Jesus made the way for us to God, the Father. That’s why he says “I am the way.” We travel many roads to get from one place to another without knowing who built the roads.
Part of Jesus’ mission was to show us what God is like.
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He did a wonderful job too. There is NO way in hell I would ever love a violently petty and vengeful god. A God that loves us all though, that’s the ticket.
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Absolutely. God is love.
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Yup. Jesus was the fulfillment of Jewish Law. For me, the most telling scripture about that was the moment He died. Under Jewish Law, nobody could enter the Holy of Holies. It was where God dwelled. (Only one priest on one day could enter. And when he did, there was a rope tied around him in case he passed out (or even died) from the experience, and he could get pulled out.) Everyone else was shielded from direct access to God.
But when Jesus died on the cross, the Gospels tell us that the curtain that surrounded the Holy of Holies was torn open. The room was opened. God was accessible to everyone. In fact, the curtain was ripped from top to bottom, as if God’s mighty hands reached down and ripped it apart. It required Jesus’ death to accomplish that.
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Well since we are telling jokes now
Two Catholic men were considering entering the priesthood and were trying to decide which order to join. They spoke to their parish priest "What is similar about the Jesuit and Dominican Orders? " the one asked.
He replied, “Well, they were both founded by Spaniards – St. Dominic for the Dominicans, and St. Ignatius of Loyola for the Jesuits. They were also both founded to combat heresy – the Dominicans to fight the Albigensians, and the Jesuits to fight the Protestants.”
“What is different about the Jesuit and Dominican Orders?”
“Met any Albigensians lately?”
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Genesis 6:5 "The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
There is no mention of devil/satan or any such evil person in the historical account of the flood.
God put the blame squarely on wicked men. No mention of an evil being responsible for the evil.
If a satan/devil was responsible for the wickedness in the world before the flood, why didn’t God destroy the devil instead of destroying the men?
God created us with the propensity to do evil and to do good. It takes using self control and not letting evil rule. The war is within us.
1 Cor 9:25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 Well, I do not run aimlessly, I do not box as one beating the air; 27 but I pommel my body and subdue it, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. ~the Apostle Paul
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As much as I resist quoting scripture to make any of my points, I do admit that I’m floored by how much I admire your ability to just whip out verse after verse the way you do so casually.
If I were to appeal to a scholar’s authority on the Bible, you would be one of the first.
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Thank you SixFoot. It takes a lot of reading and meditating.
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The flood occured 1656 years after creation so there is no reason that Satan would be mentioned in the account. Man has a long time to cultivate evil in that time. It’s true that Satan is not named in Genesis, but he is later identified in other places of the Bible, namely Revelation where he is also identified as the devil.
One of the things I think people misunderstand is that the Bible is a continuous history of God and his creation. His relationship with them from beginning to end- that end being eternity with him in Heaven( which he wants), or eternity separated from Him in Hell, which He doesn’t want, but allows people to choose for themselves.
The Bible is not two stories, the OT story of the Jews and the NT story of the Gentiles. Consider that if EVERY Jew has accepted Jesus then Judaism would have died out- it would have been converted to Christianity entirely. I point this out because you can’t separate the OT from the NT and get the full picture of what God was doing. I’ve heard it put this way: The OT is Jesus concealed, The NT is Jesus revealed. Everything in the OT was a foreshadow and picture of the better thing(s) to come in the NT. The parallels are innumerable.
The question of why God didn’t destroy Satan has been asked many times. Imagine if you had several children. One day the oldest asks you permission to do something and you say no. When the child asks WHY NOT, you beat the child down to the ground and kick them to within an inch of their life. You may get compliant behavior from that child in the future, but the child, and the other of your children will forever fear you. What’s more, the question WHY NOT doesn’t get answered.
God tells us we shouldn’t sin. We should obey Him, but he doesn’t want us to FEAR him, He wants us to TRUST Him. That he loves us and not only wants what’s best for us but knows what’s best for us. So if He doesn’t use force and intimidation, how does he answer our question BUT WHY to Him? By allowing us the freewill to decide for ourselves and see the results of our sin for ourselves. Sin leads to destruction, of ourselves and society. Romans 6:23 says " The wages of sin is death…"
Satan accused God of Tyranny. Satan believes that he should rule in God’s place, yet we can see what allowing Satan to rule causes. We harm ourselves, others by our sin, earning us the death penalty. Sin is so bad that only the shed blood of Jesus could pay that debt…
The message was for the early disciples (in 7 cities ) who were under persecution. I believe the message was given in symbols that only they could understand, ------- and their persecutors/enemies could not.
The message is good to read, but it is not addressed to us today.
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God said “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The “our” - possessive and “our image” must refer to the subject of the verb - “us.”
“God created man in His own image.” Genesis 1:27 God is the subject of the verb. God is the only one referred to as the possessive.
Man is only said to be in God’s image, not in the image of any other heavenly being.
Genesis 5
The verbs make and create have only God as their subject throughout Genesis, and no one else in His work of creating.
Genesis 11:7 “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
fulfillment of verse 7. Genesis 11:8 “So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.”
In Genesis 1:26, The word ‘us’ has God speaking to Himself. "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." John 2:24
God’s Spirit is God, not a Spirit that is separate from God.
Nothing is separate from God. This is all Him. Every bit of it.
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I believe God created us in his image meaning that as He is 3 in 1 ( Father, Son and Holy Spirit), so we have 3 aspects -Body, soul and Spirit. Many people use soul and Spirit interchangeablely. I can’t necessarily prove this by scripture, but I think there is enough to give credence to the belief. I also think in His image was so we could commune with Him…
@Piper, I need a scholar already. lol
At what point did Christians start believing that they were made of separate things than God? 
Around the time of T-Rex.
Jesus was a life changer and through relationship He changes not only those who are in His kingdom, but those who are in the world’s system as well through influence and other means (helping others, doing good, serving, etc…). Was Jesus radical? Just as radical as other radicals, i.e. atheists or someone who has other beliefs (yes, atheism is a faith). However, looking at the origin of this country, is believing in the Constitution such a radical idea; some might believe that the “radicals” are those who ignore the Constitution and thus ruins our country by destroying the foundational principles that made this country great.
P.S. No AI was used in this post (smile).
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I think it began with the ones who thought they would be raised from the grave in another (or the same) physical body. I can’t find a definite time, I know some of the early Jewish brothers believed that. Martin Luther and other denominations also believe they will be raised in their same physical body. They believe in “soul sleep.”
Jesus was frustrated because his disciples couldn’t grasp spiritual things. John 3:12 “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”
Since flesh and blood cannot inherit the the kingdom of God, “nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” Luke 17:20, a reconstitution of our former fleshly body would not serve any purpose.
The apostle Paul gives a good explanation of the spiritual body when he was asked “With what body do they come?” His answer is in 1 Cor 15:35 - 58
Believers bear the image of the second Adam, the heavenly man, the life giving spirit. We are back to the image of God, the presence of God, partaking of the tree of life, and the river of living water.
The same figurative symbols used in Genesis 2 and 3 are used in Revelation 22. God’s completed plan for man was complete.
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I guess I needed to put that on my post.
