Yeah, that last one there could use a little context
Romans14 1 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant?
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. 22 So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves. 23 But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
As I said
–The early Israelites refused to eat pork or shellfish.
–There is no evidence they tried to prevent others from doing so.
Thanks for the response, Optrader.
On what basis should we assume that no saint in a resurrected body will ever fall short of perfect conformity to God’s will while in that glorified state, when satan was created a perfect being with access to God’s presence, the angels who followed satan in his rebellion were created perfect and Adam and Eve were created perfect, and yet all these fell into sin?
I think this is going to be a long answer, and of course based on my understanding of scripture and reasoning.
Also, I am a fundamentalist. I take the authority of scripture as the final word.
I’ll give you a few other things I believe or take for granted so you understand where I’m coming from, but feel free to ask questions or provide your own beliefs and insights.
I believe God is real and that he is a part of the Trinity which is comprised of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are all equally God- in my mind I picture 3 aspects of the same being. While not trying to explain the Trinity (I can’t), I believe that one aspect of God, whom we call Jesus came down to earth as a human male, as the only begotten son of the Father, kept his Father’s law perfectly, and this, along with the diety aspect made him the one and only suitable sacrifice to pay for mans sin.
Scripture says Jesus was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. This means that God saw the rebellion of Lucifer and the subsequent fall of man through Adam and Eve before he even created the world. The plan of Salvation was already in place, the necessity of Jesus coming down to Earth to shed his blood on the cross was established before Adam and Eve were even created. A few things here…
Sin is so horrible that it takes God the creator himself in the form of Jesus to deal with it.
Dealing with it required Jesus to SHED HIS BLOOD. I emphasize that because we read in Hebrews that without the shedding of blood, there can be no remission of sin. The scourging and crucifixion were horrendous, but it was Jesus’ blood that paid the debt we owe. That’s why animals had to be sacrificed in the OT, yet we read again in Hebrews that their blood was insufficient to provide a permanent sacrifice. Something infinitly better was required for that.
I’m going to stop here for now, but will continue later…
The Lord radically changed the relationship between man and God. He removed all barriers so that it was a direct relationship with no one in between. The Lord is one and that one is what baptizes someone into a Christian. When that truly takes place, you are now one with The Lord. He is within your very soul.
One of the things that has fascinated me, is that Jesus said, Matthew 17-20 And He said to them, “Because of your meager faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith [i]the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.[j]” Since this is true, that’s radical.
Once you’re baptized, my experience is that life then becomes a series of events where The Lord teaches you to increase your faith from a mustard seed to loving The Lord with all your heart, strength, soul and mind. As your faith increases, you see more and more events that leave you scratching your head wondering if you just witnessed a miracle? Your faith increases as a result and the next event is even more incredible that increases your faith even more.
Absolutely, acting on faith and seeing results increases your faith. I have many times had things happen, some as answers to prayers, sometimes things just happen, but yes, I see the Lord working because I am looking in faith and believing that he is doing so. Nothing escapes his notice and nothing happens to us outside his will. When you seek in faith, you will be amazed at what you see.
The words satan and devil were translated from a word meaning adversary (enemy) and accuser. Men made a person out of these words and gave them a proper name. Adversary and accuser are used to describe many people in Scripture.
Pan and hades were imported into our vocabulary as “satan.”
The earliest known depiction of the devil is in the Rabbula gospels, dated from 586 A. D.
Christian art does not portray a devil before the 6th century.
The idea of the devil as a personal being, a fallen angel, started developing at the end of the first century. See, Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp. These men and others since started playing God, using the scare tactic on others that had differing opinions calling them “followers of satan.”
Men use a tale of a cosmic battle being played out on earth with them as the righteous heros, of course and demonizing their opposition.
Others are the bad guys that reflect a satan in heaven and of course, our side is the good guys with God on our side.
There is no Cosmic battle going on in heaven found in Scripture. Rev 12 – " a war in heaven," was prophetic of the conditions in the first century. People that take this literally have a problem taking other things in the Rev like the woman drunk on the blood of the saints literally.
Men who believe a literal battle in heaven have a tendency of seeing themselves as fighting on the side of God here on earth and the ends justify whatever means they chose to use.
Jesus came to earth to do God’s will. Whatever He did, it was God’s will. Jesus did tell them to preach the good news - the gospel. The good news they were told was that Jesus was raised and descended into heaven and is sitting on the throne at the right hand of God.
Jesus told them not go to the Gentiles. Since Jesus only sent the 12 to the Jews, they had to believe that Jesus was truly the son of God and repent from denying him and be baptized. Jews were familiar with water baptism.
It was a different process for Gentiles. Sin is a transgression of law. Gentiles were never under the Law of Moses, never transgressed a law because they were never under law.
They were taught about God and believers were added to the number about 8 years later by the apostle Paul.
If we knew it all we wouldn’t need faith. Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
This passage is extremely good advice. It’s a shame that some people get this confused with being obligated to believe He exists in specifically Christian-approved ways in order to not get dipped in fire for 300 billion trillion quadrillion years.
