Jesus also said, âUnless you become as a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.â . He clearly intended His message to be simple if, after all, a child could accept it. Itâs clear that Jesusâ gospel was intended to be simple enough for the poor and uneducated and He was clear that you just needed to be born again with the Holy Spirit following. James does a nice job of summarizing, or crossing the bridge, between the Catholic and Protestant views. James essentially implied that you cannot have works without faith and faith without works. Common sense tells you that they are not two abstract, mutually exclusive and independent concepts. Jesus also said, âUnless you repent, â¦â This is very in line with Pauline doctrine. But, in all of this, you guys are (imo) missing the point. Jesus was NOT advocating some kind of formula because it was a relationship He was seeking. Christians donât become and stay Christians because of some rule that theyâve followed but because they have a relationship with the Spirit of God. Let me ask you a question: what are the barest rules that you can have to have a relationship with another human being? Well, itâs not that easy to come up with a formula for it. Furthermore, it would be different for every pair of human beings. Youâre trying to force something full of life and force it into a clinical abstractionâ¦.
so do you hate your family? Luke 14:26 26 If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sistersâ yes, even his own lifeâ he cannot be my disciple.
C'mon. Jesus tenderly took a child into his arms and chastized the disciples for not allowing the children to come to him. He kept in VERY close contact with his mother. So he obviously did not mean what you are implying. Let me ask you this. He says that you must hate your brothers and sisters "IN THE SAME WAY" that you hate your own life. What did he mean? That will give you the answer to your question...
And, by the way, I'd prefer if you responded to my posts instead of just pulling arbitrary and unrelated stuff off of infidels.org or wherever you're looking...
You point out another reason why it was very tough to get into heaven if you read the bible as handbook for behavior. Jesus as a very well versed Rabbi showed how difficult it is to merit eternal life. In fact it is probably impossible to merit heaven by being a good person because you are going to fall short of the mark. I personally think the only choice a man has -- who realizes he is not going to make it on his own - is to grab onto one of the promises God made and act in faith on a promise. I hesitate to tell anyone that there is only one perscription for getting eternal life, smarter guys then me have come to different conclusions. The Catholic and other Orthodox chruch obviously believe that you have to seek out the grace of God and work out your salvation through the sacraments and being in Union with Gods teachings. Protestants believe that by faith you are saved. But even a strict Pauline view is very difficult to continue to always have confidence in. It seems to me faith is not a formula. Having faith is a verb. That is what the book of James widely misread was actually saying about the works vs faith dichotomy. Faithing is really what Paul was talking about. I suspect you must have continuous faith, not just saying you believe. You may believe that Jesus died for your sins but when your fruits are not that great how do you really know you are saved. How do you deal with backsliding. I believe the works vs soley faith connundrum is only truly understood when you conclude faith is actually a verb. To me and to the Protestant and Catholic teachers I have read there is one unifying conclusion even for a Jew. You must work or act in faith on one of Gods promises. The beauty of that belief is that on Judgement day the lawyer in me actually has something to fall back on. God might say or I might judge myself to be unworthy of heaven. But in my defense, I will say, I looked around did my best concluded that God was letting me know through the old testament that the God of Abraham is the one true God and that I could tell he was God by the fact he kept his promises. I can also say that I concluded that my Job (interesting because the book of Job was about faith) was to take God for his word and act (in faith) upon it. Acting in faith makes you righteous even if by that act it looks to others (not well studied) like you williing to do a potential heinous thing like sacrificing your first born son. In the end what else could there be? Either a God who keeps his promises or no God at all. The choice is yours.
"God might say or I might judge myself to be unworthy of heaven. But in my defense, I will say, I looked around did my best concluded that God was letting me know through the old testament that the God of Abraham is the one true God and that I could tell he was God by the fact he kept his promises." and i will say that i spent 50 years as a christian and as soon as i matured enough to look at the bible in the light of modern evidence i concluded that it was nothing more than a bunch of books written by primitive superstitious men trying to explain what they believed. as more and more why questions are answered there is less and less need for god did it answers and i could see no evidence of an active god in our lives. how is your position any better than mine?
Moses story - taken from earlier story (Sargon II of Akkad) Noah story - taken from earlier story (Epic of Gilgamesh) Jesus story - taken from earlier figures: Dionysus, Krishna, Lao Zi, Attis, Tammuz (all virgin born saviour gods w/ immortal fathers; were persecuted at birth; performed miracles; died horrible deaths; rose into heaven/ nirvana etc.
This was in reference to the false identifications we have embellished for ourselves...identifications that are something other than who we are. Jesus is sayin, Be Real. And the only thing real is love. If you are not love, then every other ID is an embellisment of an illusion. We are so wrapped up in these IDs they become our entire life. This is the life that he says to "hate". Keep it real. Be the love that you are. That's it. JohnnyK