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Old 07-12-2013, 07:49 AM
 
Location: In a state of Grace
796 posts, read 853,929 times
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Jesus was Jewish. He was circumcised the eight day, he ate kosher food, he kept the feast days, and he followed the law of Moses. He also recognized the special standing that Israel had with God as being separate from the Gentiles

(Mat 10:6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.).

Paul writes that Jesus was a minister of the circumcision just like Peter, James, and John

(Gal 2:7-9 But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter; 8 (For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles
9 And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision. ).

The uncircumcised were cutoff from God

(Gen 17:14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant. ).

Gentiles could only garner a hearing with Jesus if they exhibited blessing of the nation Israel and him as the

Messiah. Jesus healed a few Gentiles and used them as examples to a faithless Israel

(Luke 7:9 When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. ).

Although Israel had every advantage and opportunity they rejected the prophets and disobeyed the law of God. These lost sheep needed their shepherd to lead them. Jesus was that Shepherd and Israel the sheep

(John 10:1 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber).

While Jesus was a minister to the circumcision Paul writes that he is a minister of Jesus Christ to the uncircumcision

(Rom 15:16 That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. ).

Paul was never sent to the circumcision except to show them that salvation was now apart from the law sent to all men. Peter and Paul even went separate ways when they agreed to minister to these different groups

(Gal 2:9 And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision. ).

Israel was privileged and had been given a promised Messiah, earthly kingdom, and covenantal blessing. The
Gentiles were hopeless enemies of God who had long ago rejected God

(Rom 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; ).

Jesus and Paul ministered to different audiences. They ministered different messages. Jesus ministered kingdom promises and prophecy. Paul ministered Jesus’ grace on the cross.

While we know many things about Jesus according to his earthly ministry to the circumcision we must understand to whom that ministry was performed. This is the great tool in understanding your Bible. Those who ignore this do so at the peril of doctrinal confusion and contention.

Our gospel and instructions were not given by the Lord during his earthly ministry, which was to Israel, but from heaven to our apostle, the apostle to the uncircumcision.

( 2 Corinthians 5:16 “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. ” )
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Old 07-12-2013, 07:54 AM
 
Location: El Paso, TX
32,931 posts, read 26,160,446 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by arleigh View Post
On judgment day whom will be doing the judgment Paul or Jesus ?
Falsely calling Jesus lord constitutes a lie God must judge.
Jesus is the word of God .
Paul speaks for himself .
God does not compromise with sin, repentence is essential not optional.
Paul distorts the gospel implying God is compromising with sin =grace . Jesus did not teach.
Sin is self government =excluding God
One can only sin, being with out God's instruction via the Holy Spirit Jesus provides His believers.
Matthew 7;21,22,23,
One can only produce good fruit if they are obedient, not self motivated deeds.
Should I come across a man in obvious need SOP is first to ask God for instruction, How is that need best met ?
My perspective is limited ,and God knows the truth, regardless of the need the man precieves of him self even.
When I have God's instruction, and I obey , the need is met best from God's POV not always mine.
This is not a vague faith but a relationship Jesus intended fo all believers.
Jesus said , ," why do you call me Lord, but do not do the things I said?"
Who did Jesus say that He would tell to depart from Him because He never knew them? He will say that to those who claimed that they had prophesied in His name, cast out demons in His name, and performed miracles in His name (Matthew 7:21-23). Works!!! But they had not in reality simply trusted in Him for their salvation. They were false followers who had no relationship with Jesus.

You cannot earn eternal life by any works you can do. You either are trusting in the finished work of Christ on the Cross for your salvation, or you are trusting in your own efforts in which case you remain under condemnation.

Again, works belong to the spiritual life after salvation. They have nothing at all to do with becoming saved. The believer will be rewarded for his works of 'gold, silver, and precious stones'. The works of the believer that are 'wood, hay, and straw' will be burned up, but the believer himself is saved (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).

