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John 14:15
15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
What happens to those who refuse to keep his commandments and die unrepentant in their sins?
Galatians 5:19-21
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery,[a] fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders,[b] drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,[a] nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
Ephesians 5:5
5 For this you know,[a] that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
Revelation 21:8
8 But the cowardly, unbelieving,[a] abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Love is accepting them in your church and letting the word show them their sins and for them to turn from them. Love is NOT come on in and live a open lifestyle that goes agaisnt nature and the commands of God and feel you dont have to repent, but straight folks having sex outside of marriage do have to repent.
The intolerance and sheer ridiculousness of the biblical literalists' beliefs will doom them to irrelevance within two generations.
You're mammoths bellowing impotently in a tar pit of biblical delusion.
I sometimes wonder how many Bibles are out there that have some kind of a printing error and don't include John 13:34. Must be that. Can't be that a whole bunch of people have banded together to sit in churches that say, "Well, we'll just ignore that one. We know sin when we see it." Could it? Naaaaaaahhhhh.......
It doesn't matter what "Bible believers" say, because they gloss over 99% of the Bible anyway. All they really know from the Bible are these two principles: (1) How to justify hating gay people, and (2) the quick prayer that will get them into heaven.
The crucial deal breaker: (And it's straight from..... wait for it.....Jesus! Woo-hoo!) John 13:34 "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another."
He didn't say "Except members of the LGBT community. You can shun them and tell them they can't belong to your church."
I sometimes wonder how many Bibles are out there that have some kind of a printing error and don't include John 13:34. Must be that. Can't be that a whole bunch of people have banded together to sit in churches that say, "Well, we'll just ignore that one. We know sin when we see it." Could it? Naaaaaaahhhhh.......
It doesn't matter what "Bible believers" say, because they gloss over 99% of the Bible anyway. All they really know from the Bible are these two principles: (1) How to justify hating gay people, and (2) the quick prayer that will get them into heaven.
Not true, from my experience.
1) Anyone is welcome at my church.
2) There is no such thing as a "quick prayer" into Heaven.
That is only true for fundamentalist Christianity. Extremist Christianity.
It is also hypocritical because fundamentalists are committing many sins against people by condemning them of this particular sin. Making it out to be one of the worst things a person can do, while overlooking many others just because they are more "acceptable" to their culture at this moment in history. Jesus had a lot to say about that Pharisaical attitude. But Christians could care less about many things Jesus said.
Fundamentalist Christians actually think Jesus was a load of garbage. That is how they regard his most central teachings.
What designates any particular expression of faith as extremist? To a fundamentalist, your brand of christianity might be classified as extremist in the opposite end of the spectrum.
Hypocrisy is not institutionalized nor promulgated by any denomination. It is simply a part of human nature and will be encountered in all social groups, even your own church group. It just becomes a matter of which hypocrisy I object to and which I subscribe to for the "good of the group".
Jesus did in fact preach tolerance and love, even to those you could identify as being sinners and off the righteous track. He never preached that people committing sin was good or acceptable, only that we do not need to concern ourselves with punishing them. God will take care of that as is his right, not ours.
"Judge not lest you be judged" does not mean we must turn a blind eye to sin. Only that it is not our place to implement the judgment. We do not know if a person is truly repentance in their heart, except by their actions after the fact. Our responsibility to the sinner is to support their recovery and to help support their righteous journey forward, NOT to support their ongoing sin and make them feel good about falling short of the glory of God.
You specifically mention the LBGT community as the focus of hypocrisy in the church because the fellowship discourages the lifestyle and preaches against the act. Wouldnt it be hypocrisy to say "yes, the bible tells us not to have relations out of marriage, and that the old testament decrees a man should cleeve to his wife and she should forsake her family for his, but this is popular so the heck with that. Go Girls! Sir, you have a beautiful husband." The definition is hypocrisy is to act other than you believe or state you believe.
