[dwashbur]

And I never said that if the monsters aren't literal then it isn't truth. You might want to reread what I wrote.

[classyT]

Dave,

Sit down. I have some bad news for you. Your thoughts aren't God's thoughts your ways aren't God's ways. I don't know what those creatures are. I don't know if they are real or not neither do you. I am more inclined to believe it is symbolic but hey, God can do what he wants. I think you can be borderline ridiculous and he made you. ;)

That's what I thought you were talking about. Rahab the harlot. It is interesting she was an example that James used in his book.as well as he used Abraham and Isaac these two cases are really not morally correct incidences, Any thoughts on why?

[jakester]

Jake

I hear you, I do. The thing is if grace was preached properly there would be less of self. Grace is all about Jesus and when people get that, self becomes less and less important. There just isn't any room for self-righteous people.

I believe the law is a natural way of believing. In other words, people who don't even claim to be Christians get the law. If you do good you get good, it you do bad, you get bad. Grace is NOT the natural way to think. I think the reason our churches are a mess is because if they DO preach grace, they balance it out with a little law. Just in case someone gets it in their head they can run wild.

If grace were taught the way Paul taught it I don't think we would be cold or lukewarm. If Jesus were glorified in the pulpits and revealed we would be on fire. Unfortunately, that isn't being done. Instead many churches are focusing on what we as Christian aren't but should be. We already know that. I want to know what we are in Christ, what we have in Christ. That is exciting.. we are a new creation. But you would never know it on Sunday mornings in America. Most places are preaching what we ought to be and guess what. This is why Church is in the state it is in. Even most worships songs are all about us and what we are going to do. "I surrender all...I surrender all." me me me me me. Let's worship Jesus, lets put him in his rightful place on the throne. Let's sing about him and leave us out of it. Frankly, we suck.

Just some thoughts.

Tess - I do absolutely believe that where grace is preached, people truly respond. Teaching a message consistent with the Pharisees message of believe in Jesus but be a Jew and abstain from shellfish to be saved is not the biblical gospel. Paul set out to correct that misunderstanding throughout most of his epistles. However, and I think you'd agree, nobody was more equipped to teach a message of grace than Paul was and yet, you can clearly see that Paul was constantly having to defend his teachings, his apostleship, and much of the gospel in his epistles to the different churches. So if you what you say is true, that if people truly understood grace better there would be less of self, then what would say to the issues Paul faced when teaching grace?

For example, some people were vain and proud in their affiliation to one group of people over another. Remember when Paul addressed the church at Corinth, he was dealing with schisms: "For whenever someone says, "I'm with Paul," and another, "I'm with Apollos," are you not unspiritual people?" Paul had taught the Corinthian church grace and yet they were pitting themselves against each other and being about self, rather than Christ. Paul has to get in their face a bit about this and rebuke them for being unspiritual. The people were missing the point about unity in the gospel and that Paul and Apollos were BOTH ministers of the gospel, not two different people to be followed. Their Lord was who they should follow and they should have merely respected these men for who they were in relationship to the ministry of Christ.

One last thing. In Revelation, Jesus rebukes the church of Laodicea for being lukewarm. I find it interesting that if this church were lukewarm due to their lack of understanding of God's grace, wouldn't it be more appropriate for Jesus to rebuke the pastor(s) of that church for not clearly articulating the idea of grace with respect to their articulation of it? But he doesn't, he actually rebukes the church (and presumably the leaders as well) for their confidence in their wealth and status. His message to them is to repent, not to learn more about his grace.

I hope I don't sound like I'm attacking you because that is not my spirit in writing this. I'm just trying to challenge your assumption that people need to merely understand grace more in order to be effective for God. While I'm not denying the relevance of that, because it is incredibly relevant, it's just that some issues cannot be related to grace necessarily... sometimes we have other issues we are dealing with that need to be confronted differently.

