mark 3:21 and the virgin birth

[doubting thomas]

Charity is not more important than faith. You cannot love without having the love of God in you, and you cannot have that without faith in Jesus Christ as your Saviour.If you think love and works of charity are more important, than you are thinking of yourself as a 'doing' rather than a 'being'. You cannot do anything to make yourself acceptable to God.

1 corinthains 13:13
james 2:14-26

i think it worth noting the massive amount of text i've written to you that you have completely ignored. i'll take that as your tacit acceptance of those arguments.

 

[Alabaster]

1 corinthains 13:13
james 2:14-26

i think it worth noting the massive amount of text i've written to you that you have completely ignored. i'll take that as your tacit acceptance of those arguments.

I don't agree with very much you say here, thomas. I respond to what I want to respond to, or I will be here forever.

Re: 1 Corinthians 13:13: You must have faith first in order to love like God does!

Re: James 2:14-26: Faith is paramount. Works stem from it...not the other way around.

 

[doubting thomas]

How you can say that is remarkable, as you stroke out massive portions of truth from within the scriptures that you choose to disbelieve.

we all chose to emphasize and overlook certain passages. all of us. tell me, which of the two genealogies of christ is correct?

You are not resting in God, and accepting His truth. You are fighting Him

you need more humilty, in my humble opinion. do not tell me i am "fighting" god. you have no right and no basis to say that. frankly, im insulted by it. it is you who refuses to actually confront my thoughts and doubts. you just keep dismissing everything i say with "you need faith, you hate god". that is an insult. i took the time to write well reasoned and well cited arguments. clearly ive been wasting my time. if you have constructive arguments in the future, i welcome them. but until then, let's try some more humility, shall we

 

[doubting thomas]

I don't agree with very much you say here, thomas. I respond to what I want to respond to, or I will be here forever.

Re: 1 Corinthians 13:13: You must have faith first in order to love like God does!

Re: James 2:14-26: Faith is paramount. Works stem from it...not the other way around.

that is not what those passages say and you know it. you are being purposefully obtuse i think. goodbye

 

[Alabaster]

After what people have given you in this thread, if you really were a truly doubting thomas, seeking the truth, just as the original Doubting Thomas was, you would have received the truth with thankfulness and gone and changed your user name by now.

Instead, you are holding fast to your error and your darkness, grasping tightly and defending it, as a contentious unbeliever does in these kinds of forums.

Christians are to be teachable.

 

[doubting thomas]

After what people have given you in this thread, if you really were a truly doubting thomas, seeking the truth, just as the original Doubting Thomas was, you would have received the truth with thankfulness and gone and changed your user name by now.

Instead, you are holding fast to your error and your darkness, grasping tightly and defending it, as a contentious unbeliever does in these kinds of forums.

Christians are to be teachable.

how dare you accuse me of fabricating the gospels when you can't find ONE SINGLE SHRED OF EVIDENCE for that. and yes, others in this thread, not you, have been most patient and instructive. and i thank them.

you, on the other hand, need a healthy christian serving of humility. you haven't given me any "truth". you've ignored every argument i've made, only to make ONE argument over and over again -- "you just need blind faith. faith is more important than anything else". sorry, ive already proven that wrong in other posts here. and it was YOU that fabricated the gospels. YOU purposefully misrepresent 1 Corinthians 13:13

and YOU also purposefully misrepresent Mt 5:20 mt 7:21 lk 14:26 lk 14:33 lk 18:22 mt 19:21-23

and unless you apologize for insulting me, i wont be responding to you

1 Peter 3:15 Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect

is see NO repsect from you. perhaps it is YOU who fails as a christian. of course i dont presume, unlike you, to know who fails as a christian. i leave that to god. you should do likewise

 

[Alabaster]

that is not what those passages say and you know it. you are being purposefully obtuse i think. goodbye

Yes they do. Let me paste them for you so everyone can see them!

1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT
Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Paul is speaking to those who already have faith. you cannot love others like Jesus does without the faith in Him that CHANGES YOU!!


James 2:14-26 NLT
14 What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? 15 Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, 16 and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat wellâ€â€”but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? 17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.
18 Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.†But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.â€
19 You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. 20 How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless?
21 Don’t you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete.23 And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.†He was even called the friend of God.24 So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone.

25 Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. 26 Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.



It is all about faith! You cannot have works that reap fruit and great results that God brings without faith. If you try to do good works without faith, you get nowhere with God. Only faith in God will produce works that have lasting and good results.


Faith in God produces the kind of works that people see Christ in. You cannot say that you are a man or woman of faith by lip service. Your life must radiate that faith by what it does.


