Posted on 11/19/2011 7:23:19 PM PST by pastorbillrandles
I don’t know who you are! I don’t know the moral frame of reference you are using when you used the term “seems to me”. You can’t seem to articulate it and get defensive when asked. You took umbrage at something I said, I suppose in a way to draw you into an honest discussion. Well, in response to your defensiveness a couple of posts back...let me offer a similar “trite” comment in exchange for yours....”If the shoe fits, wear it...if not don’t and let the rain roll off your back!”
Have a good day, “Jack”....Michael Mathis RN
I’ve never asked for agreement, but you are engaging in personal attacks because I have posed a thought for discussion that you deem offensive.
The sum total of your response so far:
I know you are but what am I...
Pea brain!
My Daddy’s going to get you and you’ll be sorry.
I mean really, you don’t see that? You guys started in with the attacks, not me.
The fall of man had to happen so that we would be able to choose to love Him of our own free will. God wants our love, freely given. There, that would have been a pretty easy wouldn’t it?
I agree, that's why I make the whole point about Eve, she disobeyed God, failed to act as one with Adam by going her own way and following her own understanding. Adam stood by and did nothing shows that Adam was also willing to ignore a direct command from God to be as one flesh. Had Adam obeyed that command he would have stopped Eve from listening straying. She wouldn't have been following her own urge that allowed the Serpent to nudge her over the edge into redefining what God said to suit herself and trying to become as God. Adam ignoring Eve when she disobeyed the command to be as one and not protecting her from straying was the start of the whole thing.
It's nice to know so many people who can interpret Scripture any way they like but turn around and claim any interpretation but their own is wrong. Sounds like a whole crowd claiming to be infallible. Eve wasn't just deceived, she committed a series of venial sins leading her further astray until she committed a mortal sin and led Adam from the venial sin of not acting as one with Eve into the mortal sin of eating from the tree. And should the infallible begin their chant about there not being venial and mortal sins, just know in advance that saying that is proof positive that someone does NOT read the Bible. Anyone who doesn't realize that there are the two categories of sin at best carefully cherry picks what they read and at worst is so lost they're incapable digesting the Word as they read it.
Just because someone swallows what their momma penguin pukes up and thinks nothing happened until Adam took a bite of the Apple doesn't mean there isn't a whole lot to be learned from what transpires before that takes place. Well, I guess if you don't believe the whole Bible is suitable for instruction and is the inspired Word of God you could just ignore everything you found inconvenient or hadn't thought about as if it were the Word of God. Those of us who believe in every jot and tilde, though, know that there are important lessons that most people ignore in order to peddle an agenda that doesn't like to deal with context.
This has been very interesting. I now know that quite a few people around here who claim to infallibly interpret Scriptures don't even read the Scriptures, they just repeat what they've had drummed into them and defend it with rote arguments exactly the same way Mooze Lames have been taught to do. There's not much point in my talking with people who think it makes no difference if Adam and Eve disobeyed a direct command from the very mouth of God to them. Folks like that are pretending to believe the Bible at best, and at worst, deliberately and with malice aforethought teaching falsehood.
have a nice day
The serpent then gets bold as says, "God knows that in the day that ye eat thereof your eyes will be open and you shall be as God." Now we see that there is a secret which God held back...a secret 'gnosis' which initiates, if clever enough to acquire, can allow godhood. The desire for godhood is as old as the garden of Eden. It is the goal of the New Age Movement, the Evolutionist (taken to its logical conclusion), the Mormon, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Aquarian conspiracy, the Humanist, the Devil himself ('I shall be like the most high'), nature worshipers, witches, and most of the occult, and many, many others who buy into this deception and desire to be God. But, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. Despite the warnings man still seeks to be a god.
Finally, it is implied, not explicitely stated, that that which was hidden, that secret gnosis which could be obtained from eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil....that knowledge comes to the tree from the ground,.....from the earth...and thus the wisdom of 'Mother Earth' (a term, by the way, derived from paganism and nature worship, or naturalism, and one which has been given the emprimature of kindliness and wisdom).
I would only add that in the end times perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blastphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affections, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away. (Those last few sentences could have been taken from the headlines of the Dallas Morning News or Washington Post or New York Times of today....but those sentences came from another source, much more up-to-date).
A great deal is taught in the Scriptures about the Fall and the story is rife with warnings. The fact that some folks don't care to try and understand the warnings and warning signs that are within those Scriptures and others just reinforces your point about the Gnostic tendencies so common these days. So many of the Larry and Lucy Lastword crowd have their own agenda that they can't even see that His Word contains far more than the obvious in the climatic examples so often referred to.
There are careful and clear warnings as well as carefully explained ways to avoid pitfalls within many of those examples and it takes no special or secret knowledge to understand them. One only has to quietly read and reread what has been given to us while listening for the still small voice that is there to guide us.
Regards
Ping to post 86
IOW, Satan says, here, let me interpret that for you. The simple plain truth of Scripture is too hard for you to understand. God didn’t mean what he said, He means what I say he means.
