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Can righteous behaviour be evil?

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PeterJens

God bless you
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My answer to this question is no.
Both evil and righteous people can do righteous acts.

Jesus put it this way
"The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them."
matt 23:2-4

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
Matt 6:1

Cornelius stared at him in fear. “What is it, Lord?” he asked.
The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. 6 He is staying with Simon the tanner, whose house is by the sea.”
Acts 10:4-6

There is a chain of thought that implies that what matters is the person doing
the act that defines whether it is good or bad.

In this way of thinking the good samaritan could only be a good samaritan and the
act to help the victim of theft called good, if they are a believer else the good action is evil.

Now biblically this appears to me to be a heretical distortion of both morality,
righteousness and the Kingdom. Once one accepts this view as fact, people of the
kingdom can be painted as the most evil people in the world, though actually following Christ.

What is so subtle is the emotional flow of condemnation and painting people as enemies is
done simply because they do not believe a particular way and not based on behaviour or sin.
This changing of the simple idea of what is a righteous act, is like a poison that destroys
everything that makes the gospel what it is.

You then get a language that says morality is just self righteousness and any measure of
doing loving, caring, righteous acts is legalism. This is actually a very important point
and not just a passing point, but foundational to who God is and how the kingdom works.
 
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[c]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Luke 10:25-29

Jesus uses the parable of the good samaritan to show what a good act of loving ones neighbor is.
As part of this parable the religious were also shown who did not care for the victim, and avoided
showing love though they were commited to the idea or claimed to follow it.

What surprised me was a group who said only if the samaritan was saved would this deed be called
righteous or good. They had already decided most of the world was evil because of how they believed
and not because of sinful behaviour. This is in total contradiction with scripture, which condemns people
for being evil doers, or doers of evil deeds, and it is the deeds that bring condemnation on them.

Jesus's message is without God, or communion with Him, love working in ones heart it is not possible
to walk righteously. But this particular group deny this message and say simply to walk as Jesus walked
is impossible, a pipe dream, and we are not called to such a walk other than to show us we need Christ
to save us. There is no conquering of sin, or victory, or purity and holiness, or repentance in feeling
sorrow for sin, or being contrite, or confessing sin, and keeping short accounts with God, just knowing
one is saved despite ones condition.

Now love just loves people despite the chaos that their lives and situation puts them in, but these believers
seem to desire to condemn and expel those they would call legalists as evil people, while the sinners who
accept their on going sin are the real saints. This is like the world taking over the church, which is not a
new thing, except the idea that good is now evil is certainly not of the Lord but something prophesied about.

You have wearied the Lord with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?” Malachi 2:17
Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God. 3 John 1:11
Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts. Rev 9:21
Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Psalm 34:14
Turn from evil and do good; then you will dwell in the land forever. Psalm 37:27
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Isaiah 5:20
Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph. Amos 5:15
But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Heb 5:14
They must turn from evil and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it. 1 Peter 3:11
 
Sorta like when cherry picking verses to use as snarks in the forums?
Hi reba, not sure I understand what you mean.

The reason it sends my mind down a line of thoughts that does not come to a conclusion is because on
a forum one man testified how the Holy Spirit had lead him through scripture to a certain understanding.
Now a member of the discussion took issue with him, not because of what he had learnt, but just the idea
he could learn from God and reading scripture, as if this was dangerous.

The other-side, is I love it when people bring scripture to put a point across, because there are many
problematic scriptures that I have struggled with for many years, but often come clearer when I exercise faith
and trust in God.

I strikes me the bible is so alive, we see different things in the same words as we grow depending on how
deeply in Christ we have become.

In one house group I was sharing about love defining everything. Another member of the group said there
was more than love. What was ironic, is we were meaning love in two different ways. They meant sentimental
love and over romantising love like the hollywood love of the 1950's films and I meant sacrificial love reaching
out to people in their hurt and pain and difficult circumstances, and both statements in their contexts were true,
yet appeared contradictatory.

So I actually love taking the ideas and investigating them to get better clarity and insight.
God bless

Peter
 
The reason it sends my mind down a line of thoughts that does not come to a conclusion is because on
a forum one man testified how the Holy Spirit had lead him through scripture to a certain understanding.
Now a member of the discussion took issue with him, not because of what he had learnt, but just the idea
he could learn from God and reading scripture, as if this was dangerous.

That could have been me. I have a huge problem with people claiming that the HS lead them to understand a particular Scripture. Why? Because there's no room for disagreement. God told them. And who am I to say otherwise? And what if another person in the group found, through the HS, a different understanding of the same Scripture? This happens often. I've met people like this and I don't like the idea at all. It's another way of saying, "I'm going to tell you what this means and you have to listen and accept it because God led me to this understanding."

I take a different approach: "I'm going to tell you what I think this passage means. Understand that I am sincere and that I've given this much thought an prayer. But, being fallible, I know I could be wrong. I don't think I am and here's why......."

The former person I will ignore. The latter I will listen to and consider what they have to say. Anyone can claim "The HS led me to this understanding." That doesn't mean it actually happened.

Sorry, don't mean to derail. I may be way off topic but wanted to address what is a number one issue for me when it comes to understanding the Bible.
 
That could have been me. I have a huge problem with people claiming that the HS lead them to understand a particular Scripture. Why? Because there's no room for disagreement. God told them. And who am I to say otherwise? And what if another person in the group found, through the HS, a different understanding of the same Scripture? This happens often. I've met people like this and I don't like the idea at all. It's another way of saying, "I'm going to tell you what this means and you have to listen and accept it because God led me to this understanding."

I take a different approach: "I'm going to tell you what I think this passage means. Understand that I am sincere and that I've given this much thought an prayer. But, being fallible, I know I could be wrong. I don't think I am and here's why......."

The former person I will ignore. The latter I will listen to and consider what they have to say. Anyone can claim "The HS led me to this understanding." That doesn't mean it actually happened.

Sorry, don't mean to derail. I may be way off topic but wanted to address what is a number one issue for me when it comes to understanding the Bible.

I agree with you, that taken to extremes it can be wrong, but to oppose an approach without listening
to the conclusions is equally wrong. The whole evangelical position is we have no intermediary between
us and God, and are spoken to in our hearts through the word and the Holy Spirit.

So our position already says we are taught by God directly, and through His body. It is odd then that people
should object to this out of hand, unless what they are really saying is their group have the true key to secret
knowledge, which has deceived the rest of the world, or gnosis. Sound familiar as in the gnostic heresy.
 
No.
"Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous."
1 John 3:7
 
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