Posted on 06/24/2014 2:13:28 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Amen and Amen!
Oh, are you in favor of the ordination of women also ? Which denomination/sect do you represent that supports the ordination of women ?
Now I understand you're a big fan of the Big Ten. Isn't there something in there about not bearing false witness against your neighbor?
Is bearing false witness important to you, now that you have not only accused me of doing it, but also of not reverencing the Ten Commandments ? Is that what you really meant to write ?
But in truth I suspect you have interpreted his rejection of your soteriological theories as conscious and deliberate rejection of apostolic authority. And what if we decide your rejection of his/her positions as willful rejection of Scriptural authority, and started posting things about you in public forums like this:
Your suspicions, which you acted on, miss the mark. I think of Elsie is Arminian, and not Calvinist, since his that is a distinguishing feature of the denomination he chose. The issue I raised with him was the ordination of women (he wrote on another thread something to the effect that he does not regard Paul's writing on it as lawfully binding on Christians. His denomination also supports abortion in certain cases (life of the mother is threatened), and contraception generally (as long as the drug is not a morning after type pharmakea; at least that is my understanding of the Wesleyan Church position which I regard as intentionally vague). It this your position as well ? In either case, my note to Elsie WRT Paul is what Paul wrote to Timothy about Christian women.
"you already wrote that you will neither believe nor obey Paul's specific teaching in both Romans 8:17 and Ephesians 1:11 that we have already obtained our inheritance in Christ, as a done deal." Wouldn't that be "bearing false witness" against you? Yet no one here has done this to you.
Seems to me that you just did it, or is that plausible deniability ?
And to top it off, you made me go back through Elsie's almost endless posts to find what I was referring to, for which I should probably bill you :)
Contradict yourself much??? You just got done saying:
The apostles all wrote that "doers of the law will be justified." They did not write that doers of the law will be justified by the law. Nobody ever was or will be justified by the law. Doers of the law will be justified because earnestly and obediently following the commandments is what leads to genuine righteousness. It makes his disciples righteous as he is righteous. That is why the law is called instruction in righteousness, and the perfect law of liberty. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
Are you trying to play both sides and running face first into your OWN slammed door? Either we are justified by the law or we are justified by faith. DOING the law is the same thing as saying we are justified BY the law. God made it patently clear that the law in NO WAY justifies anyone - because it can't!
In Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible, we read:
I see something differently than you do here:
But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up to the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Why the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. (Galatians 3:23-25)
AFTER that faith has come. I see this as being very personal to each of us, not to be taken in the aggregate.
What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, You shall not covet. But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
If the Law is holy and righteous and good, how can it be wrong, or at-odds to follow it?
Look at this passage from the position of the great lie (Ye shall not die, and ye shall be like God): From the garden we have thought that we innately contain the knowledge of good and evil - What seems right to us is what we go by. I don't think that is true, and Torah was given to show us the difference.
Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
Look at religious systems... All of them claim the truth, and the way to the Father (or enlightenment, or etc...). But YHWH has told us, in no uncertain terms, what IS good - How to worship, how to love, how to conduct ourselves. How then, can the Holy Spirit speak against it?
Thus, if a religion shows a different way, A way different than what YHWH has given, it necessarily cannot be true. The example has already been given by our brothers, the Jews, that religion can become utterly corrupted - EVEN THOUGH THEY DIDN'T KNOW their error! The testimony of Messiah shows that error, and corrects it. Of course that is not ALL Messiah did, not by a long shot! But this aspect of His Ministry is given short shrift. Torah WITH the interpretation of Messiah is inevitably what will bring true ecumenicism between our selves and our brothers, and finally, all the sons of Adam, because that is what the prophets predict... It is inevitable - All the world will keep Torah, to include the Sabbath and the Holy Days.
How much plainer can God make it?
Indeed. He has said it is those who keep his commandments AND have the testimony of Yeshua the Messiah that are his own.
You rely on the opinions of men?
Let’s stick with the Bible, how many millions will spend eternity in Hell fire due to Gill?
I did not contradict myself.
A status of general compliance with Torah, simply for the sake of being known for complying with Torah is of no value whatsoever. That is why most Jews are lost.
Yeshua demands that we obey his commandments out of love and belief in him. To those that do that, the effect is the teaching of true righteousness through more than simple knowledge of what sin is declared to be by the law. It creates a desire to please him that is visibly lacking in those that reject what he has commanded.
The rejectors of his commandments often insist that they are “saved by grace,” but then insist that grace consists of automatic righteousness granted for saying a prayer that is nowhere to be found in the Word of God. They don’t even recognize that this is totally a works based vacuum of man’s creation.
John’s first epistle is the best place to get one’s head straight. John was the only person on Earth that had a close personal, human relationship with our savior, and probably the only one that fully understood his words. He stood there at the cross and watched, and fully understood each and every thing that happened, as it happened, as is told in his 5th chapter.
John fully recognized that those that followed his commandments willingly were the only ones that truly loved him; the rest were just in it for a guarantee of salvation that could not be had free of that special love.
.
We don’t need your famous machinations.
If they serve you, great, but to those reading them, they lead to destruction.
Yeshua told us that we must endure in the faith to the end; if you reject that, work it out.
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I DID???
Where?
