Thanks, good points- you know how it is for pastors- they fall short and start telling everyone else not to fall short. I'm not knocking you, I sometimes talk then think then pray. Backwards don't you think. I still find it hard not to tell people about what God has done in my life. If someone dies, they face eternity and God, based on my faith in the Bible we Christians are implored to do all we can in God's power to tell others that Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins of the whole world. This saves them from eternal damnation if they believe. Sounds like a good message to share with a friend if you believe it. And I hate BROW BEATING! Ever tried to brow beat your kids into submission. (doesn't work)
Most of the people that I have heard say this I usually talking about the Christians that are 'in their face' not those that are letting the be . .and adding commentary here and there By and large . . When someone says the Christians are being hypocrits They talking the Christians that are constantly trying to convert them Rocket River
I don't know how many non Christians you have spoken with concerning Christian faith, but I do it almost everyday and when I ask non Christians how many Christians speak to them or get in their face- the answer has almost always been - zero The "Christians are hypocrites" almost always comes from people who form judgments based upon assumptions or things they have seen or heard about Christians. I have talked to young people on end who say that Christians are hypocrites. Most of them have been to church, some have grown up in church, many just form opinions based upon what they are told. By in large it was never from someone trying to brow beat them into religion. I can't tell you the number of kids I talk to who have watched their 'Christian' parents argue, fight and even divorce -that come away with the idea that Christianity is hypocrisy. I have seen this over and over. Christians have bad attitudes, lie and cheat and then tell people they go to church. Or people know someone who goes to church and then they act just the opposite. I have watched so called 'Christian' men hit on women, curse and demean their wives and neglect their children... doesn't sound like sharing one's face to me is a big reason people see hypocrisy in the faith. That is just my experience...
I dunno about that. At least here in Austin, there's a bit of a church culture that seems to push the matter a little too much (imho), whether it's holding up eternal damnation signs on campus or even Austin City Limits, screaming scripture passages to passersby, passing out tracts to people who would just throw it away... People seem to take on this one and done attitude where they think one spiritual conversation is all it takes. Pray that sinner's prayer and you're saved. I wanna say it takes a lot more (like 30+ more) spiritual conversations because the gospel is just that rich and it's kind of short changing people to just give people a really superficial overview over and over again with ever going deeper. But anyway.. I really don't see how using a bullhorn to tell people how they're sinners and need Jesus is not getting in their face. They do speak truth -- people do screw up and need Jesus but I do see where people are coming from when Christians are dubbed as too pushy.
I agree with everything you say there... I don't see very many people out getting in people's faces and I go out and talk to people alot. But if there is alot of that obnoxious preaching hell fire going on it isn't the way Jesus did it. I like the way Jesus preached and taught people in the Bible. I also think the apostle Paul is a good example. We are talking extremes I guess. But by and large I haven't had the experience of seeing all the rude condemning people in your face stuff. I have seen it happen over the years. But by and large the general Christian in public I observed does not seem that concerned about sharing the message with others. I have performed many funerals for people who admittedly did not embrace the Christian faith, surprising many Christians come up to me and tell me what a shame it is that the person is probably in hell. I'm thinking, how can you say that so casually without a tear in your eye. Maybe God wired me different but I want tears, prayers and compassion for others. I already feel badly that I haven't shared more of God's love and message in the D&D. I am far from perfect and I don't want to be anyone's example. I really try to present Jesus as the Savior of the world because I believe that with all my heart.
I do not understand how an Atheist can say what a true christian should do. he is not a christian so he does not know what the god of the christians wants, Just taking the bible literally is not good, and if you are a atheist you do not feel a connection with a god(because you believe there is no god). So you cannot know what the god wants. IMHO I'm an Atheist I do not say i know what the god(which i do not think excists) would want of people. If there is a god who says: "either believe in me or go to hell, if you have done bad things but you are sorry and you believe in me you can go to heaven. If you have done nothing wrong, and lived your life as a good person, but you didn't believe in me, so you are going to hell" Then i do not want anything to do with such a god. (luckily for me i do not believe a god excists at all).
Easy, the atheist can read the bible and see that it is plain as day what a true Christian should do. The question the atheist is posing is- why in the world don't Christian's put it in practice, since they claim to believe it? It should be perplexing to an atheist why someone would believe in God and then read in the bible what Christians claim God commands of them and ignore it.
