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In Special Forces, we called it black propaganda, fear tactics and brainwashing.
I suppose then, that you are accusing the Lord of committing the sin of putting forth black propaganda and brainwashing.
Nevertheless, the scripture says,
Rom 3:4, God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
Jde 1:13, Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
Jde 1:14, And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
Jde 1:15, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
Yes naysayers including the majority of Bible scholars who recognize that what the Bible teaches is far different than what many Christians have been led to believe. But I guess they're wrong and so are millions of other Christians who accept what Jesus, the apostles and early Christians believed... some go to heaven but the majority are resurrected to earth.
Actually, N. T. Wright who is mentioned in the article you posted does believe that the believer goes to heaven when he dies. He believes that there is an intermediate state between physical death and resurrection. He refers to resurrection as life after life after death. What Wright denies is that heaven is the permanent destination of the believer. This is what I believe as well.
Jesus never said, nor did the apostles, that ''some go to heaven but the majority are resurrected to earth.'' All believers go to heaven and all believers will be resurrected to earth.
You can use short, truncated sentences to create punch and make a point, although that's what the tract stated. However, what is the reference to that of St. Paul? Are you saying he was cut short?
Paul said that some have no understanding of Spirit and other would be spiritual types. The short trip is they all assumed that they spiritual bypassing the lower grade, the grade Paul had to simplify explanations.
14"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned."
Paul had to create a truncated version for those people.
Actually, the tract was full of nonsense, and amounts to nothing more than fear tactics and brainwashing.
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Originally Posted by justbyfaith
You certainly have a right to reject what was written in the tract; however by my estimation it was preaching to you the truth and you reject the truth at your own peril.
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Originally Posted by Jerwade
In Special Forces, we called it black propaganda, fear tactics and brainwashing.
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Originally Posted by justbyfaith
I suppose then, that you are accusing the Lord of committing the sin of putting forth black propaganda and brainwashing.
I too was raised Catholic. While I have no "hard feelings" towards my former fatih I left simply because I wanted to understand what the Bible actually teaches.
The idea that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell and by extension those who never came to truly know God...non Christians...is inconsistent with what the Bible teaches.
Some go to heaven after they die. Jesus was the first to be resurrected to immortal life.
Most others who die, however are resurrected to an earth that is transformed into a paradise.
Hell is a pagan idea that took firm root during the dark ages.
All the years I spent reciting the Our Father prayer and not really understanding the import behind what Jesus directed us to pray for.
"Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come thy will be done...ON EARTH...as...it...is...IN HEAVEN." The earth is transformed. The end does not mean the literal end of the earth rather the end of crime, famine, injustice..the start of a paradise earth in harmony with heaven.
God's Kingdom is a real kingdom not just something in our hearts or an enigma.
“I must also declare the good news of the Kingdom of God to other cities, because for this I was sent."-Luke 4:43
"And this good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." -Matthew 24:14
Most Bible scholars have come to understand what the Bible teaches and so have millions of Christians although many more people are still not truly aware...
Read the article. These scholars are not Jehovah's Witness. They represent a spectrum of "traditional/orthodox" Christian faiths.
I read the article don't be afraid to entertain other viewpoints.
Some excerpts from the article:
"Wright and Morse work independently of each other and in very different ideological settings, but their work shows a remarkable convergence on key points. In classic Judaism and first-century Christianity, believers expected this world would be transformed into God’s Kingdom — a restored Eden where redeemed human beings would be liberated from death, illness, sin and other corruptions."
“This represents an instance of two top scholars who have apparently grown tired of talk of heaven on the part of Christians that is neither consistent with the New Testament nor theologically coherent,†said Trevor Eppehimer of Hood Theological Seminary in North Carolina. “The majority of Christian theologians today would recognize that Wright and Morse’s views on heaven represent, for the most part, the basic New Testament perspective on heaven.â€
“Our picture, which we get from Dante and Michelangelo, particularly of a heaven and a hell, and perhaps of a purgatory as well, simply isn’t consonant with what we find in the New Testament,†Wright said. “A lot of these images of hellfire and damnation are actually pagan images which the Middle Ages picks up again and kind of wallows in.â€https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...TUU_story.html
If Jesus existed, and if he was resurrected, then he is who he said he is and what he taught is true. The Bible teaches that everyone will live forever, but the determining factor in where a person spends the eternal future, in the presence of God or separated from God at least in a spiritual sense is whether or not a person personally places his trust in Jesus for eternal life. Eternal life simply means life in the presence of God as opposed to spending the eternal future separated from God.
