[princeamlodd]

What were the origins of Christian anti-Jewish sentiment?

[rosends]

That's a pretty broad question with a variety of possible answers:

1. Resentment against a people who don't accept Jesus
2. Revenge against a people who made Jesus' life difficult
3. Revenge against those who held back the splinter group which became Christianty
4. Need for an economic, social or political scapegoat

I'm sure there are others, and each one requires a book to explore in depth.

[cherepes]

The Basis of the Christian anti-Jewish sentiment stems from the fact that it was the Jewish Leaders who crucified Christ, therefore all Jews were at fault since the Leaders said let it be on their heads.

Though most assuredly, Christ Jesus was Crucified by the Jews, it is also taken that He came for them as well as us, so this sentiment is totally without any merit.

RC-CIC
Cherepes

[rosends]

I find it scary that even after the pope himself has denied that the Jews kileld Jesus, people can still assert it as a fact.

That Jesus might have committed acts that would have merited a death penalty according to Jewish law is immaterial. That the person who pointed him out was Jewish is immaterial. That the Roman authorities performed a military tribunal and issued an order to perform a crucifixion (a death never sanctioned by any form of Judaism) at a day, and time contrary to Jewish law and in a place outside of religious jurisdiction is the point.

It's nice to throw a bone to the Jews "the Jesus came from them also." Nice. If I could change that I would, but res ipso loquitor -- the Romans kileld Jesus -- the ignorance in the belief that the Jews did it continues to fan the flames of baseless hatred.

[dwalex]

Gee, that last responder apears to have "issues". But back to your question, Jews did in fact persecute Christians, it is in the Bible. Anyone with strong religious convictions is going to have problems with a group that comes in and says "no what you believe and all of your ancestors believe is wrong, this is the new truth, throw all of that away and follow this new guy" Even the people of Jesus' hometown tried to kill him and his own family other than his mother were not strong believers until after his death. As humans, we resist change and we want to believe that our beliefs are right. Christians challenged this in Jews. Today, however, most educated Christians and Jews understand and accept each others points of view. Its those radical islamics that I'm worried about; their view is that they have a right to kill anyone who disagrees with them.

Best wishes,
Dwalex

[cherepes]

To Expand a little on my statement, which some have misunderstood, it was most assuredly the Sanehdrin, and the Sanhedrin alone that brought Christ Jesus before the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate, with the sole intent of having Christ put to death. At the time, they had no power, so to enforce what they had already sactioned, they gave Pilate reason to execute, by claiming tha Chirst called himself King of the Jews.

Most assuredly it was the Romans that put Jesus to death on the Cross physically, but it was the Sanhedrin and the Pharisses and Sdducees that initiated and sealed the fate of Christ with their charges to pilate and their decision that Christ must die at the trial of the Sanhedrin.

To be exact, when Pilate found no fault with Christ, the same Sanhedrin ssaid let it be on our heads, meaning that it was the will of the Hebrew nation for acts against their law that Christ Jesus was crucified.

This one little statement, has turned out to meant that all Jews are guilty of the crime. Although this is not the case, for as we see in history and the Bible it was just the Sanhedrin and their crowd that saw Christ as a threat, and not the whole Hebrew Nation for Christ had many, many folowers among them, but it was the poor, not the Priestly class, that were the folowers of Christ.
It was also the same priestly class responsible for His death. And as done though out the ages if the King hates a nations, then the whole nation hates the same nation. Guilt by assoication, even though that is not normally the case, that is what many in times of old viewed as true.

Since the Sanhedrin was guilty, and the Sanhedrin spoke for the Hebrews, ergo all Hebrews must also be guilty.

So it stems out of ignorance and hatred, which never makes any sense, but enemies, for out of true love of Christ, Hebrews are our Brthren in God the Father.

Cherepes

[rosends]

Any arguments I could muster to contradict what was just posted would be based in two things which obviously won't do here -- a questioning of the validity of the testimony of the texts which report the death of Jesus (as they report "fact" which is contrary to what Jewish law would sanction or condone), and a questioning of the logic.

