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Originally Posted by thrillobyte
Some Christians have raised the issue:
Jesus is not responsible for his churches' success or failure.
* So Jesus isn't responsible for answering prayers despite what he says in the gospels.
* Jesus isn't responsible for keeping his houses of worship open so Christians can meet to worship him and fellowship with one another.
* Jesus isn't responsible for Christianity thriving and for keeping people saved instead of dropping out of Christianity by the millions.
What exactly is Jesus good for---just saving our souls and then leaving us homeless and sick in the streets to take care of ourselves?
Didn't Jesus say, "If you ask the Father for anything in my name he will give it it to you"?
Try praying, "Father, in Jesus name I just ask for a warm meal and a place to sleep this Christmas Eve." Go ahead you destitute Christians, pray that prayer and then see if a warm meal and a bed magically appear.
Still waiting for some intrepid Christian to address the questions I raised here but it doesn't seem possible, I know.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthew 4:4
Jesus was mainly addressing spiritual concerns:
For example: Matthew 24:14; Acts 1:8 involves the preaching work as Jesus did (Luke 4:43) but on a larger scale.
So, by asking for God's will to be done on Earth, then what we ask according to His will He will grant.
That is why the international proclaiming about God's kingdom of Daniel 2:44 has now reach world-wide to even include remote areas.
Jesus said the poor would be with us. With us because often times it is because of poor food distribution.
Man has dominated man to man's hurt or injury - Ecclesiastes 8:9.
Sent foods have even ended up rotting on docks, or even sold on the black market for weapons.
None of which is Jesus' fault, but humanities fault by Not applying or living by the Golden Rule.
If everyone on Earth lived by the Golden Rule how much poverty would we have _______
As far as saving our souls, meaning our selves, we are nearing the soon coming ' time of separating ' here on Earth.
Jesus will separate people as per Matthew 25:31-33,37,40.
The figurative humble ' sheep ' will be saved /delivered / rescued through the coming great tribulation of Revelation 7:14, before Jesus, as Prince of Peace, will usher in global Peace on Earth among persons of goodwill.
Then, there will be ' healing ' for earth's nations as described at Revelation 22:2.
Mankind will see the return of the Genesis "Tree of Life" for the ' healing ' of earth's nations.
This is why we are all invited to pray the invitation of Rev. 22:20 for Jesus to come !
Come and bring the benefits of ' healing ' for earth's nations when No one will say, " I am sick...."- Isaiah 33:24.
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I'm glad Matthew had the courage to step forth with some opinions about the things which vex us skeptics. Thank you, Matthew. Here's what I find so disconcerting about this whole apologetics conundrum:
Matthew says:
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So, by asking for God's will to be done on Earth, then what we ask according to His will He will grant.
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No, He won't! Matthew's statement bolded above is patently not true. How can it possibly be against God's will to keep these churches open??????? People gather in these churches to praise Jesus, to praise God, to fellowship, to organize missionary work. How is that a bad thing? Praising Jesus and God is good and is in His will because if it wasn't then Jesus would have have a kingdom divided against itself. Good Christians are praying to keep these good churches open and God is being evil and closing them or at the very least not answering the prayers of these good Christians struggling to keep these churches open.
None of this makes the slightest bit of sense when an apologetic argues it. To a skeptic it's a complete Christian fail. To summarize:
God does NOT grant the prayers of His faithful to keep these churches, HIS houses of worship open. Quite clearly, God doesn't give two damns whether His churches stay open or closed. God is a deist.
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we are nearing the soon coming ' time of separating ' here on Earth through the coming great tribulation of Revelation 7:14, before Jesus, as Prince of Peace, will usher in global Peace on Earth among persons of goodwill.
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This argument is completely lost on skeptics because everything in Revelations is future events and future events are completely matters of blind faith in what a 2000 year old text is saying. Matthew's interpretation might be wrong. The preterists might be right--Jesus has already returned in 70 AD. Who knows??????? Purely blind faith and of no use here.
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Jesus said the poor would be with us. With us because often times it is because of poor food distribution.
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Horrible Bible contradiction. In one breath Jesus says, "Ask for anything in my name and God will grant it" but obviously this excludes the poor because Jesus says there will always be poor people. So don't bother praying for the poor and thus the verse should read,
"Ask for anything in my name except helping the poor and God will grant it."
How does that sound, folks? Makes a hell of a lot of sense, doesn't it???????
It is incredibly short-sighted to blame poverty on poor food distribution. Obviously that is but a tiny component of a massive problem, chief of which is famine in developing countries which is caused by God. So God is the chief reason for poverty and starvation and disease, not man. Or if you're a deist like I am you recognize that God has nothing to do with all of this. He's completely AWOL and we've been left to defend ourselves and we're doing a pretty horrible job of it.
So Matthew has pretty much agreed with everything I've said. Jesus is not responsible for anything having to do with his church thriving or failing. He's left all that up to us.
So Jesus is more deist than I am.
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