Just some thoughts. ;)

[classyT]

Jakester,

I am not easily offended by you at all. I am glad for your thoughts and you brought out many things I hadn't considered. I need to study this more and gather my thoughts. Still not ready to let go of this notion of more Grace needs preached but need to think about some of the issues you listed. Thanks

[jakester]

Jake

I hear you, I do. The thing is if grace was preached properly there would be less of self. Grace is all about Jesus and when people get that, self becomes less and less important. There just isn't any room for self-righteous people.

I believe the law is a natural way of believing. In other words, people who don't even claim to be Christians get the law. If you do good you get good, it you do bad, you get bad. Grace is NOT the natural way to think. I think the reason our churches are a mess is because if they DO preach grace, they balance it out with a little law. Just in case someone gets it in their head they can run wild.

If grace were taught the way Paul taught it I don't think we would be cold or lukewarm. If Jesus were glorified in the pulpits and revealed we would be on fire. Unfortunately, that isn't being done. Instead many churches are focusing on what we as Christian aren't but should be. We already know that. I want to know what we are in Christ, what we have in Christ. That is exciting.. we are a new creation. But you would never know it on Sunday mornings in America. Most places are preaching what we ought to be and guess what. This is why Church is in the state it is in. Even most worships songs are all about us and what we are going to do. "I surrender all...I surrender all." me me me me me. Let's worship Jesus, lets put him in his rightful place on the throne. Let's sing about him and leave us out of it. Frankly, we suck.

Just some thoughts.

I just wanted to add that I do totally appreciate where you are coming from. I do hear people and pastors get beat down, beat others down, and beat themselves down about "not being what we ought to be." Quite frankly, sometimes it sounds like one big pity party. Yes, we are not what we ought to be... and the truth is that we will never be what we ought to be this side of heaven. But should we focus on what we are not? No, we should focus on what Jesus has done for us and rejoice in that because what else can we do? He is our hope. He is our life. Without him we are nothing and we can do nothing of eternal importance.

But if we can move on from that, there comes an opportunity for us to embrace our position in the Lord and start to see that our lives are important to God and others. We have an opportunity to influence people according to the hope that we have in Christ. And God willing, we will have such opportunities in his time. But if we are constantly beating ourselves up or concerning ourselves with what we are not, we become impotent. We lose the ability to have influence on others because we are constantly seeing ourselves in the negative, and others will see that as well. On the contrary, when we are honest about ourselves in light of the gospel, our moral failures together with our hope in Christ's redemption allow us to speak authoritatively. What I mean is that we can tell others about Christ and show his love because we have traversed that divide. We understand that we are unworthy of God's mercy and yet radically, he has chosen to forgive us in spite of ourselves. Like one of my favorite bible teachers (Steve Brown) says, “we are beggars showing others where to find the Bread.” Moreover, because of our confidence in Christ to forgive us, we can have the freedom to live each day confidently that in the end, my life will find significance in the kingdom of heaven. I no longer need to live in fear of God's punishment or in fear that if I don't get it right, God will not be pleased with me. We are one with Christ in spite of all that we aren't and he is not ashamed to call us brothers.

I found that once I was able to settle that issue for myself and rejoice in the hope that I have in Christ, I didn't' worry about his judgment anymore. I started to concern myself more with the question “what would you have me do for you Lord?” I have found incredible freedom in that. I don't have to beat myself up anymore. I can be honest with myself when I need to be about where I need to grow but I can also find satisfaction in the person that God has already started to create according to the new birth. I can boast in Christ and what he has done for me in giving me wisdom and teaching me about life's most important truths. I can boast in my sufferings by knowing that my faith has been tested and I am still fighting the good fight of faith. These things become very attractive to those who are hungry for the truth. But if I walk around like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, saying “oh gee, woe is me. I'm just a dirty, stinken, rotten sinner”, how would anyone find that attractive? How would people really see that God is loving, merciful and kind, if all I have to say is how unworthy or bad I am? Now, it's important for someone who hasn't understood the gospel to hear that part of the message because it is central to the message. But the message is also one of hope and mercy and a place with God in his kingdom.

So ultimately, I am agreeing with your stance about teaching grace and why that is so significant. Sometimes I think that our culture has become a lot like that of the Laodicean church where we are lukewarm because our prosperity and wealth has caused us to stumble. We have forgotten that we are naked and weak and that we can do nothing apart from Christ. It's this distinction that I am trying to make.