1. The Jewish community was very divided, so any claim that the Jewish court represented all Jews must be in error.

2. The Jewish court does not have the authority to hand people over to civil court -- it acts to decide punishment and it is a punishing body (one that if, according to the sages, it executes one person in 70 years is considered cruel and unusually harsh).

3. Crucifixion is not a death penalty that the court could encourage or allow to happen as punishment for a sin. It is the result of Roman military tribunal.

4. To say that all of a group are guilty because the supposed head (note -- there was no king of the Jews to decipher your analoge) is against something and to blame is ridiculous. By that logic, as the Popes through the ages have been anti-semitic, all Catholics are therefore to blame for the countless deaths of Jews, including during World War II. Doesn't quite follow. President Clinton had an affair, therefore all Americans are adulterers because he represents what we stand for?


But, as I said, arguing won't hold sway here. We're discussing dogma -- even one rescinded by the church...

[tototu]

It isn't a Christian sentiment at all, It is a religious sentiment with seeds in the spirit of the antichrist. A person who gains the spiritual understanding of the gospel by supernatural gift of God, (a Christian), will understand from the gospel that a gentile becomes a Jew through spiritual adoption and becomes a partaker of the Divine Promise. Currently, the children of promise ( the nation of Israel) are blinded to the Truth due to the sovereign act of God. He has hardened their hearts and stiffened their necks, but He hasn't taken away the Promise, for His word is immutable. ;D ;D ;D

[Pastor_Dave]

This is not a Christian view. It is the view of GOD. It is not just a view against the Jewish Faith. It is against all who do not accept Jesus as the only begotton Son of God and the only redeemer of mans lost soul. Anyone or any denomination who does not accept the true gospel of Christ is an anti-Christ and God has no part in them. One must be born of Gods spirit through the repented blood shed salvation of Christ to be a child of God. Anyone or anything else is not of God and is anti-christ according to Gods Holy Word.

[rosends]

Gee, I guess that makes me the anti-christ. I like my religion because it says that any non-Jew who follows seven basic laws goes to heaven. The books I believe in say nothing about that whole blood shedding thing.

[tototu]

Wow, Dave! Did you ever bother reading the question posted under the topic?
It seems to me that you subscribe to replacment theology and think Jesus has appointed you to be the new Jew of Promise. Be careful of the religious morass your slogging through for it is not scriptural.
Since the transgression in the garden, man has needed a Saviour, a Messiah and at that time God proclaimed that He would provide one. Since that time God has appointed various people to be ministers of that message. The First nation of ministers were the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Prior ministers were individual prohets such as Noah. They never lost their ministries until they were cut off (died). The nation Israel is not cut off and still has that charge. The Work of the Cross has been blinded to them because God has blinded them. God has appointed a new body of people to minister the message, His church. We are a unique people in that we shall be kings and priests to Him. That means in the coming millennial reign, we shall serve the people ministering the Kingdom of Christ.
Now so far as I understand how Jesus communicated with folks, He didn't walk around saying they were going to hell. He didn't tell them He was going to hang on a cross for them and take their sins upon His shoulders. He spent His whole time proclaiming in the flesh what only could be perceived in the spirit and by the Spirit. That message was that He was God and He would take care of things, they no longer had to worry. They couldn't understand it because He didn't come to them they way they expected in the flesh, with pomp and circumstance, a legion of angels, a bunch of bad guy butt kickers, terrifying and cowing all flesh. He instead tried to show them that God was not at all like that, that He loved and cherished them.
If your message isn't like His, then just what is your mission as a church? Are you preaching to terrify the flesh? Are you standing in condemnation of others when you have no basis outside of the grace of a Loving God to even raise up your head?
We aren't going to be scared into salvation. We ALL are on the road to perdition. We are all just too ignorant to understand, blinded by our flesh and it's desires, children of our father the Devil. God says "My children perish for lack of knowledge".
Jesus made a proclamation of GOOD NEWS to those who were perishing (the world). If you want to learn how to preach a Godly message, return to the testimonies of The apostles and of Paul and go back to the inception of the church. The receiving of that message is between the hearer and God and I have not right or authority to judge.
I am to, if I understand the scriptures, not walk with the ungodly. That doesn't mean I am to shun those who don't give testimony to Christ, it means I am not to walk in the counsel or share in the deeds of evil. There are plenty of unsaved who strive to live moral and charitable lives, whatever their motivation. God's message to them is the man in the dark, the secret man that dwells within has been disarmed at the cross and he is now free.
;D ;D ;D