As to the infallibility of the bible, I will concede you have a point about the documented proof of legitimacy of the author and chain of evidence proving the bible is fully God's inspired word. I cannot show proof that there is nothing added or deleted from the story God intended us to cumulate. You cannot show definitive proof that it is not. You choose to believe what makes you feel good and I choose to do the same.
I know that many people can point to a specific verse and make it sound reasonable that it means a certain thing and then someone else points to another and says they are in conflict. I have read enough legal documents to know that is entirely possible and until the document is read in the same context it will never be in agreement with itself. Too many things depend upon context for their ultimate meaning and we do not have the full comprehension of the total works to honestly provide that context in totality for the bible. Many are aware of significant portions, but few if any are masters of the entire works.
I am perfectly comfortable recognizing that my understanding of God's will is incomplete and as such is potentially full of error and miscomprehension. I feel that any honest person is forced to admit the same.
I am willing to allow my belief to adjust to new information and understanding as my awareness of the context shifts. I refuse to simply overlay my beliefs with what I would like them to be without examining the source of those desires and evaluating them against my existing "known" facts. If I cannot correlate a concept to all of my other accepted concepts within a contextual framework, I cannot accept the new concept. I am, as I said, willing to throw out existing concepts with new information that changes the context or adds insight to a situation I was previously unaware. Each of my existing beliefs must stand up to new information just as new beliefs must stand against old information.
I do not agree that the concept of "love the sinner, hate the sin" is a hypocritical stance. I do not believe that one must support sin in order to be loving of the sinner. I think anyone that substitutes a theology for another without fully arguing through each and every facet of' one's belief is being fickle and irresponsible to themselves. It will take much more time than we have in a message board to convince me that the bible is in fact fictional and to be disregarded. If we accept any part of the bible as fact and true, then all other parts must be interpreted as true in that context or the entire concept of God's Word becomes suspect and even those concepts we hold as truth have no validity or substance in the context of the document.
Once we assume the bible is false, why would we accept that God is true. There is no other legacy to support the concept of god outside man's desire to control than the oral tradition of God, Jesus, and his inspired written word.
There is much that we take on faith that we cannot demonstrate, even in science. We point to results and say that proves the equation because they balance and can be repeated. We have been doing that through history and science evolves as new evidence is acquired. That evidence was always there, we just did not put it in the proper context before so it went unnoticed or unappreciated. I think the bible is a similar experience. We read a phrase and interpret it in our experience or what we think was the writer's experience. We must be willing to reinterpret things as we learn more about that context.
What many fail to understand is that Christianity is more than the worship of the savior Jesus Christ and faith in Him. Jesus taught very clearly, If you love me, keep my commandments. Jesus is God. God is the giver of the law, that condemns greed, hatred, idolatry, stealing lying and sexual immorality. God hates sin, and so God's followers are also expected to hate sin, reject sin, seek to overcome sin in their own lives. I don't know where people get off on the idea that God is fine with people continuing to live in immorality and evil of all kinds.
1Pe 2:11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 1Pe 2:12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
And what you and so many others fail to understand is that "sin" does not come from a list, it comes from breaking the "New Commandment," as has been pointed out SO many times.
The intolerance and sheer ridiculousness of the biblical literalists' beliefs will doom them to irrelevance within two generations.
You're mammoths bellowing impotently in a tar pit of biblical delusion.
If a pastor comes out and says he doesnt agree with the LGBT lifestyle, he is attacked and labeled hate speech, bigoted, and more... yet the bible CLEARLY says the LGBT lifestyle is a sin, yet they still want to take part in a religion that 100% says what they are doing is wrong and must be repented of.
All Christians need to keep taking a stand and not allowing this sexually immoral lifestyle to be accepted in their churches. Churches should welcome all, but the sin must be repented of whether its gay sex outside of marriage, straight sex outside of marriage or adultery. They are all sexual immorality and the bible says it is a sin and if you practice that lifestyle and die unrepentant in your sins, you will not go to heaven. Thats in the OT and NT.
2) There is no such thing as a "quick prayer" into Heaven.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OzzyRules
Didn't you say you went to a Baptist church?
Yes
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