Twisting (as they do all Scripture) unto their own destruction

[Sparkey]

The Apostle Paul was an expert (super expert?) on the law of God. I think that's a fair statement and I trust that there are many members here that can give substantial evidence to support this.

Peter spoke about living a holy life and while speaking of this mentioned the time of the end where the New Heavens and New Earth shall come. We are told to continue to look to this time and how, according to the Promise, we shall be spotless and blameless in Christ. In answer to the unspoken question, "HOW?!?" Peter continues to instruct that we are to "account [that] the longsuffering of our Lord [is] salvation".

Then Peter says a strange thing -- basically he says that this is what Paul has declared and taught too but that there are some guys that argue with the basic idea and wrestle with the Scriptures and that internal and external argument results in their own destruction.

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What I hear when I read this is that yes, the Law is complex but it is also very intuitive. Jesus explained about the Sabbath law in such a way.

"And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?"

When people get caught in debate about those things that Paul wrote about and argue it so vehemently that it results in heated battles and hard lines being drawn (consider how many flavors of 'Christian Churches" there are) they lose sight of the admonition that we are to LOVE EACH OTHER (and bear long with one another).

The law IS intuitive. We don't need to consult a lawyer to understand what God has written into the fleshly tablets of our hearts. Has anyone read the book, All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? Simply stated, we cannot keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace while we are so short-sighted and willing to fight to the death with our brothers. We need instead to follow Jesus whose peace-bond was so strong that he layed down his very life as example to us.

When we throw up our hands and say, "it's useless!" are we not looking away from the longsuffering of God? It is the longsuffering of God that brings us to repentance. How can we forget this fact?

 

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The Apostle Paul was an expert (super expert?) on the law of God. I think that's a fair statement and I trust that there are many members here that can give substantial evidence to support this.

Peter spoke about living a holy life and while speaking of this mentioned the time of the end where the New Heavens and New Earth shall come. We are told to continue to look to this time and how, according to the Promise, we shall be spotless and blameless in Christ. In answer to the unspoken question, "HOW?!?" Peter continues to instruct that we are to "account [that] the longsuffering of our Lord [is] salvation".

Then Peter says a strange thing -- basically he says that this is what Paul has declared and taught too but that there are some guys that argue with the basic idea and wrestle with the Scriptures and that internal and external argument results in their own destruction.

__________________________________________

What I hear when I read this is that yes, the Law is complex but it is also very intuitive. Jesus explained about the Sabbath law in such a way.


When people get caught in debate about those things that Paul wrote about and argue it so vehemently that it results in heated battles and hard lines being drawn (consider how many flavors of 'Christian Churches" there are) they lose sight of the admonition that we are to LOVE EACH OTHER (and bear long with one another).

The law IS intuitive. We don't need to consult a lawyer to understand what God has written into the fleshly tablets of our hearts. Has anyone read the book, All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? Simply stated, we cannot keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace while we are so short-sighted and willing to fight to the death with our brothers. We need instead to follow Jesus whose peace-bond was so strong that he layed down his very life as example to us.

When we throw up our hands and say, "it's useless!" are we not looking away from the longsuffering of God? It is the longsuffering of God that brings us to repentance. How can we forget this fact?

I personally wrestled with the surface conflicts or what I have come to term false divisions placed between Law and Grace for a couple decades or more.

If one attempts to take one side or the other one will end up in conflict with the text. It is then that one learns that there are simultaneous truths that can exist without such conflicts. I could provide many examples of such conflicts, this one from Paul being my favorite as it pertains to Paul playing both sides of the ledgers of Law and Grace himself:

1 Cor. 9:
20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.


On the surface Paul might even appear to some to be somewhat of a hypocrite here, but Paul had a vastly superior knowledge and understanding of the intent of the Law in the way of the Spirit's intentions for same.


As to suffering, Christ has continued to 'suffer with us' in our present afflictions because He Is with us in them all. We are promised both an individual end to that suffering and a communal end.


enjoy!


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