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You said that the spirits were the same. If the spirits are the same, then that's proof that spiritual evolution has not taken place:
This is so screwed up it is not even wrong. The spirit referred to was the metaphorical spirit of the decision (i.e spirit of the law) . . .not the spiritual status of our ancestors relative to us today. They were barbarians, pure and simple with very little spiritual development compared to us today. That was the point of showing that the "wise" decision that worked then would not work today . . . because the women today have evolved spiritually and would never have fallen for the ruse.
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With respect, maybe there's another voice that is inciting your lack of self-confidence.
I have no lack of self-confidence. What delusions are you operating under? I have met and am secure in my knowledge of the true nature of our loving God. It is of the same loving and accepting nature as that described for Jesus Christ. If you are trying to intimate that the kind of loving accepting Spirit displayed and revealed by Jesus Christ is somehow an evil Spirit . . . you would have to be insane.
The spirit referred to was the metaphorical spirit of the decision (i.e spirit of the law) . . .not the spiritual status of our ancestors relative to us today.
Our ancestors displayed love that is comparable to our contemporary standard of love; therefore, no spiritual evolution took place between then and now.
I suspect that in order for you to prove that the reduction in violence between then and now is evidence of spiritual growth, you'd have to establish a cause-effect relationship between spirituality and violence. But then, you'd have to contend with our massive contemporary prison population; I can't fathom that throwing a rock at a person to help kill them is different than pulling a lever that results in expanding the prison population since both seem to be forms of mob mentality.
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If you are trying to intimate that the kind of loving accepting Spirit displayed and revealed by Jesus Christ is somehow an evil Spirit . . . you would have to be insane.
I'm not suggesting that; I'm suggesting that there's something very sad about that sort of reaction.
Our ancestors displayed love that is comparable to our contemporary standard of love; therefore, no spiritual evolution took place between then and now.
Wrong. We always had the capacity for it . . . and the one woman exhibited it for her own son. But we did not function with it as our guiding standard . . . as evidenced by the belief that the child would actually be cut in two to settle a dispute!!! Operating under such barbaric beliefs is not remotely comparable to today. We have not eliminated our human animal natures and weaknesses . . . but far more of us try to do so and succeed more often than not . . . compared to our ancestors. If you cannot see that as spiritual evolution . . . I cannot help you.
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I suspect that in order for you to prove that the reduction in violence between then and now is evidence of spiritual growth, you'd have to establish a cause-effect relationship between spirituality and violence. But then, you'd have to contend with our massive contemporary prison population; I can't fathom that throwing a rock at a person to help kill them is different than pulling a lever that results in expanding the prison population since both seem to be forms of mob mentality.
I would have to do no such thing. It is the general level of human consideration extant that evidences the spiritual evolution. We call it civilization. The outliers and exceptions will always be with us . . . but it is the general tenor of societal concern for others that is controlling.
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I'm not suggesting that; I'm suggesting that there's something very sad about that sort of reaction.
I see nothing sad about knowing our God is loving and accepting as revealed and displayed by Jesus Christ. THAT is what it means to be a Christian and not a Biblean.
Too bad. In YOUR version . . . Jesus is appeasing God's anger with us. In the correct version . . . Jesus is reconciling us to God by changing OUR beliefs about God's anger. Remember God does NOT change . . . so He could never have been angry with us to begin with. It was our ignorance and savagery that created the misunderstanding Christ came to correct. Christ proved God's love for us by His sacrifice of enduring torture and crucifixion in love for us all. No greater love has a man than that he lay down his life for another.
Yes, Mystic. And when I used to read the Old Testament I was often mystified by God's seeming inability to control his anger - it just always struck me as weird that God who is pure love could become enraged and contemplate all the horrible things he could do to punish the puny men on earth for walking in darkness. That image of God makes him sound like a person we would consider psychotic. And yet millions of bible-eans will hang on to that image of God until they go into their graves because they are afraid to believe that maybe the men who wrote some of that stuff were writing out of their own terrified imaginations, not from the Spirit of God. The bible is a HUGE idle and stumbling block to the free flow of the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, having said that, many bible-eans will then accuse me of having thrown out all the scriptures, which I have not. But we must rightly divide them.
Too bad. In YOUR version . . . Jesus is appeasing God's anger with us. In the correct version . . . Jesus is reconciling us to God by changing OUR beliefs about God's anger. Remember God does NOT change . . . so He could never have been angry with us to begin with. It was our ignorance and savagery that created the misunderstanding Christ came to correct. Christ proved God's love for us by His sacrifice of enduring torture and crucifixion in love for us all. No greater love has a man than that he lay down his life for another.
Mystic this goes so against the grain of what's been ingrained into us about our concept of God. This ingrained concept of God if we are honest is one we held too before we ever heard the good news, when we were in unbelief. So this ingrained concept of God we hold is rooted in unbelief.
Paul when he was knocked off his high horse concept of God, met a God he had never known, and that God was made known to him through his son Jesus, he could do nothing but forget his former concept he held of God and embrace the true reality of God...... That God is Love !!!!!.
It is all about knowing this Love too
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God
Eph 3:17-19
Here's Paul lifting up the Love of God to its rightful place, and here we read of posters quick to remind us by their warped concept of God( which I formerly had) that he is wrathful and condemning. Not knowing that even is wrath is mercy on his behalf until we all come to faith and knowledge of the trust worthy saying that deserves full acceptance that God is Love and the God of Love IS the Savior of the world.
I see nothing sad about knowing our God is loving and accepting as revealed and displayed by Jesus Christ. THAT is what it means to be a Christian and not a Biblean.
I do often wonder if the Christians who argue so vehemently and angrily against the conclusions people draw based on the knowledge that God is love (ie. that love keeps no record of wrongs therefore God is not holding people's sins against them, and that God loves all without exception), or argue that people cannot, should not trust the love of God for themselves if they don't give assent to the idea that God required a blood-sacrifice in order to have his anger with us appeased -- can see the incongruity, the inconsistency of their overall message?
I do often wonder if the Christians who argue so vehemently and angrily against the conclusions people draw based on the knowledge that God is love (ie. that love keeps no record of wrongs therefore God is not holding people's sins against them, and that God loves all without exception), or argue that people cannot, should not trust the love of God for themselves if they don't give assent to the idea that God required a blood-sacrifice in order to have his anger with us appeased -- can see the incongruity, the inconsistency of their overall message?
No one is denying that God is love, and has expressed it through his mercy & forgiveness toward us. But, Scripture is replete with the message that Jesus was our ransom, our propitiation, our atoning sacrifice. There is no doubt about this. You have no authority to believe otherwise.
No one is denying that God is love, and has expressed it through his mercy & forgiveness toward us. But, Scripture is replete with the message that Jesus was our ransom, our propitiation, our atoning sacrifice.
So, no, you don't see the incongruity.
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There is no doubt about this. You have no authority to believe otherwise.
Okay ... tell me what gives you the authority to tell me that.
Okay ... tell me what gives you the authority to tell me that.
Holy Scripture.
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