Biblical scholars and historians recognize that the disciples of Jesus believed that they saw the risen Jesus. None of the naturalistic explanations such as hallucinations, the swoon theory, Jesus had an identical twin who showed up after Jesus had died and was mistaken for Jesus theory, etc., have the explanatory scope and power to explain why the disciples believed they saw the resurrected Jesus. I am convinced that they actually did see Jesus after he was raised from the dead.
And no. A Christian saying that we are all sinners is not saying that we are all Christians. A Christian is a person who has trusted in Jesus for eternal salvation.
Doesn't one need to believe the Chriatain concept that we are all sinners in order for it to make sense? When a Christain tells me I am a sinner and that seawall sinners even themselves. Are they no claiming that their Christian doctrine about sun is the one and only correct one? Some Christians in these forums state you don't have to be a Christian to be saved , you only have to accept that you are a sinner, that Jesus died for your sins and so foetg. How can a person even retain they specific beliefs or religion once that accepted Hjesuscas the Lord and Saviour? Cana Muslim, Jew, pagan or atheists once they accept that Jesus is their savings and died in the cross for their sins?
It's kind of confusing and you seem willing to make therefore to explain. And for that I am appreciative.
I was raised Catholic and this is the part of the teaching that I had a very difficult time dealing with. Asking priests in my family to explain it did absolutely no good and I wouldn't dare ask any nuns.
My best childhood friend was Jewish and I just couldn't accept that she and her family would not be able to go to heaven. They were good, kind people whose recent ancestors had suffered horribly on earth and were then going to spend eternity in hell? I couldn't accept that.
From a Catholic publication:
"If we hold to the genuinely biblical hope for the future," he writes, "we must firmly reject this doctrine of the soul's immortality for several reasons." Among those reasons are that Christianity doesn't pretend that death "is not so bad after all." Rather, death is "hideous" because "it means the end of us, not just the death of our bodies." Another is that "the Christian hope is not in the indestructibility of man, but in the creative power of God."-https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/small-c-catholic/its-time-christianity-re-emphasize-resurrection-body
Without immortality of the soul the idea of eternal torment (hell) for some such as your Jewish childhood friend (because indeed kind people exist in all sorts of colors and stripes) falls apart.
Resurrection to life on earth or heaven relies on God's creative power and love. Immortality of the soul is irrelevant when we put our hope in the resurrection.
"And I have hope toward God, which hope these men also look forward to, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous."-Acts 24:15
Hope. Hope is the expectation of something positive. Paul wasn't thinking the "unrighteous" would be resurrected just to be sent to hell.
Doesn't one need to believe the Chriatain concept that we are all sinners in order for it to make sense?
Yes, because if you don't know that you are a sinner you have no reason to believe that you are in need of salvation. What it means that we are sinners is that our relative and imperfect righteousness can never measure up to the absolute and perfect righteousness of God. We fall short of God's perfect standard of righteousness no matter how good we are humanly speaking.
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When a Christain tells me I am a sinner and that seawall sinners even themselves. Are they no claiming that their Christian doctrine about sun is the one and only correct one?
I can't speak for every Christian because many Christians have some pretty screwy beliefs. What I can say is that the Bible states that sin separates mankind from God but that Jesus came into the world to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins as our substitute which means that sin is no longer the issue in salvation. Rather, the issue is whether or not you personally place your trust in Jesus for eternal life.
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Some Christians in these forums state you don't have to be a Christian to be saved , you only have to accept that you are a sinner, that Jesus died for your sins and so foetg.
But if you believe that Jesus died for your sins and as a result trust in him for eternal life you ARE a Christian.
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How can a person even retain they specific beliefs or religion once that accepted Hjesuscas the Lord and Saviour? Cana Muslim, Jew, pagan or atheists once they accept that Jesus is their savings and died in the cross for their sins?
I think what you're asking is if a Muslim, Jew, pagan, or atheist can continue to hold their beliefs if they accept Jesus as Savior. If that's what you're asking, once they come to believe that Jesus is their Savior obviously their beliefs regarding Jesus will have changed. Regarding other beliefs specific to their Muslim, Jewish or pagan religions I suppose they might retain certain beliefs. Atheism of course isn't a religion. If an atheist were to come to believe that Jesus is his Savior he wouldn't be an atheist anymore.
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It's kind of confusing and you seem willing to make therefore to explain. And for that I am appreciative.
Thank you. I do my best to try to explain what I believe and why I believe it.
Scriptural. But only realized when Jesus calls the dead from their graves.
The belief of a myth. Not scriptural.
Holding to man-made myths and attempting to marry them to biblical truths leads to utter confusion. Remedy: Ditch the myth.
Scriptural. The earth will be 'purified' with fire and will become the eternal dwelling place of 'the saints'.
I've already dealt with you on other threads. You are too bull-headed and arrogant to accept that you are wrong. I'm not going to waste further time on you.
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