Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One more time, I disagree. If no one could write, people would have told the story verbally, just as people did before writing was invented and just as stories are told than and now in societies without a writing system.
But still, that comes from the source, the writers. How do people today find out about Christ? Through scripture or someone who has read it.
But still, that comes from the source, the writers. How do people today find out about Christ? Through scripture or someone who has read it.
Today, yes, even someone being told verbally is probably being told by somebody who has read Scripture. You know why? Because today almost everybody can read and write. Not only that, but lots of other people have written stuff since those ancient books were written, and some of it is of more use and value in understanding Christ than, say, Numbers.
Today, yes, even someone being told verbally is probably being told by somebody who has read Scripture. You know why? Because today almost everybody can read and write. Not only that, but lots of other people have written stuff since those ancient books were written, and some of it is of more use and value in understanding Christ than, say, Numbers.
Nothing is more useful to understanding Christ than scripture or hearing from someone who’s read scripture.
No one is denying that God’s love and salvation is available to all. Just seek God. However, many reject Him. What will happen to those people? According to scripture, it won’t be pleasant. Shouldn’t we warn them? Shouldn’t we share the good news?
“Those” people? Jesus says there is mercy for those who have shown mercy would you torment someone eternally just because they didn’t believe that you existed when they had never seen you, and the reports of your existence was so diverse that that you seemed to be a mythical person?
Those who are in Christ are those who know who Christ and God ARE through the Holy Spirit which has been sent. Then there are those who resist the Holy Spirit and lean on the teachings of men, and the message of the kingdom gets so garbled that we hear that God is angry at human beings for being created human and he is going to eternally torment them.
Even as a child I knew that was so wrong.
the church (the “body” of Christ) is the organisation that is being raised ...... the kingdom is on earth
It is about the rule of heaven over earth and it is in Christ through the Holy Spirit
The wrath that is coming is for the sons of disobedience who should know the will of their master but do not, they beat the servants and use the kingdom for their own purpose. That is the message. Israel is Gods first born son and in Christ that son will be raised, if you are Christ’s you are a part of that.
Col 3:1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Col 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Col 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Col 3:4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Col 3:5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Col 3:6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
Col 3:7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.
Col 3:8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
Col 3:9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices
Col 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Col 3:11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Col 3:12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
Col 3:13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Col 3:14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Col 3:15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Col 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Col 3:17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Mat 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
Mat 7:23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
But still, that comes from the source, the writers. How do people today find out about Christ? Through scripture or someone who has read it.
The Holy Spirit! When you read the scriptures literally you partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and it leads to death, the Holy Spirit leads you, teaches you about what is right and wrong. If you lean on the letter and the interpretation that has been tainted by man you will believe all sorts of fables, and partake of the delusion that has been sent.
“Those” people? Jesus says there is mercy for those who have shown mercy would you torment someone eternally just because they didn’t believe that you existed when they had never seen you, and the reports of your existence was so diverse that that you seemed to be a mythical person?
Those who are in Christ are those who know who Christ and God ARE through the Holy Spirit which has been sent. Then there are those who resist the Holy Spirit and lean on the teachings of men, and the message of the kingdom gets so garbled that we hear that God is angry at human beings for being created human and he is going to eternally torment them.
Even as a child I knew that was so wrong.
the church (the “body” of Christ) is the organisation that is being raised ...... the kingdom is on earth
It is about the rule of heaven over earth and it is in Christ through the Holy Spirit
The wrath that is coming is for the sons of disobedience who should know the will of their master but do not, they beat the servants and use the kingdom for their own purpose. That is the message. Israel is Gods first born son and in Christ that son will be raised, if you are Christ’s you are a part of that.
Col 3:1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Col 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Col 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Col 3:4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Col 3:5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Col 3:6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
Col 3:7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.
Col 3:8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
Col 3:9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices
Col 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Col 3:11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Col 3:12 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
Col 3:13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Col 3:14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Col 3:15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Col 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Col 3:17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Mat 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
Mat 7:23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
You call them "teachings of men" and then quote them anyway, as if they had some authority.....
You call them "teachings of men" and then quote them anyway, as if they had some authority.....
The teachings of men is how they have been interpreted, there is a lot of allegory, symbolism in the scriptures which the Holy Spirit reveals to those who seek the truth, then you get organisations who tell the people what to believe by cutting bits out of the scriptures and pasting them together into doctrines .......that’s where the 33k + denominations come from and God is calling his people out of that organisation
Rev 18:2 And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.
Rev 18:3 For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.”
Rev 18:4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues;
Rev 18:5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
Rev 18:6 Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.
Rev 18:7 As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, ‘I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.’
Rev 18:8 For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.”
Rev 18:9 And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning.
Nothing is more useful to understanding Christ than scripture or hearing from someone who’s read scripture.
That could possibly be true, but you are stating it as if it's absolute fact. It's not.
Hearing alone doesn't foster understanding. I grew up hearing it and couldn't understand it because the community from whence it came did not live it. There are others on this forum who had the same experience, although the details and their current outlook may differ from mine.
As a result of a recent thread about church as a social connection, I recently tried to think about what made me go back to a Christian church after getting away from it for so many years. I did initially go to my current church to try to make friends and find social connections. I knew the easiest place for me to go to be comfortable in a social setting was the pub about a mile from my house. I am comfortable in that setting. I am not an alcoholic but drinkers like me and I get along well with them because I know how to interact with them. I also know all too well how that ends up, so I looked at other possibilities.
I joined a writing group, but that only met twice a month and while it was a shared interest, it wasn't really something outside of which people socialized.
So, I thought I'd see if there was a church similar to the Episcopal parish I'd joined in my 30s when I had my daughter. I know how to function within a church crowd even better than I do bar patrons. I grew up in a home where church took precedence over everything else.
But looking back, there was something else. I am sure I could have found something other than a church. There's an Ashanti saying that I like: "se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yennki". Have no idea how to pronounce it, but it means, "There is nothing wrong with going back to fetch what one has forgotten."
Somewhere in the back of my head I think I needed to know what it was that attracted people to this Jesus guy that I had heard about and then read about and saw glowering at me every week from the stained-glass window and who sounded from the written words like he was mean and unpleasant and just waiting for me to mess up but was billed as being about love.
When I'd joined that first Episcopal Church, I pretty much worked around and ignored the whole Jesus part. Then I dumped the whole God part for a while, or tried to, anyway.
So this time out, I happened to find this place just when a newer priest had taken over, a former Catholic priest who'd quit in his 30s, married and had a corporate career, and then came to serve as an Episcopal priest after his retirement. He only had one sermon. No matter what Scriptures were that week, he took them and boiled them down to "Love God, and show that you love God by loving your neighbors." He showed us how that's the measure by which you determine what you will do. It's not easy, and every day we begin again and most days we fail. But THAT was the message. That's what this Jesus guy was saying. The motley group of people who are my church community were all there because they were drawn to that message, and they start it there by caring for one another, by forming a community of people who believe that this is what we are to do. Some have left in one way or another since I started there, and new people always walk in. They are all seeking this answer.
Simply reading the words doesn't do that. They are nothing BUT words unless someone lives them and shows their love and makes a mark on the hearts of others.
The Holy Spirit! When you read the scriptures literally you partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and it leads to death, the Holy Spirit leads you, teaches you about what is right and wrong. If you lean on the letter and the interpretation that has been tainted by man you will believe all sorts of fables, and partake of the delusion that has been sent.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I grew up in a home where church took precedence over everything else. 