[juanruiz]

We are confronted here with two facts:

[Starman]

Jesus never told his followerrs to feel they needed revenge or to persecute anyone for any reason whatsoever. Quite to the contrary, he spoke of forgiveness and patience even when a Christian is persecuted.

So the persecutions against the Jews were not Christian acts--they were acts of disobedience against the teachings of Christ himself.

Matthew 5:42-44

42 Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away. Love Your Enemies

43 “You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,[b]
e

Matthew 5:39
But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.

BTW
All the apostles were Jews as was Jesus himself. The first to accept Jesus as savior were the Jews, as were the first congregations or Christian churches. That's because Jesus was sent to preach primarily to the descendants of Abraham who were given the promise that all nations would be blessed via his seed.

New King James Version

Genesis
17 And the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, 18 since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19


This was the blessing that would come via the seed seed spoken about in Genesis 3 which would set things in order between God and men.

Because of this promise, Jesus message was directed primarily to the nation of Israel the direct beneficiaries of that Abrahamic promise. It was only later with the baptism of Cornelius the Roman centurian that the way was opened for gentiles to be baptized and receive holy spirit.

[Morganite]

Christian anti-Semitism has its roots in the charges made against Christians by Jews that Christians were nothing more than heretical Jews, and in the charges made by Christians against Jews that they were "Christ-killers," who had denied the mashiach. These early divisions should be viewed as origally being something akin to a family squabble. Let it not be forgotten that the first Christians were Jews, almost to a man, and even those gentiles who came into the church did so in the main because of their attraction to the strict morality of Judaism as opposed to the licentiousness of their native forms of paganism. These gentiles are referred to as standing "in the shadow of the synagogue," because although they applauded Jewish morality they could not embrace the minutiae of Judaism and its rituals and had no desire to submit to briss.

What were originally different positions within Judaism led to deper schism with the passage of time and the hardening of the relative parties. Add to that the unfortunate penchant some religious have for saying unkind things about their opponents, and the divide not only widens, but deepens to the point where their difference are irreconcilable.

The schism was made concrete in the Disputations, and also in the atrociously unkind art work that adorned many of the great mediaeval cathedrals, where Judaism is shown as a humiliated and broken woman, conquered by the Church Militant and Triumphant. Even today, that attitude persists among many Roman Catholics, and that distaste for Christ-killing Jews (All or none!), can be shown to have influenced Hitler when he moved against European jewry certain that the church would not oppose him in punishing their long standing enemies.

Not all Catholics hold that position, but sufficient did in the 1930s and 1940s to remove obstacles to their persecution and murder. It was considered to be a form of divine retribution for something their ancestors are supposed to have done centuries ago.

The history of Jewish‑Christian contacts included confrontations and disputations almost from the very beginning of Christianity. This was inevitable for a religion, Christianity, that considered itself not only a "continuation" of Jewish tradition but indeed a replacement of it. Christianity thus is not so much a "branch” grafted onto the root as a new growth that entirely takes over the "rotten” branches of the original tree. Disputations took place already between Paul and Jews to whom he preached in his travels, and for that matter between Paul and the still Jewish disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem, before they acquiesced in his new religion.