It comes all from faith. Bottom line.

 

[Alabaster]

how dare you accuse me of fabricating the gospels when you can't find ONE SINGLE SHRED OF EVIDENCE for that. and yes, others in this thread, not you, have been most patient and instructive. and i thank them.

Tailor made gospel just for yourself. You are not accepting of anything anyone has said to correct and inform you. If you do not believe that Jesus was born of a virgin girl and the many other things you say you do not believe that is plainly taught in scripture, then you are indeed fabricating your own brand of gospel truth and frankly, another Jesus.

you, on the other hand, need a healthy christian serving of humility. you haven't given me any "truth". you've ignored every argument i've made, only to make ONE argument over and over again -- "you just need blind faith. faith is more important than anything else". sorry, ive already proven that wrong in other posts here. and it was YOU that fabricated the gospels. YOU purposefully misrepresent 1 Corinthians 13:13

I have humility. It is because of humility that I strain with you, contending for the faith that you are denying. If I didn't care about you, I wouldn't give a rip about what you believe and I wouldn't try to show you the truth so that you could have abundant life in Christ.

You need not make any argument, thomas. what you are choosing to believe doesn't match the truth in any way and needs to stop contending...in Jesus' name. You have proven nothing that any of us has said as wrong. Nothing.

Accept Jesus and know Him--the real one, and then accept and know His word.

 

[Mike]

i think the jesus seminar has done some good work. i find bart erhman's work very instructive.

Well, this explains a lot. You are the victim of the very outrageous and heretical "Jesus Seminar" . Personally, I'll keep this in mind for future reference. I'm not going to debate this here. In fact, I'll probably find one of many threads that have likely been created or start a new one. The agenda of those who created the Jesus Seminar drove the outcome of this process and was completely fraudulent.

 

[doubting thomas]

Well, this explains a lot. You are the victim of the very outrageous and heretical "Jesus Seminar" . Personally, I'll keep this in mind for future reference. I'm not going to debate this here. In fact, I'll probably find one of many threads that have likely been created or start a new one. The agenda of those who created the Jesus Seminar drove the outcome of this process and was completely fraudulent.

the jesus seminar (which i specifically said had done some good work) has little to do with the these following points which i made to you and which you ignored:

1. Matthew (1:18-21) says that news of Mary’s pregnancy was announced only to Joseph, by an angel in a dream, and only after Jesus had been conceived. Luke (1:26-31) on the other hand, says that Gabriel appeared to Mary while she was awake and explained everything to her before Jesus was conceived. Neither angel cautions silence, so it’s unlikely that one wouldn’t have told the other — and so they can’t both be true.

2. i think if the angel appeared to mary her family would be less likely to doubt jesus. especially when zacharaia and elizabeth, also included in the family of jesus, were also visited by the angel.

3. paul tells us nothing about the virgin birth. this for me is the clincher. if it was so important, he would have written down in his letters. but no, he tells us only that we need believe christ is risen and here to save us of our sins, not that we must believe the in circumstances surrounding his birth. only that we believe the circumstances surrounding his death. and if the virgin birth is so integral theologically, why do 2 of the gospels make no mention of it?

4. what the point of telling us jesus' geneology, telling us how jospeh is descended from david and abraham if jesus is not even related to jospeh by blood? (also note the two very different genealogies in the only two gospels which mention the virgin birth)

5. the misreading of Isaiah 7:14 is the well documented mistranslation of virgin. the greek septuagint which matthew used translates it as “a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,” but the hebrew word “almah” means “young woman of marriageable age,” not a virigin. "betulah" is the hebrew word for virgin, and it is not used in isaiah. this is the contextualization to which i referred to earlier. i think much of the nativity story was added after the death of jesus, and made to fit certain prophesies from the OT, like his birth in bethlehem (i also have problems with the historicity of the census or the slaughter of babies (which john the baptist somehow survived without fleeing).



i would very much appreciate a response to these



1 Peter 3:15 Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect

 

[doubting thomas]

Tailor made gospel just for yourselI have humility. It is because of humility that I strain with you, contending for the faith that you are denying. If I didn't care about you, I wouldn't give a rip about what you believe and I wouldn't try to show you the truth so that you could have abundant life in Christ.

you need the humility to accept that your arguments are not strong enough to change the mind of someone open to changing his mind. (ive told others here they've made good points). this is the apologetics thread. apologetics is all about convincing arguments. it's about judging people on their minds. we leave the judging of our hearts to god. again, humility here would serve us all well.

we agree that faith without deeds is empty faith. and we agree deeds without faith do not serve god. the issue has always been what we have to show for our deeds. my faith is in the love of god. it is that faith which informs my deeds. the virgin birth has no place in any of it. it's why paul never mentioned it. if your deeds were done out of your love for god, i think perhaps you would show me a little more respect, as mentioned in 1 peter 3:15.

and i have not "fabricated" the gospels. i've done what every theologian worth his salt has done throughout the cneturies and continue to do in our best theological seminaries -- i've given historical documents proper contextualization. and ive found their divine inspiration in tact.