I agree on some part, however I also disagree with you on some part. As i said before i'm an atheist, i have had a lot of discussions with some good friends of mine(who is an christian). And i do not think it is wise to take the bible litteraly(even though people say it is the word of god), Even if it was the word of god, the translations are defenitly not the word of god, IMHO when you translate something things change, so taking a text litteraly which is translated is unwise. and it always depends on how you interpretate the text. I do not think an atheist should read the bible and take it literally, and judge christians for not taking the bible literally. Because IMHO it is better not to take the bible literally. But this is just my opinion.
I understand that. It is a good point. I don't think that is the issue here. Could you frame it this way- Shouldn't Christians who believe the bible contains the words of Jesus Christ take His words and instructions very seriously? Does it seem perplexing that Christian believe the words of Jesus and He said that unless people believe in Him they would be placed in an eternal hell, a place of damnation and torment; and then claim to believe what He is saying and forget about it? You do not know if God exists so you do not have any reason to believe in Christianity. I understand how you feel because I was once an atheist. But what if you claimed to be an atheist and yet you obeyed every command in the Bible. Isn't that a contradiction? If a Christian believes in a literal Hell (since Jesus Christ talked about a literal place of torment) and doesn't take it serious isn't that a contradiction?
Yes those would be contradictions but I bet that you would have trouble finding a Christian that obeys every command in the Bible. That's a contradiciton if they truly believe, no? Atheist on the other hand can obey some commands in the Bible without contradicting their belief because these are just social norms (ie. thou shalt not kill). I believe it's harder to be a non-contradicting Christian than a non-contradicting Atheist. Atheists really have no code to live by while Christians do. I see hypocrites of religions all the time, not just Christianity and that is what really turns me off of religion. I am Agnostic by the way.
Agreed they should take it seriously, however they should not take it literally, they should think about it, and make their own conclusions. Agreed, If that is what jesus has said then they should believe it and not forget it. Otherwise it is very strange. No I do not think it is contradicting. I'm an atheist so i think for myself what my moral standard are and what i think is acceptable as a human and what is not. In a lot of cases that are the same moral standard as christians have. However i have these morals not because I believe a god wants me to follow these morals, i have these moral standards because I decided i wanted to be such a person with these moral standards. ofcourse i grew up in a western world were christianity is the main religion, so i am probably affected by this. But still i follow the moral standard that i decided, and i want to be a good person for myself. Also i think do not obeyeevery command of the bible, because i do not pray, and i do not believe in a god. But besides that i have very high moral standarts. I think a christian should take it seriously, otherwise it is defnilty a contradiction. I do have to say that i feel that a lot of people who claim to be christians(or any other religion)which are infact not christians. What i do not understand is how people can say they believe in their god and the standards this god has given them. But imidiatly when they leave the church forget about everything, and not care about the poor and helpless. I think a lot of people say they believe in a god, just because they are either: 1 Afraid for a hell, and want to be safe. 2 never thought about it and it is easier for them. IMHO those people are really wrong, because if there is a god he would know the difference between somone that truly believes and somebody who is just saying he believes. I'm verry happy for the people who truly believe, because they are happy that way, and that is IMHO the most importent thing in life. I respect everybody and their religion, however i also expect others to respect me, and respect that i do not believe in a god. Ofcourse my friends who believe can talk to me about religion(i like it if they do), and even try to convince me(altough that will never happen).But they should also listen to my arguments, and be open minded.
This is a really long article by a guy named N.T. Wright titled, "How Can the Bible Be Authoritative." It's an INCREDIBLE read. I think it's my favorite Biblical commentary ever. http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Bible_Authoritative.htm If anyone is interested...read through it. It's long and pretty deep. But worth your time if you're remotely interested. arno -- given your responses here, i think you'd find it very interesting.
Yes, they should. I will also add that if you believe the Bible is the true and holy word of God Himself (don't start on the "man's understanding of God" cop-out), you have every responsibility to learn Hebrew and Greek so that you may interpret the Old and New Testaments in as pure a form as possible. You have the responsibility to follow every one of His supposed instructions to the word, because a truly divine message would leave no room for ambiguity or error. Before you can claim to believe in something, you have to get it right But people don't do all this. Why? Because to do so would put a person seriously out of touch with reality. So we get all the "personal interpretations" and "applying Christ's message to a modern world" nonsense. There is nothing wrong in practising your faith in such a manner, of course - my horse isn't so high that I will presume to tell you how to live. You would do well to admit that you are believing only what you want to believe, though
i'm begging you...please read the article i posted a link to above!!!! please, please, please, please, please, pretty please, please. Christ's message was always directed in its context. He spoke to an agrarian community so he used agrarian metaphors to make his point. We don't live in an agrarian community. Telling the story with new metaphors is fine. We're living the story today. The Bible is not the Koran. It's not an instruction manual. It's a narrative from start to finish. There are truths from that narrative. But the Bible isn't God. There are those who treat it as such...but I find that to be "wrong." It's not at all a reflection of my faith.