Early written Christian disputations, such as that of Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho), were often a literary fiction, serving merely as a vehicle for the author to express his anti‑Jewish views and Christian doctrines. Church "Fathers" such as Origen and Jerome were personally acquainted with Jews, and both relied especially on rabbis for assistance in un*derstanding the Bible. Jerome, too, referred to the root and branch idea in his commentary on Psalm 77: "We are an offshoot of their root, we the branch, they the root. We ought not to curse the root, but we ought to pray for our root." However, he was cer*tainly no friend of the Jews, and it is entirely proba*ble that many of his discussions with Jews were de*bates, if not public disputations…

Many Jewish writers confuse disputations with polemical writings, both Christian and Jewish. Indeed, sometimes it is hard to distinguish them be*cause some works pretending to record a disputation are actually literary inventions on both sides, as we shall see. For our purposes, "disputation" refers to either an actual oral debate or a written work that is or purports to be the record of such a confrontation between Jews and Christians.

The most famous medieval disputation, repeatedly written about but as yet incorrectly understood, was that of Barcelona in 1263. The disputation itself was the result of the preaching campaign of a Jewish apostate, Paul Christiani, appar*ently from Montpellier, who converted sometime after 1236, became a Dominican, and preached missionary sermons to the Jews in Provence, France, and Catalo*nia. He died in 1274.

It was also at Barcelona in 1263, at the instigation of Paul Christiani and other Dominicans, no*tably the notoriously anti‑Jewish Ramon de Penafort, that Jaime I was persuaded to order an investigation into the Talmud and other Jewish books alleged to contain "blasphemies."

The disputation itself centered mainly on the question of the messiah, rabbinical statements concerning him, whether he has come, and so on. According to the Latin texts, Nahmanides (the leader of the Jewish community of all Catalonia, although he was never a rabbi) lost the debate, whereas accord*ing to the Hebrew text, improbably, he won!

These disputations could have resulted in a disas*trous change in the favored status of Jews in the king*dom of Aragon‑Catalonia were it not for the fact that the Jews successfully refuted the charges about "blas*phemies" in the Talmud and other books, and per*suaded the king that these books were necessary for the proper conduct of their lives and community af*fairs.

Angered at having been deceived by the com*mission of Dominicans who raised these fraudulent charges, in 1242, the year after the last disputation, the king rescinded his decree against the Talmud and promised the Jews that they would never again have to defend themselves against such charges.

The most important disputation in Spain, and indeed the major Christian-Jewish disputation of the medieval period, was that convened at Tortosa by order of Benedict XIII in 1413. The pope sent letters to Jewish communities throughout Aragon-Catalonia ordering them to send representatives, noting that he had called the assembly “for the salvation of your souls” and so that “the shadows of Jewish superstition be dissipated.” It was his 'final solution.'

Jeranimo de Santa Fe, a converted Jew who had been a learned talmudic scholar, a rabid anti-Jewish polemicist who was a physician to the pope, was the Christian spokesman in the disputation. Among the numerous Jewish representatives was Jonah de Maestre, a grandson of Nahmanides and father-in-law of Simon b. Semah Duran. Other prominent Jewish scholars included Joseph Albo, Matityahu Yishariy, and Zerahyah ha-Levy.


The responses of the rabbis at the disputation were far from effective, with one or two exceptions. This, and the protracted duration of the debates, which exhausted the delegates and threatened to impoverish them, motivated many of them to convert in March of 1413, a month after the disputation had begun.

It is sad but true that since those times Christians have not shrunk from persecution of their enemies, whether Jew, pagan, or Christian, even when that enmity is nothing more than perception or delusion.

Pere Chuck identifies Jack Chjick as one example of patent hatred for all who do not stand in his own shoes, or who displease his religious police and fall in behind him to spout a tirade of hate against those who he feels/thinks/believes do not walk step-by-step with the God of love, whose message he so distorts as to make it unrecognizable. He does this, he says, because of his love for heretics, and because he is divinely inspired to do all he can to save them.

Between the Jack Chicks of today, and the Intolerant of yesteryear, lies a ribbon of human history soaked in the blood of those who were 'different,' either because their fundamental beliefs were 'anathema' to a particuilar ecclesiastical theologian or prince, or because they understood the scriptures differently than those who formed the power blocs at any given time, and who had control of life and death, damnation and salvation.