1 Peter 3:15 Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect

 

[Alabaster]

you need the humility to accept that your arguments are not strong enough to change the mind of someone open to changing his mind. (ive told others here they've made good points). this is the apologetics thread. apologetics is all about convincing arguments. it's about judging people on their minds. we leave the judging of our hearts to god. again, humility here would serve us all well.

I don't need to change your mind, actually. That is God's job.

We cannot know the truth, or believe without a REVELATION.

we agree that faith without deeds is empty faith. and we agree deeds without faith do not serve god. the issue has always been what we have to show for our deeds. my faith is in the love of god. it is that faith which informs my deeds. the virgin birth has no place in any of it. it's why paul never mentioned it. if your deeds were done out of your love for god, i think perhaps you would show me a little more respect, as mentioned in 1 peter 3:15.

and i have not "fabricated" the gospels. i've done what every theologian worth his salt has done throughout the cneturies and continue to do in our best theological seminaries -- i've given historical documents proper contextualization. and ive found their divine inspiration in tact.

You desperately need a revelation.

 

[farouk]

Alabaster:

Acts speaks of Lydia 'whose heart the Lord opened'.

 

[Alabaster]

Alabaster:

Acts speaks of Lydia 'whose heart the Lord opened'.

Exactly. Proof is abundant in the holy scriptures! Yet, no one can KNOW with assurance anything of truth without the revelation of God. Without it, they are still fumbling about in the dark, believing all sorts of nonsense. That is why we have to deal with people being contentious based on their fleshly understanding which, to them is right and those who have discerned truth by the Spirit of God are considered foolish.

1 Corinthians 2:14 NLT
But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.

 

[doubting thomas]

i was able to reconcile the issue on my own. it began by realizing that jesus can't be divine with two human parents. no one pointed this out, but i then realized that i was comparing mark's gospel to to luke's and matthew's. since mark doesnt mention the virgin birth, and neither luke nor matthew mention his family thinking him crazy, i actually dont see much of an issue anymore. im happy to see this in the greater context of no one in any of the gospels really understanding jesus. so it would make sense that even his family thought he was mad, if the passage even means that.

so, case closed

 

[Alabaster]

 

[stovebolts]

You have been given an infraction.

15 - No trolling. Don't make inflammatory remarks just to get a response. You won't be labeled as a troll if your post has substance. Refrain from behavior which may be deemed inappropriate or disruptive as defined by these terms of Service and at christianforums.net sole discretion.

Please read and adhere to the TOS of this site. 3 infractions and your account will be suspended.

 

[Alabaster]

i was able to reconcile the issue on my own. it began by realizing that jesus can't be divine with two human parents. no one pointed this out, but i then realized that i was comparing mark's gospel to to luke's and matthew's. since mark doesnt mention the virgin birth, and neither luke nor matthew mention his family thinking him crazy, i actually dont see much of an issue anymore. im happy to see this in the greater context of no one in any of the gospels really understanding jesus. so it would make sense that even his family thought he was mad, if the passage even means that.

so, case closed

Now perhaps this inane thread can be closed, so we don't get into a heated battle about which gospel writer misunderstands Jesus? After all, we have one poster arguing that only the gospel writers spoke truth, and now we have one who says they don't.

The TOS reflects that this site encourages debate but to deny the veracity and authority of all scripture not in one post, but in MANY, as a personal theme, makes even my goat faint.

 

[doubting thomas]

After all, we have one poster arguing that only the gospel writers spoke truth, and now we have one who says they don't

all you have ever done is put words into my mouth that i've never written. you've already been given a warning here (unsolicited on my behalf, though well deserved), and clearly nothing fruitful will ever come from further discussion with you, on this or any other topic. i would suggest you also consider:

22 - Respect where others are in their spiritual walk, do not disrupt the flow of discussion or act in a way that affects others negatively including when debating doctrinal issues, in the defense of the Christian faith, and in offering unwelcome spiritual advice.

1 Peter 3:15 Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect

Proverbs 15:1-2: A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise adorns knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly