Pauline Chirstianity is not always in harmony with the Gospels. Consider John 5:28-29 "those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned." Sure sounds like the Apostles believed in work-based salvation.
AG's point that many documents were destroyed early on, so who can say for sure...we have all the examples from the OT. It happened over and over again that immediately after God set the ship straight that the Israelites quickly steered it off course again
That's my argument. :) based on that we cannot know anything, especially the OT, to be genuine and untainited. As far as the Israelites are concerned, maybe that's why it took the Gentiles to carry on the true faith, but if that is so, Christ certainly said anything about it.
I don't see this passage as any big problem. It just has to be seen in light with the greatest weight of other scripture. Here, Jesus makes a simple and true statement since no one can do any good in the eyes of the Lord, if he is not saved. Also, everyone who is saved WILL DO good in the eyes of the Lord. I think there is an implicit license for a little interpretation here because if taken in its strictest sense, the passage means that all abortion victims automatically go to neither Heaven nor hell, because they have never done anything good or evil. I don't think either of us thinks that sounds right.
FK: "AG's point that many documents were destroyed early on, so who can say for sure...we have all the examples from the OT. It happened over and over again that immediately after God set the ship straight that the Israelites quickly steered it off course again."
That's my argument. :) based on that we cannot know anything, especially the OT, to be genuine and untainted.
But I don't have faith that the Bible is God's word based on what any man wrote from himself, or what any men agreed to organize into one volume. God said that His word is His word, so the faith is in that truth. If the Bible was actually not God's inspired word, then I would agree with you that we could know nothing. God allowed the Israelites to mess up all the time for His purposes. Lessons have been learned from all of those failings, for one. But if God deliberately allowed error into His own word, then we could learn nothing from it. It would make Him a liar. I see no possible Christian purpose in that.