Replies

“What makes you think slothfulness is any more a deadly sin...?”

Nothing.

I was framing the argument on his terms. Reference to deadly sins raises the probability that the gentleman to whom I commented is a follower of the Church of Rome. You seem to reject Roman Church thought with your comments, which makes the following a bit surprising:

“We were born in sin because we have the Adam gene...”

This is VERY Roman Catholic dogma, which assumes each person is born with individual guilt as a consequence of Adam’s fall. Many Protestants choose to reject the notion that Protestantism splintered from the Church of Rome in the 16th Century and thus is left with a LOT of genetic material from that relationship.

“...and until we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior we are all lost in our sin.”

My family and I have begun the journey into Eastern Orthodoxy, which now colors my frame of thought and has a different view of the concept of Original Sin. This is among many differences, frankly that Western Christendom chooses to ignore - in many cases turning its back on 1500 years of Church history that occurred between Pentecost and 1. The Reformation, 2. The Mennonite Anabaptist movement.

Not ranting, just speaking my heart.

Personally, I reject the notion that a merciful God can be accepted alongside the simultaneous notion that babies are born with a sinful stain, from which it follows logically that if they die before “accepting Christ” they go to hell. Do you (accept that notion, that is)? That would be an awfully cruel state of nature in which to live.

You are wrong in your assumption of what is Catholic dogma and what is Biblical. Paul wrote to the Romans in Romans 3:23,

for all have sinned and thus fall short of the glory of God,

the key word being ALL.

Then in the Psalms we read that David wrote,

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.Psalm 51:5

Then one last Scripture for your consideration would the the one related to the incident of King Jeroboam of the Northern kingdom. Jeroboam sent his wife undercover to Shiloh to ask of the prophet Ahijah if his ill son Abijah would live. This is what God told the prophet as to the son,

The dogs shall eat whoever belongs to Jeroboam and dies in the city, and the birds of the air shall eat whoever dies in the field; for the LORD has spoken!"' Arise therefore, go to your own house. When your feet enter the city, the child shall die. And all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he is the only one of Jeroboam who shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something good toward the LORD God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam.(1Kings 14:11-13).

By reading the text it clearly states that God found something in him that was good. It does not say because he is a child, but because of something good. Only God knows the heart and like I pointed out we are all bad. All mens hearts are continually evil.

That is why Christ was born of a virgin woman. There is no stain on the child from Adam. Genesis 3:15 clearly states that the woman's seed shall crush satan. We all know that men carry the seed, but there is a seed in women that God planted so that when the fullness of times had come, the Holy Spirit would overcome a virgin and she will conceive. She will conceive a child from God not from Adam. Jesus had to be born without the sin nature or he could not be the perfect lamb to take away our sins. So Adam was not in the genes as to say of the picture.

However this does not mean that Mary was born without sin as the Catholic doctrine states. Even she admits her sin when told of the child she will bear. Nor is the Catholics correct in saying she was a perpetual virgin. She clearly had sex with Joseph because the Scriptures states that he did not know her until after the child was born.

I must now prepare my message for my afternoon sermon at a retirement center. So if you want to continue this I will answer you tonight when I get a chance.

If you need to know for references, I used the NKJV Bible for all my Scripture references