All who seek shall find Him, but He will find all of us - every last one of us (eventually). It’s pretty Good News.
I like this passage Acts17:26 "And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us,
There’s a lot of people who don’t believe in Satan. The question I ask them is how do you account for all of his interactions with God and Jesus? If he doesn’t exist for example, who tempted Jesus after his 40 days in the wilderness? You would have to eliminate a very large percentage of the Bible by eliminating the existence of Satan. You cite the war in heaven. Who were the participants on that war? The end of that war concludes with God casting Satan down to earth. If not Satan, then who and did that war in Heaven take place at all?
I agree that gentiles were never under Mosaic law, but only in terms of salvation. The law was the legal means by which OT people were judged and saved. God basically said Keep these 10 simple rules perfectly and in you come, however, break one of these rules even one time and you’re out! Obviously no one could keep the law perfectly- until Jesus came to earth as a man and did so.
But the law also contains moral precepts, and the moral precepts are absolutely still in effect for Gentiles. Can we steal, lie, covet or commit adultery because we are not under the Mosaic law? No, and Jesus made this clear, as did Paul.
What changed is grace. We are now saved by grace instead of the law, but consider that Jesus took the law farther than what was written. Jesus was quoting the law when he said in Matthew 5:27. "Ye Have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
And Paul said in Romans 6 "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. "
The moral precepts of the law have existed since the time of Adam and Eve. Why did Cain try and hide his murder of his brother Abel if he didn’t know it was wrong? Who told him murder was wrong?
No one is obligated to believe anything about God. One thing he gave us is freewill. If God were to take away our freewill, even for our own good, then he would in fact be a tyrant. God also doesn’t " dip" anyone in fire. Everyone in Hell is there because of the freewill choice they made.
Twice in Proverbs it says"There is a way that seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."
That’s why people end up in Hell, because they want to do it, as the song says “MY WAY”
This exactly is why I believe in a non-meddling God. He does not interact with us in the physical realm. If He did, he would be no God at all.
“Hell” as is taught in the modern age is nothing more than a behavioral control mechanism.
It’s not a literal eternity of punishment for ~70 years of bad behavior, it’s a place where we finally separate from our sins before reuniting with our Father.
Law means Natural Reality. Causation itself, is automatic. It requires no human conception of a being to operate.
While all beings and things are manifestations of this automatic Law, humans can get into rhythm with cause and effect, to become manifestations of this single Law.
What Pure Faith is, is the first Cause necessary, to begin the manifestation of the highest life state. This, with faith, eventually, in a present moment, manifests as layers of celestial protective natural functions/angelic, demi-gods and destructive lower life-states as beings and a manifestation of a Supreme Being one with the Natural Supreme Law. The objective Law does not require any meddling from any of the three phases/bodies/forms of God. Humans and all earthly creatures are just the consciousness attaching itself rhythmically, to the Law of Cause and Effect, both linearly and simultaneously.
Religious teachings, of expedient means is necessary because whether adults or children, it takes gentle coaxing or severe scolding, to plant the tiny mustard seed of faith, which varies, according to time and place no matter where or when, in the universe consciousness appears. It’s automatic, since time without beginning. It can be taught as the non-personal, unbiased, Law or a personal savior, depending on the time and place and capacity of the hearer and overall, causal propensities. No matter what, Faith / Ichinen, is the key to the ignition.
Death is the “secret” expedient means arising from consciousness. It makes all creatures, humans included, STRIVE for awakening
When speaking to children expedient means are used.
Teaching about “hell” is a means.
PLANTS too are also intertwined with the same functions as all living things with the LAW at it"s core>
Well, I believe Jesus Christ is THE expert on the meaning of life, and the afterlife and He’s still alive to be consulted on these things. You may disagree, but what is your authority for your opininion to trump Jesus Christ’s teaching. He, at least, rose from the dead to validate His authority.
I don’t trump any of His teachings. I testify to my personal experiences with Him though, the way it was always meant to be. Pretending to have the right answers for everyone else to follow is a lie, and therefore a sin.
If God didn’t remain involved in sustaining His creation, there would be no laws to how things worked. If God meddled incessantly in creation to overrule His laws in order to save lives and negate consequences, no one would know or need to obey the laws because Sky Daddy would be expected to always rescue us from the consequences of our foolishness. The best approach is to embed laws into the universe and allow free will beings to learn by experience how to operate in harmony with those laws, and to train us with positive and negative consequences to our intentions and actions.
Maybe I am reasonable to be sceptical towards embracing a theology based on experiences induced by trauma and psychedelic and halucinogenic drugs above one acquired without drugs.
I’m not gonna have a back and forth with the most hard core fundamentalists in the room. If you can’t handle me sharing my personal experiences with God, you have some soul searching to do.
Somewhere along the way, just about every Christian at one point or another, decided that they knew what God thinks, and that their preferred 2,000+ year old quote is somehow the ultimate in God’s truth, because they understand God the best.
Some have literally died and walked with Jesus before being revived, and they’ll get ignored because someone else who read some pages really hard knows better.
“I’m going to heaven, but not them. They don’t deserve it because they’re not like me.”