You people who criticise Paul and try to pit him against Jesus are saying that amost half of the NT (Paul's epistles) contradicts Jesus. In so doing you show yourself to have no credibility.

And by the way, Peter put Paul's epistles on a par with the Old Testament Scriptures. 2 Peter 3:15-16.
2 Peter 3:15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16] as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Last edited by Michael Way; 07-12-2013 at 08:19 AM..
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Old 07-12-2013, 08:47 AM
 
Location: Tennessee
10,688 posts, read 7,656,145 times
Reputation: 4674
Default You've read Matt &:21-23 OUT OF CONTEXT

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike555 View Post
Who did Jesus say that He would tell to depart from Him because He never knew them? He will say that to those who claimed that they had prophesied in His name, cast out demons in His name, and performed miracles in His name (Matthew 7:21-23). Works!!! But they had not in reality simply trusted in Him for their salvation. They were false followers who had no relationship with Jesus.

You cannot earn eternal life by any works you can do. You either are trusting in the finished work of Christ on the Cross for your salvation, or you are trusting in your own efforts in which case you remain under condemnation.

Again, works belong to the spiritual life after salvation. They have nothing at all to do with becoming saved. The believer will be rewarded for his works of 'gold, silver, and precious stones'. The works of the believer that are 'wood, hay, and straw' will be burned up, but the believer himself is saved (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).

You people who criticise Paul and try to pit him against Jesus are saying that amost half of the NT (Paul's epistles) contradicts Jesus. In so doing you show yourself to have no credibility.
Mike, read the entire chapter of Matthew 7. Jesus told his audience up front what it was they were to DO--I'll repeat it again.

1. Judge not, lest ye be judged.
2. Do all things to other men that you would have them do to you.
3. The good tree bringeth forth good fruit--wherefore by their FRUITS you shall know them.

Knowing the scripture and reading it daily AND BELIEVING those scriptures brought no salvation to the scribes and pharisees. Jesus was disgusted with them. Why did not the Bible save them for all their knowledge and conviction of the rightness of each and every word? The scribes and pharisees, the religious people, were the ones Jesus was warning in the last part of Matthew seven.

For DRob4JC, you have fallen into the trap of medieval thinking--separation of works from salvation. They are a dichtomy that are one--just like Jesus was both God and Man.

The whole of medieval history is centered on the theme of the predominance of the spiritual sphere over the secular sphere, and the modern age is characterized by an ever increasing independence of the secular in its relations with the spiritual. So long as Christ and the world are conceived as two opposing and mutually repellent spheres, man will be left in the following dilemma: he abandons reality as a a whole, and places himself in one or the other of the two spheres.

He seeks Christ without the world, or he seeks the world without Christ. In either case it is self deception. Or else he tries to stand in both spaces at once and becomes a man of eternal conflict, the kind of man who emerged in the period after the Reformation and who has repeatedly set himself up as representing the only form of Christian existence which is in accord with reality.

There are not two realities, but only one---that is the reality of God, who has become manifest in Christ, is the reality of the world. In Christ we stand at once in both the reality of God and the reality of the world. The world has no reality of its own, independently of the revelation of God in Christ. There are not two spheres but one Christ.

The theme of two spheres which has become the dominant theme of the Church, is foreign to the New Testament. There are not two spheres standing side by side, competing with each other and attacking each other's frontiers. If that were so, this frontier dispute would always be the decisive problem of history. But the whole of reality of the world is already drawn into Christ and bound together in Him, and the movement of history consists solely in divergence and convergence in relation to this center.

Here is how two spheres thinks---and I suspect many on this thread will see themselves in this description--concepts in the world are either secular or Christian, natural or supernatural, profane or sacred, and rational or revelational, as though they were ultimate static anti-theses, serving to designate mutually exclusive entitites.

