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The Bible is crystal clear that faith is needed for salvation. What comes first, the chicken or the egg? Salvation comes through faith. Love comes through faith. As I explained earlier 1 Cor 13 verse "but the greatest of these is love" should not be taken out of the context. The chapter talks about the gifts and fruits of the spirit which will begin to disappear. It talks about which gift/fruit will REMAIN. Tongues, prophecies, even faith and hope will eventually be unnecessary in heaven. Faith and hope are needed in our lives here on earth. The only gift/fruit that will remain in the end (in heaven, in the presence of the Lord) will be love. You won't need faith there, but you need it now.
Amen Finn, amen. Good post
Last edited by Finn_Jarber; 08-20-2011 at 09:49 AM..
1 Corinthians 13 is not quite that old Maybe it is not as savage and ignorant as you think.
Of course not . . . but the CONTEXT that you apply to it IS savage and ignorant in your unwillingness to acknowledge the preeminence of Love in the here and now . . . and concern yourself with faith in the ancient ignorant beliefs about a jealous, wrathful, vengeful God instead.
Of course not . . . but the CONTEXT that you apply to it IS savage and ignorant in your unwillingness to acknowledge the preeminence of Love in the here and now . . . and concern yourself with faith in the ancient ignorant beliefs about a jealous, wrathful, vengeful God instead.
I didn't say anything about wrath I explained what Paul said about love being the greatest of the gifts. Please pay more attention in the future. This is getting quite tiresome.
I didn't say anything about wrath I explained what Paul said about love being the greatest of the gifts. Please pay more attention in the future. This is getting quite tiresome.
It is your refusal to believe that Love is the greatest of the gifts, PERIOD . . . not only in heaven. You will not GET THERE without Love . . . no matter how much faith you think you have in our ancient ancestors' beliefs about God.
I will give you a quote from a friend of mine, who when I asked why she read everything literally in the bible even though it's been proven there are many contradictions and inconsistencies throughout the book (which I showed her examples of): "It is the inerrant and inspired Word of God and there are no contradictions or inconsistencies found in it. If you don't believe that, then you reject God and his Word and will be punished for your disobedience."
I think the original OP and the attached article were really interesting. Thanks to Heartsong for posting it.
There have been a few posts (such as the one above) responding to one of the "4 good reasons not to read the Bible literally" - inerrancy. Here's what the article said:
1) Nowhere does the Bible claim to be inerrant. That's right. At no place in its more than 30,000 verses does the Bible claim that it is factually accurate in terms of history, science, geography and all other matters (the technical definition of inerrancy). "Inerrant" itself is not a word found in the Bible or even known to Christian theologians for most of history. Rather, the word was coined in the middle of the 19th century as a defensive counter measure to the increased popularity of reading the Bible as one would other historical documents and the discovery of manifold internal inconsistencies and external inaccuracies.
Two things are interesting to me here.
First is the definition of inerrancy. I'm not sure everyone is understanding or intending the same definition when they use the word. ChristyGrl's friend coupled the word inspired with the word inerrant as if they were synonyms. I wonder what she really meant (or thought she meant) by that? I, on the other hand, would say the Bible is inspired but not inerrant. By that I mean what one of my pastors used to say: the Bible is not a history book, not a science textbook, not a book of morals and should not be used or relied upon for any of those things. It should not be relied as factual in any of those contexts. It is a book of faith and should be relied upon in the context of faith, salvation, and one's relationship with God.
Second is the idea of how you read the Bible. It appears that as long as you are not attempting to read the Bible as one would "other historical documents" there is no need for any concept of inerrancy. And indeed, the Bible is not like "other historical documents" so why would you read it that way? Getting caught up in the internal inconsistencies and the external inaccuracies and trying so hard to find plausible explanations or outright denying them seems so... well, silly! The Bible is a book of faith, not fact. Each author of each book was witnessing from their inspired beliefs and speaking from their own experience and knowledge. Read them, ponder them, make them part of your spiritual life and faith experience. But don't read them as something they are not.
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Maybe it is not as savage and ignorant as you think.
I didn't say anything about wrath 
