Posted on 03/30/2002 7:53:37 PM PST by malakhi
| Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams |
Hey, I've got kids. How different could it be? ;o)
I think the proper theological term is "nekkid."
What the bible says on this point is crystal clear to all but those whose understanding is blinded by their manmade traditions. Mary had other children, Jesus's brothers and sisters. Of course, in order to shore up their extra-biblical, elevated status for His mother, the RC system conveniently perverts the Word of God, claiming His brothers weren't really His "brothers." For some reason, we're supposed to believe they really meant his "cousins" when they said, "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, ..."
Nah, we need the "P"erpetual "V"irginity doctrine because it fits so well with our even more unsupportable doctrines concerning her bodily assumption and her "I"mmaculate "C"onception.
It's a manmade system based entirely upon God's silence and man's perversion of the true Gospel.
You're right "not till she had brought forth her firstborn son."
Matthew 1:24 says that Joseph took Mary as his wife. But it does not say that they had sex.
Agreed. Verse 25 provides us with the extra testimony that Joseph knew not his wife until the birth of her firstborn son.
Yep. And it is strange to talk of a man being "made of a woman." If this merely meant that Jesus was human, but from some new line straight out of heaven, wouldn't the inclusive "man" be used?
And if not Mary, then what "woman" was he "made" of?
SD
Please refer me to any Biblical citation where anyone other than Jesus is referred to as a child of Mary.
SD
Right. Which testifys to the miraculous nature of His Birth, not to the intra-marital dynamic.
SD
And, if the psalms are any indication, David didn't see the Law that way. Which tells me that he kept the Law out of love for God, not out of trying to be saved by his own efforts. As someone who sinned, he understood grace and forgiveness.
That's understandable. It proves there is little benefit to looking at the words in a vacuum, apart from the context of Scripture.
But when a cat gives you something it kills, it is showing its love for you. It is the greatest gift a cat can give!
I know you disagree with the identification, but
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? (Mark 6:3)
There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Mag'dalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salo'me (Mark 15:40)
Exactly. But to give it up before he even really hurt it at all is simply remarkable. I think he had already had his fill and was bored from the other one.
SD
Really. Our cat Joey is an avid mouser. Once I found a whole mouse wedged between two boxes in the basement. He must have been playing with it, and got it stuck where he couldn't get it out. But usually I don't find anything left over. Maybe a tail.
That's his "tithe."
Last year one night he lined up 6 mouse heads all in a row. It was not a random lineup, he wanted to display them as a gift.
SD
In other words, "we can't explain" and "You are ignorant of Scripture for even asking."
Thanks for playing. Run along now.
SD
Yeah, it's really an eyeopener to get up thru the night, walk thru a dark house and step on a pile of guts, or a head, especially in summer when your barefooted. Yuck!
Becky
The system is consistent. Whatever it takes, the objective is to support a blind adherence to the perverted Gospel. Whether speaking of the written word or the Word made flesh, the Word of God is entirely insufficient.
All comments are welcome.
One of the reasons for division in the church is the fact that its leders too often have ignored our Lord's admonition, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them.....Yet it shall not be so among you.........whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave" (Matthew 20:25-27). Jesus never inteded that a professional clergy elevate itself above the rest of the church to form an elite ruling class. The system in which he, himself, had been reared and in which the apostles had functi8oned was a synagogal Judaism, an egalitarian exercise which featured the interaction of a multitude of conselors the model in which the safe exercise of leadership can be found (Proverbs 11:14). Plurality of eldership and collective decision making were the norm in the earliest church (Acts 6:3; 15:6; Galatians 2:9).
When church leaders in suceeding generations neglected the servant leadership paradigm which Jesus demonstrated, they began to model their leadship styles after the autocratic political and/or business systems of their societies. Leaders became increasingly turf-protective, seeking to preserve and extend the aegis of their dominion. Sects within the church became more and more elitist and parochial. Increasingly, the church became a quasi-political organism, and leaders competed for political and economic power. Monarchial bishops assumed control over the church in geographic areas. Finally, the bishop of Rome sought to establish his primacy over the entire church, an effort that culminated in the establishment of the papacy, producting susequent abuses of power and precipitating the East-West schism. Christianity became Christendom.
When the Reformation came, leaders adopted the models of government common to their societies. Nationalism produced state churches and an ever-increasing sectarianism, as movements crystallized into entrenched bureaucracies. Unfortunately, these denominations escalated the infighting and strife within Christianity. Still others arose seeking reform from newly entrenched strutures; however, their efforts produced other crystallized movements, fostering still more divisions in the universal church.
When men seek for dominion within self-serving bureacracies rather than sacrificing their egos to submit themselves one to another in a humble search for truth, they have allowed demonic strongholds to be erected in their lives that bind them in pride, conceit, and arrogance and produce abusive behavior that wounds and weakens the members of the body of Christ. When the church departs from the servant-leadership principle espoused and employed by Jesus and the apostles, it reads dangerous ground.
It should be noted that Jesus ascribed abusive exercises of power as being typical of Gentiles, implying that such condust was not the norm in Hebrew society in which the disciples had been reared. This was especially true in the religious life of the Israeli people. Though the priesthood and the temple order remained important, the daily religious practices of the people had centered in their synagogues since the time of the Babylonian captivity. Synagogal Judaism was the firs grand experiment in the democratization of religion. Iwas this model, rather than the Gentile examples, that the apostles were to employ in their exercise of leadship over the reformed congregation of Jesus.
Here is the biblical description of servant leadership:"...a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in oppostion, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth" (2 Timothy 2:24,25). Whoever is the chiefest in the churches, let him employ this kind of conduct inproviding oversight for God's people.
Surely the church can now return to that model that was manifest in its earliest years. When leaders learn to serve rather than "lord it over" God's heritage, they will be able to avoid the attitudes that have promoted division. When they are submitted to one another in love, they can promote the unity that the church so desperately needs.
Can I get a couple of amens? (at least) :-)
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