He could have merely meant the post for someone else.
I've done it before.
Simply put, no. Paul adduces an argument from the Post-fall condition of humanity. That is not a cultural argument, as some would posit, but a sweeping assertion of our true current condition.
However, your comment to which I reacted did not suggest an honest disagreement by Elsie, but rather a written statement of direct, willful rejection of apostolic authority. Especially biting was the idea that there was intentional selectivity of belief based on "convenience." The assertion that Elsie knowingly rejected apostolic, and therefore divine authority, is a bridge too far, and is the inescapable falsity in your accusation. You can know what he/she affirms as a belief on these pages, but God alone is the judge of whether he/she has come by that belief honestly.
I was raised among many who debated this very issue, with fine, Godly people on both sides of the debate. The argument stems from the fact that sometimes Paul appears to make a distinction between his own teaching and that for which he claims direct leadership from the Lord. See for example his discussion of marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, where he oscillates back and forth between giving his considered personal judgment versus aligning his teaching with direct commandment of the Lord. Some have taken this to suggest that Paul was deliberately giving his private opinions lower authority, a kind of optional class of teachings, but only where the distinction is set out explicitly.
I dont happen to share that view. I would be more like you on this matter. God saw fit to put every word of Scripture in there for a reason, even if Paul recognized a distinction. But then again, Paul did recognize the distinction, and his writing it down means its true by virtue of being inspired. So Pauls not wrong. There is a distinction. So I can see how some would want to honor that distinction.
And I would not see that as dishonest, or evasive of divine truth. Whereas you have asserted motive, selective disbelief based on convenience. If you cannot prove that motive, your assertions must be understood as false. That doesnt mean I think you intend them to be false. I am sure you believe they are true. But they are not, according to everything I know about Elsie.
As for whether I have borne false witness against you by my hypothetical, I hope every reader here is intelligent enough to recognize it as a hypothetical, the design of which is to try and get you to hear how you are sounding to us. My assumption, which may indeed be faulty, is that if you could hear what you are saying the way we are hearing it, you might not be so eager to say such things.
As for me suspecting the path of your reasoning in making the accusation, I intentionally use such language to ensure I do not inadvertently engage in mind reading. I will always try to give you the benefit of the doubt, and to do so I simply make it clear that I am speculating. That gives you an opportunity to correct my error, without getting in too deep on accusatory language.
Bottom line, I still hold your charge against Elsie is baseless. He did NOT write what you said he wrote. You interpreted first, and then found your selective convenience theory to explain the gap between his belief and your own. It is an easy error to fall into. We all do it every now and then. But it is intemperate to use it in a debate context like this, where tensions are already high. What does Jesus say about the peace-makers?
Peace,
SR
You mean THIS?
1 Timothy 2:12
But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
This is QUITE a bit different than...
Thus saith the Lord, "Do NOT allow a women to teach..."
I get paid by the word.
Although I wish it were for every ellipsis that I use...
HMMMmmm...
Galatians 5:12
As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!
LOL! Yep, well, there it is. Ain’t goin’ away anytime soon. Guess we’ll just have to deal with it. :)
The Law was never a guide...It was the Law...Fail one aspect and we're guilty of all...
We do not follow the Law...We follow Jesus...We do not follow the law because the law condemns...And there is no condemnation in those who trust in Jesus as their Savior...
People who follow (are subject to) the law do it out of fear...Fear of the consequences...
Our command is to love Jesus and love our neighbor, NOT to follow the law...And by loving Jesus and our neighbor we will have fulfilled the law...If I love my neighbor, I will not murder him; I will not steal from him; I will not covet anything he has...
I do not fear the consequences of the law since Jesus paid the price for my failure to perfectly live up to the law...
All the world will keep Torah, to include the Sabbath and the Holy Days.
And if we don't, then what???
Indeed. He has said it is those who keep his commandments AND have the testimony of Yeshua the Messiah that are his own.
And yet, Jesus says,
Joh 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
That's before we even have a chance (or not) to follow his commandments...
If you shoe horn every thing back into the Old Testament, nothing fits...And no one can make it fit unless one starts adding a word here or taking away a word there from the scriptures...
Here's the sinner's prayer right here...
Luk 18:13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
Here's a person who recognizes the authority of God...The person know that God has control of his destiny...The person recognizes he needs God's forgiveness...
The person recognizes that there is nothing he can do to please God...The person is contrite; humble...The person realizes he has sinned against God and seeks God's mercy...And God's response to the sinner's prayer???
Luk 18:14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
How exactly is it different ?
Of course I interpreted it. If I quote him directly I'll indicate so. afsnco post 12, Elsie post 16, clear as day; He clearly rejected the authority of the apostle Paul in this matter, and the clear teaching of the holy catholic apostolic church for almost two millenia, to uphold the doctrine of the Wesleyan Church.
It is not about being more like me on this matter. It is about standing with the Apostle to the Gentiles on doctrine. I don't stand with Paul because I like him. I stand with him because I love the LORD who chose him. There are not two sides of a debate here. There is apostasy and truth. The LORD chose Paul and gave him authority to teach the Gentiles. One either accepts or rejects his authority and teaching. I guess the ladies can vote on it ... He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:
Also, when you discuss another poster, ping him.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
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