That thought fails to recognize the original unity of these opposites in the reality of Christ. The two spheres come together in Christ. Christ was a party animal, He made wine, but He still spoke of the responsibility of each person toward each other person. Jesus did NOT separate himself from the world as Paul would have us do. Instead He tried to be in the world but not of the world. After all, He created the world which we Christians spend so much time despising.

It is easy to find the profane hiding in the holy and to call it to task. It is much, much harder to find the holy hiding in the profane--but that is exactly what we are called to do. That is exactly why Jesus could love unloveable people--and forgive them. His eyes were eyes of faith that saw beyond the surface to the possibility of new beginnings, to a closer walk with Him.

Well, a long discourse, which few will read, and fewer still will understand. The world is not holy or profane, salvation is not faith or works, man is not spirit or body--they are one and the same in Jesus Christ, the author of all things. Jesus is both God and Man. Dividing any of them is the lazy man's choice to intellectually departmentalize them to fit in easy to pull out slots of our brains.

That's why we are inferior to God who has no problem with the dichotomy of the world He created.

Last edited by Wardendresden; 07-12-2013 at 08:50 AM.. Reason: spelling
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Old 07-12-2013, 08:54 AM
 
Location: New England
37,336 posts, read 28,087,833 times
Reputation: 2741
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wardendresden View Post
Mike, read the entire chapter of Matthew 7. Jesus told his audience up front what it was they were to DO--I'll repeat it again.

1. Judge not, lest ye be judged.
2. Do all things to other men that you would have them do to you.
3. The good tree bringeth forth good fruit--wherefore by their FRUITS you shall know them.

Knowing the scripture and reading it daily AND BELIEVING those scriptures brought no salvation to the scribes and pharisees. Jesus was disgusted with them. Why did not the Bible save them for all their knowledge and conviction of the rightness of each and every word? The scribes and pharisees, the religious people, were the ones Jesus was warning in the last part of Matthew seven.

For DRob4JC, you have fallen into the trap of medieval thinking--separation of works from salvation. They are a dichtomy that are one--just like Jesus was both God and Man.

The whole of medieval history is centered on the theme of the predominance of the spiritual sphere over the secular sphere, and the modern age is characterized by an ever increasing independence of the secular in its relations with the spiritual. So long as Christ and the world are conceived as two opposing and mutually repellent spheres, man will be left in the following dilemma: he abandons reality as a a whole, and places himself in one or the other of the two spheres.

He seeks Christ without the world, or he seeks the world without Christ. In either case it is self deception. Or else he tries to stand in both spaces at once and becomes a man of eternal conflict, the kind of man who emerged in the period after the Reformation and who has repeatedly set himself up as representing the only form of Christian existence which is in accord with reality.

There are not two realities, but only one---that is the reality of God, who has become manifest in Christ, is the reality of the world. In Christ we stand at once in both the reality of God and the reality of the world. The world has no reality of its own, independently of the revelation of God in Christ. There are not two spheres but one Christ.

The theme of two spheres which has become the dominant theme of the Church, is foreign to the New Testament. There are not two spheres standing side by side, competing with each other and attacking each other's frontiers. If that were so, this frontier dispute would always be the decisive problem of history. But the whole of reality of the world is already drawn into Christ and bound together in Him, and the movement of history consists solely in divergence and convergence in relation to this center.

Here is how two spheres thinks---and I suspect many on this thread will see themselves in this description--concepts in the world are either secular or Christian, natural or supernatural, profane or sacred, and rational or revelational, as though they were ultimate static anti-theses, serving to designate mutually exclusive entitites.

That thought fails to recognize the original unity of these opposites in the reality of Christ. The two spheres come together in Christ. Christ was a party animal, He made wine, but He still spoke of the responsibility of each person toward each other person. Jesus did NOT separate himself from the world as Paul would have us do. Instead He tried to be in the world but not of the world. After all, He created the world which we Christians spend so much time despising.

