 2.0 is always an improvement on the 1.0. I don’t think God was improving, He was completing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the OT God that needed fixing. The OT God is exactly the same as the NT God. We just get to see more and more of Him as we page through the Scriptures. So, we get more, not better.***
I think that we might be quibbling here over very little. More, better; okay. Some of both perhaps?
The OT outlines the failure of God to get the Jews to pay attention and prepare themselves for the Messiah. The mission to the Gentiles was a fallback. The Jews are God’s Chosen People and they as a nation have not accepted Jesus Christ as the Messiah. This alone should provide sufficient evidence that God has created us with free will.
***And therein lies the problem with some of these “Church communities”, they are almost gnostic in their requirement for secret knowledge of scripture.***
Not ‘almost’.
We have all read posts here from those who claim to possess the indwelling Spirit because they KNOW. And from that KNOWLEDGE, they are able to understand Scripture, the will of God, their own righteousness and the unrighteousness of others. Their knowledge and actions are correct and when they come into conflict with the knowledge and actions of others, then the others are wrong, even when the others claim the same justification of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Well, if the Greeks are unable to translate Greek to English better than untutored English heretics, why would the Jews know anything more about their history than untutored English heretics?
***Oh, but they would never admit that they follow traditions of men!***
One tradition I’ve noticed that they appear to have largely abandoned is the practice of any sort of worship service on Christmas, especially if it falls on a Sunday.
Abandoning one tradition of men in the favour of personal leisure and travel is the next level in theological evolution, I suppose.
***It is clear to me, from Scripture and my own exprience, that the Protty construction accounts for the largest number of factual data points and the RC edifice construction on reality displays the largest number of UNBIBLICAL, UNTRUE, IDOLATROUS, BLASPHEMOUS data points. ***
In other words, it is your opinion.
***I’ll not be holding my breath waiting for comparable graciousness from the RC edifice side about Prottys full of Holy Spirit authentically operating in such giftedness.***
Never said that Holy Spirit doesn’t. We just see so many obviously false claims that we get a little sceptical.
***It appears that The RC edifices ASSUMES That WHEN an RC edifice believer is involved, it MUST be HOLY SPIRIT operating. ***
Nope. Many Catholics do very evil things. When Catholics claim something involving the Holy Spirit, the Church puts a lot of investigation together before anything is declared.
***4. The laws of concern will be DO YOU LOVE GOD OVERWHELMINGLY ABOVE ALL ELSE; ARE YOU IN HIS LOVING SERVICE ONLY, TOTALLY, ABOVE ALL ELSE? Nothing else will matter. ***
The First Commandment of Jesus.
***2. I wish someone else were saying the following . . . but it tends to appear . . . that the major outrage that the RC edifice side has in terms of fierce, satirical etc. styles and posts . . . is that . . . the RC edifice side has had a lot of trouble raising up reps of sufficient starkly vivid fierce fiesty cleverness to routinely counter that from the Protty side. ***
My impression is the exact opposite. Bleak, austere and impoverished theologies tend to lead to bleak, auster and impoverished dialogue.
***This warning from The Lord is for all of us. ***
Nice to see that your ability to speak for the Lord hasn’t waned over time.
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