[classyT]

JAKE!

I had the most awesome response to you. It took like an hour to word just right and when I posted the stupid thing the site kicked me off and I lost it. I think I swore... ( OK, I know i did :D) sigh... I will try again. It will take me awhile.. but I will reply to you.

[jakester]

Tess - here's an idea, when you type a response, create it in a Word Document first and then when you are finished, copy and paste it into the box in the "Answer this question" section. This way if it crashes, you'll still have your work in another location so you don't lose it. That's what I do every time before posting because the same problem happened to me before.

[classyT]

Well normally I remember to copy and paste when I am taking awhile but I didn't remember tonight. Talk about frustrating. I never created it in a Word Document though, GREAT idea.

[dwashbur]

Dave,

Sit down. I have some bad news for you. Your thoughts aren't God's thoughts your ways aren't God's ways. I don't know what those creatures are. I don't know if they are real or not neither do you. I am more inclined to believe it is symbolic but hey, God can do what he wants. I think you can be borderline ridiculous and he made you.

That's what I thought you were talking about. Rahab the harlot. It is interesting she was an example that James used in his book.as well as he used Abraham and Isaac these two cases are really not morally correct incidences, Any thoughts on why?

I have seen people insist that those creatures have to be literal. I don't think I'm the one who's ridiculous there!

Another example of a lie that God apparently was okay with: 1 Kings 13. This old boy didn't just lie, he gave the other man a false prophecy and lied about an angel giving him a message. Yet, he was never punished, and he got his wish to be buried next to the other prophet.

And I do have one thought as to why:

I have no idea. That's my thought.

[Athos]

(This is a reply to the original post)


Absolute truth? No.

In one part of the Bible, God tells his followers to slay all the men, women and children. In another part of the Bible, God tells his followers to love their enemy.


Written by men? Definitely.

Many Bible books are beautiful and full of wisdom. The Psalms, the Gospels, Job, all the Wisdom literature, etc.


Final authority? No.

One reason being there are so many different interpretations of the Bible books. One's "final authority" is another's "You're wrong".


Inspired by God? Yes.

In the sense that all great art and literature is inspired by God, so also the Bible.


A good, essential, question.


//edit - I just noticed the original post was over FIVE YEARS AGO!! Good grief. I must be getting old//

[graceyj20]

Regarding the original question. I certainly believe the bible was inspired by god and therefore is the only true authority we can reference.

Of course as others have noted, sometimes it is hard to understand what's being said, what is meant literally and what is meant figuratively. It's also hard to understand why some actions were either condone or directed by God and seemingly contradicted elsewhere in the bible.

Now I know a lot of people answer tough questions with "you just have to have faith" or something to that extent. Typically I'm not a fan of that response (as their usually is a direct answer in the bible... you don't need to take it on faith alone, research... ) but I will say this, I do have faith that God has made it possible through his word the bible that we can understand what he wants us to do and how we should live our life. The many prophecies found in the bible and confirmed by secular scholars is all the proof needed to assure us that God has inspired the bible and it is indeed his word.

The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” 30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. 31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. - Acts 8:29-31 (NIV)

Truly beginning to understand what God is trying to tell us requires many things
- Being humble enough to admit that we need help to fully understand it
- Praying for holy spirit to help us understand
- Actually reading his word and meditating on it
- Reading with an open mind when we're reading it. We need his word to mold us but that will not happen if we're not open to what he's trying to tell us through his word

But now, O Jehovah, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are our Potter; We are all the work of your hand. - Isaiah 64:8 (NWT)

[dwashbur]

Now I know a lot of people answer tough questions with "you just have to have faith" or something to that extent. Typically I'm not a fan of that response (as their usually is a direct answer in the bible... you don't need to take it on faith alone, research... ) but I will say this, I do have faith that God has made it possible through his word the bible that we can understand what he wants us to do and how we should live our life.

I couldn't agree more. "Just have faith" is a cop-out. The Bible isn't going to tell us everything we want to know. But it does tell us what we need to know.