Thanks for the link Madmax, i will read it. Sounds interesting. I totally agree with your last post. These posts make you one of my favorite posters
That is quite a religious challenge you have offered. I don't need any Greek or Hebrew to understand these 2 simple commands Jesus gave us- "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and Love your neighbor the same as yourself." (the words of Jesus Christ) Jesus said all the laws and the prophets are summed up there. I don't think learning Greek or Hebrew has any merit trying to understand something that simple. The words of Jesus are easy enough for a small child to understand and complex enough for adults to go to war over them... all at the same time. I learned all I need to know as a pastor reading children Bible stories to my kids when they were 4-5 yrs. old.
I think you hit on something very important here. What is Christ's point? And is it truth? What were the points of Christ's metaphors? What truth? Did God speak to us? Is it a narrative with a message? Is it a message with a narrative? Does faith validate a lie and a truth? Is the bible a lie? Is the bible God's truth? Is it God's message? Is it God's story? Is it accurate? Can it be trusted? What information is in the bible? Did men write the bible or did God ensure an accurate writing? Why even have a bible? I would suggest that this has become the most important issue in the Christian world today; What do we do with the bible? Here are some of Christ's own words as recorded in the bible- Mark 8:38 "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." John 5:46-47 "For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" John 12:48 "He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." John 14:24 "He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me." Matthew 24:35 "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." John 17:13-17 "And now come I to thee (God the Father); and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth(bolding mine).
Haha.. OK, I just did. I understand what he's trying to say. It's good, sound reasoning. But maybe now you can try to understand what I'm trying to say, albeit less eloquently "You will discover that God is speaking new truth through it. I take it as a method in my biblical studies that if I turn a corner and find myself saying, ‘Well, in that case, that verse is wrong’ that I must have turned a wrong corner somewhere. But that does not mean that I impose what I think is right on to that bit of the Bible. It means, instead, that I am forced to live with that text uncomfortably, sometimes literally for years (this is sober autobiography), until suddenly I come round a different corner and that verse makes a lot of sense; sense that I wouldn’t have got if I had insisted on imposing my initial view on it from day one." From a Christian perspective, that's pretty awesome. It clearly demonstrates that God was not commanding us, but speaking to us like a kindly father and allowing us to come to the truth on our own You have to understand the human mind, though. True faith is unshakeable, while perspectives can always change. "Believing" in something, but only reconciling your true feelings on the matter with what you "believe" years later.. would it be so far-fetched to say that you're creating your own truth, as an alternative to God being correct all this while? Does the scenario I've highlighted necessarily increase the validity of what he believes in? Only to him, perhaps. It certainly means nothing to an objective observer like me. But that's all that matters, isn't it? To him, people who don't share his beliefs must clearly be wrong, since it's all so perfect and logical in his head Such a mentality (common among the religious, I'm afraid) is one-sided and divisive in nature. It's self-centred. It's myopic. And, when mixed with the fervour of faith, it's downright dangerous
and the prophet Jeremiah talked about a time when the word wouldn't have to be written on paper, because it would be written on the hearts of men. he pointed towards the messiah and the moshiach...the time after the messiah came. i think that's what the Holy Spirit is all about, frankly. i think the texts are HUGELY important. the portrait of Christ in the gospels is amazing. there's truth there for me, because it tests out as true to me. i do sense differences in the books in terms of the author's purposes. the gospels don't seem to have the same purpose as the book of job, for instance. Job feels like a parable Jesus could have told. That doesn't mean it's not "true" in the sense that it conveys truth about who God is...and who we are in relation to God. But I don't need for it to be a literal story to convey me that truth and to learn from it. the gospels, on the other hand, are written from a "here's what I saw" or "here's what I've learned" sort of angle. the authors' purposes are entirely different. and within those gospels, there are subtle differences too...you can tell, for instance, that Luke is writing to a largely Gentile audience while Matthew is addressing a Hebrew audience. but read them together and you get a sense of the man they're describing that is more than remarkably similar.