Always someone saying “we have the inside track” and “you can’t get all you need just from scripture”.
EXACTLY !! Like the when the Bible says the church is the pillar and bastion of the truth, Peter is the rock on which Christ will build the Church, and myriad other things. People would rather listen to Satan telling them the Scripture doesn't mean what it says to further their own personal version of the Scripture than to accept His Word, take up their cross, and follow Christ. The best example is really the Eucharist. Christ directly says to eat His Flesh, and drink His Blood, when challenged restates the same thing in a way even more offensive to the Jews who he was talking to, and when they leave, ask his Apostles if they're leaving, too.
Well, you'd think that if Christ said it and it was a simple sentence, at the very least even those who listen to Satan on a routine basis would accept it in order to not be so obvious about their not really believing in His Word. But no, such folks tell us that Christ couldn't possibly mean what he said, it's the same as when he said he was a door. LOL, that's rich, even funnier than saying Peter isn't the rock and even worse in it's effect. People are so blinded they believe one of the following:
a) Christ was too stupid to speak clearly,
b) You cannot trust what you read in the Bible to be accurate
c) Christ is incapable of putting a bit of His Flesh into bread or a bit of His Blood into wine
d) We can restate, reinterpret, or ignore, those portions of the Scripture that don't say what we want them to say
Whichever of those such folks pretends is correct doesn't matter, they're all functionally identical. When you say He means what He says, AMEN. He very clearly means that His Body and His Blood are in the Eucharist, that He would build His Church on Peter, and thank God, that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His Church.
John 3:14-18 14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 5:24 24Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
John 6:28-29 28Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" 29Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."
John 6:38-40 38For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
I don't know what sort of folks you have in mind but I'm sure glad we Catholics believe every bit of the Scripture and even wrote the Creeds that clearly state our Faith in Salvation by Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Light, and that everyone who seeks Salvation has to go through Christ and Christ alone.
You know, we Catholics even believe the verses you left out, like,
Joh 6:34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
Joh 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
and
Joh 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
Joh 6:52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Joh 6:53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
Joh 6:54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
Joh 6:55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
Joh 6:56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
Joh 6:57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
Joh 6:58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
Joh 6:59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.
Joh 6:60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
Joh 6:61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you?
Joh 6:62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?
Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Joh 6:64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him.
Joh 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
Joh 6:66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
Joh 6:67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
I agree with you, there are people who like to reinterpret Scripture in order to avoid the humility it takes to actually accept Christ when it's so much easier to just talk about Christ but then do your own thing. I guess some have had their little feelers hurt and cannot obey Christ and forgive, while others seem to just want to freely frolic fairy-like amidst flower filled fields from their own daydreams rather than being obligated to take up their cross and follow Christ. One can only hope that those who stray that far really do have some measure of faith in Christ rather than their own understanding, otherwise it's going to be a horrible thing for them to hear, "depart, I never knew you".
Now, personally, I prefer to be dragging my cross right along behind Christ with fellow Christians in His Church He said was to guide us, that way Christ knows I'm right where He said I should be, regularly partaking of His Flesh and His Blood so I know I won't be hearing, "I never knew you". Other folks, though, I guess they just like Russian Roulette, shooting craps, and betting their immortal souls on their own personal interpretation of Scripture.
Without the gospel of your salvation, a creed is pretty much worthless. What does it matter what else you cite in your creeds if the gospel is missing? That's what saves.
"We believe (I believe) in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and born of the Father before all ages. (God of God) light of light, true God of true God. Begotten not made, consubstantial to the Father, by whom all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven. And was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary and was made man; was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried; and the third day rose again according to the Scriptures. And ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose Kingdom there shall be no end. And (I believe) in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father (and the Son), who together with the Father and the Son is to be adored and glorified, who spoke by the Prophets. And one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We confess (I confess) one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for (I look for) the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen."
Now, go ahead and tell me all about how it doesn't quote the entire New Testament so you find it totally inadequate.
have a nice day
I don’t remember Paul telling the jailor they had to be able to quote any creeds. Did I miss that verse?
I honestly hope you do have a nice day.
That comes from an intellectual reading and understanding of the scriptures...It it completely devoid of any spiritual understanding which is given to those who become the 'sheep'...
Right in the same context is:
Joh 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
This verse in the context of Jesus telling us to eat his flesh is completely lost on you guys...You can't even comment on it...
And then we messed up. But rather than being separated from the full glory of God forever (because of original sin), God gave us grace - and brought death into our lives so that we wouldn't have to live in sin forever and be separated from his fullness.
So death is a GOOD thing and not a punishment. Sort of like thinking of “The End of the World” as a good thing (Second Coming and all).
I'm less convinced of the following - but I wonder if the entire Earth, in its created and pristine form, was the Garden of Eden. From what we know of the rest of the Solar System and most of space - I wouldn't doubt it.
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