It is easy to find the profane hiding in the holy and to call it to task. It is much, much harder to find the holy hiding in the profane--but that is exactly what we are called to do. That is exactly why Jesus could love unloveable people--and forgive them. His eyes were eyes of faith that saw beyond the surface to the possibility of new beginnings, to a closer walk with Him.

Well, a long discourse, which few will read, and fewer still will understand. The world is not holy or profane, salvation is not faith or works, man is not spirit or body--they are one and the same in Jesus Christ, the author of all things. Jesus is both God and Man. Dividing any of them is the lazy man's choice to intellectually departmentalize them to fit in easy to pull out slots of our brains.

That's why we are inferior to God who has no problem with the dichotomy of the world He created.
You may not agree with much of what I have to say Wardendresden, but there's not much that I disagree with you on.
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Old 07-12-2013, 08:59 AM
 
Location: Southern Oregon
17,071 posts, read 10,832,457 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by balunman View Post
They ministered different messages. Jesus ministered kingdom promises and prophecy. Paul ministered Jesus’ grace on the cross.
Same message, possibly different perspectives. The point remains that if someone says he believes and is NOT "eager to do good works" he should re-examine the nature of his commitment.
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Old 07-12-2013, 09:08 AM
 
Location: El Paso, TX
32,931 posts, read 26,160,446 times
Reputation: 16087
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wardendresden View Post
Mike, read the entire chapter of Matthew 7. Jesus told his audience up front what it was they were to DO--I'll repeat it again.

1. Judge not, lest ye be judged.
2. Do all things to other men that you would have them do to you.
3. The good tree bringeth forth good fruit--wherefore by their FRUITS you shall know them.

Knowing the scripture and reading it daily AND BELIEVING those scriptures brought no salvation to the scribes and pharisees. Jesus was disgusted with them. Why did not the Bible save them for all their knowledge and conviction of the rightness of each and every word? The scribes and pharisees, the religious people, were the ones Jesus was warning in the last part of Matthew seven.

Once again, distinguish between what is required for salvation, and what is necessary to have a productive spiritual life after salvation. Eternal salvation is based on faith alone in the finished work of Christ on the cross. Works and spiritual production belong to the spiritual life after salvation. These are two different things. This is not a difficult thing to understand.

As I already said, Jesus indicated that there would be false followers who though they claimed to do things in the Lord's name, they did not have a personal relationship with Christ and were therefore under condemnation.

Before you can obey Christ with a productive spiritual life you must first obey the gospel message by believing on Christ. Eternal salvation comes first, and the believer can then have a productive spiritual life. But if he doesn't have a productive spiritual life it does not mean that he was never saved in the first place.
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Old 07-12-2013, 09:11 AM
 
Location: Southern Oregon
17,071 posts, read 10,832,457 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike555 View Post
But if he doesn't have a productive spiritual life it does not mean that he was never saved in the first place.
No, it means that he died before he could produce "fruit."
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Old 07-12-2013, 09:13 AM
 
Location: New England
37,336 posts, read 28,087,833 times
Reputation: 2741
Quote:
Originally Posted by nateswift View Post
Same message, possibly different perspectives. The point remains that if someone says he believes and is NOT "eager to do good works" he should re-examine the nature of his commitment.
Unless we are being what God says we are........... We are still missing the mark. Nothing to worry about though for God will complete the good work he started in us.


For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

This is life more abundantly.
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Old 07-12-2013, 09:18 AM
 
Location: Southern Oregon
17,071 posts, read 10,832,457 times
Reputation: 1869
Quote:
Originally Posted by pcamps View Post
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

This is life more abundantly.
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Old 07-12-2013, 09:19 AM
 
Location: El Paso, TX
32,931 posts, read 26,160,446 times
Reputation: 16087
Quote:
Originally Posted by nateswift View Post
No, it means that he died before he could produce "fruit."
On the contrary. A person could live for 30 or more years after believing on Christ and not necessarily produce any divine good. A believer can get out of fellowship and remain out of fellowship his entire Christian life and not have any works which are acceptable to God.
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