This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
When the Bible speaks of how people are, I am pretty sure that is not time limited. I cannot think of any. People have not changed over the ages as a species. Different people behave and are therefore different, but those are individuals or maybe groups influenced by the culture. But the descriptions of how bad or how good people can be has not changed. Since the rebellion in the garden, man is the same, just what each man does with what he is changes or can change.
Actually it is pretty wise.
What out of context. Have you not read where Jesus takes all kinds of verses alone. Would you tell him that he is taking them out of context. And I was not attacking anyone. Who did I attack?
There are those who think that because they "accepted Jesus" that the are smarter and better informed than anyone else who has not despite the fact that the still go to atheist specialists in their field (doctors, etc.) I hate to the be the one who smashes your idol of who is really wise and intelligent, but your position does not match real life. (For those who do not get why I worded it that way, look up what Iconoclast means.)
It’s a mistake to think just because I don’t see that believers in Christ possess superior education or even wisdom as compared to atheists as a group doesn’t mean I’m not a follower of Jesus.
God would have preferred if Adam and Eve had learned the difference between good and evil by choosing good. What you say is in line with what the serpent said who accused God of wishing them to remain in a state of innocence or ignorance.
This post makes no sense
You need to remember what YOU say and you will see it makes perfect sense. But let me make it more simple.
Another false accusation lobbed because I don’t think that becoming a believer makes one automatically educated, wise, informed or mentally superior to atheists. That is your response to that obvious truth. I mean, there are posters here whose apparent educational level is around grade 5 judging by their writing and language skills. You insist they’re superior to atheists because they’re believers!
He tells half truths half lies. You know he quoted scripture to Jesus. Was he lying or telling the truth?
Why did he put that tree there if not to offer them the chance to learn by choosing good? Why put it there AT ALL if he wanted that knowledge withheld from them? Why not forbid a different tree? He could have forbidden the banana tree. I would have no trouble at all obeying that one.
That’s hard to divide. In the moments of choice, lines are fuzzy. There are many occasions where a choice to love forces the self to obey.
Jesus said it is. “IIf ye love me, keep my commandments." Jesus think obedience to Gods commands is loving God. What else? Hands lifted in worship with eyes closed and feeling surging?
Well, most of this is good but I have to ask how often you have denied yourself and obeyed the living God speaking to you. I have and that last sentence does not at all describe the experience often. Much of the time it is like feeding my children in the middle of the night, or like Jesus obeying God in the garden of G. He was not experiencing a joyful motivation at all. And that is reality. Deny yourself and take up your cross not refusing it and it hurts. It isn't at all joyful at the time. Peter described suffering in certain places and he did not sound joyful. Sometimes it is but sometimes it is not at all.
Yes. People can obey commands and yet hate the one(s) that lord it over them.
Why do you write something like "This is seldom heard in church today but instead those who would claim to love God just need to feel warm and gooey when modern "worship" music is played and their heart is stirred again." How many churches have you attended to make this claim? How do you know what "those who would claim to love God" think or feel? Or are you just setting yourself above them and judging them, i.e., playing God?
I think Jesus is saying that keeping His commandments is the outward result of loving God. I don't believe we prove we love God by keeping His commandments. We keep His commandments because we want to out of our love for Him.
Except love is sometimes a raw emotionless choice. You make yourself do something or refrain from doing something because you’ve chosen to love,
Look at what songs are popular. Look at clips musicians display of themselves. But I can ask you, does your church talk more about obeying God or entering „his presence?”
From what they’re told and what they say. What are the options?
Were the Bereans setting themselves above Paul and judging him, i.e., playing God?
He desired them NOT to eat of it, that is to choose not to eat of it. That is what He said and there is a reason. The reason is refusing to do wrong teaches a man more about right and wrong than doing wrong. That is still true today.
But why does that exclude learning the difference between right and wrong?
Jesus struggled to obey at the Garden. He did not thank God for an ever-enlarging experience of the power of the Holy Spirit. Peter's descriptions of his sufferings were ones of enduring unpleasantness that did not become pleasant. Paul listed the things he had suffered by obedience and they were obviously sufferings. Jesus actually told us to DENY ourselves. Denying is not pleasant. It is unpleasant. He did not say that we will love God and so we won't have to deny ourselves but will do our desire too.
Not sure what you mean but the "if" is definitely there. In Greek it is "eau." If ye love me, keep my commandments. The alternatively is also true, if we do not keep his commands, we do not love Him or not much. To the degree we obey, to that same degree we love.
Can you give examples please.
In the garden, he was not joyful. Despising is not a joyful experience. You can read about the experience and it was NOT marked by Jesus being joyful.
Perhaps you mean well. Perhaps you are being condescending. But I will take the first and comfort you by telling you that I have experienced more than once, the thrill (and "thrill" is an understating the experience but the best English can offer) of God being pleased with my obedience. That is easy to understand as we know a person loves another by the choices they make to deny themselves and the greater the denial, the greater the love. Someone who travels many hours at some expense to see a suffering friend loves more than the one who sends a text message and the friend knows this.
It says they did not even know they were naked. Now here is see a difficulty. You say you obey God easily and that is never a struggle but you are comfortable with changing what the text says. The Devil himself did not tell them they already knew good so why not experience bad. He did not think they knew good. Why would they eat it if they knew good already? Makes no sense. What you are trying to do is think of how it would be if you were there but we do not know the mental state of a grown man and woman who, like small children, have no understanding of more right and wrong. We cannot imagine it. We do not even remember how that was for us as small children.
So, does a believer WAIT until they feel love for God overwhelming their other desires so that obedience is easy and pleasant and costs them nothing? Until obedience becomes easy, they needs not obey?