Tolerance towards Judaism and Jews by Christians in large numbers, is a very recent phenomenon. It is long overdue. It is no longer considered appropriate or Christian to hate Mr Fineberg solely because he is a Jew and you are a Christian. On the grounds of biblical principles and teachings, it never was, but when it is concvenient some will step aside from their principles to persecute those they esteem to be their enemies.



M:)RGANITE

[Starman]

Christianity thus is not so much a "branch” grafted onto the root as a new growth that entirely takes over the "rotten” branches of the original tree.M:)RGANITE

You provide very useful information thank you. But there are some points I think need a little clarification.

The Apostle Paul doesn't refer to the tree as rotten. He refers to it as a cultivated olive tree.

Romans 11:16-18
For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

Christianity, that considered itself not only a "continuation" of Jewish tradition but indeed a replacement of it.

A replacement was promised via prophecy.

Jeremiah 31:31

"Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—


Matthew 5:17
"Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.


Matthew 26:28
For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.



BTW


Those who misrepresent Christianity as taught by Jesus and his Apostles via behaving in demonic ways should not be referred to as Christians but as apostates claiming to be Christians. Such persons are often used by Satan to discredit Christianity. Is it right to call a group which goes completelty contrary to Jewish beliefs, Jewish? Of course not! Doing so would provoke a protest from those who know better. So please grant us the same right to object whenever people who totally disregard Jesus's teachings are casually referred to as Christians.


Matthew 7:21-23
In Matthew 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' 23 "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'


All scriptures
NKJV

[31pumpkin]

As a Christian I was "grafted in" to the root of Jesse. Jesus was the

Generation son from the old testament.

It doesn't matter if some High Priest was Jewish. Who else would it be in the middle east? At the time? The Romans had some good people. It was all so political. Besides, it is written that we do not fight against flesh and blood but against principalities in the heavenlies.
Did you know that Archangels are strong supernatural beings? The heavenlies go from our atmosphere all the way up to the God platform called 7th Heaven.

You are not an anti-christ. You are only an anti-christ when it comes to RELIGION. Because it is true as God says: My peoople perish for lack of knowledge.

As for me, I have better things to do than try to change your heart and mind.

For (no joke implied) Where there's a will... There's a won't!

[Morganite]

You provide very useful information thank you. But there are some points I think need a little clarification.

The Apostle Paul doesn't refer to the tree as rotten. He refers to it as a cultivated olive tree.

The words enclosed in inverted commas are quotes and do not necessarily reflect my position. As the Judaism being 'rotten,' I do not believe it was/is. That position is what has been historically taken by "Christians," at the cost of the lives of many Jews.

I was answering a question, not explaining my position. My position is that whoever undertakes to define something that excludes on slight and suspect grounds, had better be prepared for a profound shock when he finally stands before the just and loving and merciful judge.

I dislike intensely anti-Semitism and all other forms and expressions of pride by those who pretend that they and they alone now the will and mind of God. They are not only laughable, but approach insanity and make a hell for others.

If God is love, then those who love God must also love all men as God loves all men regardless of what they believe.

God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.


How did Jesus Christ with sinners? I take one incident that has always appealed very strongly to me, and illustrates the spirit in which Christ deals with sinners for this God of ours is peculiarly the friend of sinners, not because of their sins, however, but in spite of them; and because of His compassion upon those so unfortunate as to be under the bondage of sin.

The over-righteous Pharisees of Christ's time would not on any account come in contact with sinful men, lest they themselves should be polluted. They gathered the robes of their sanctity about them, and considered themselves in such close relation with God that they could afford to despise His poor, unfortunate, sinful children, instead of holding out the hand that would bring them from the kingdom of darkness into the brightness and glory of the kingdom of God. But not so with Jesus Christ.

When He was accused by this class of men of mingling with publicans and sinners, His answer to them was, "They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." As if He had said, you who are righteous and have no need of healing for sin, stand by yourselves; My mission is not to you, but to those who have need of God's help. Such was the spirit of His answer. The incident to which I refer as illustrative of His compassion for sinners, is this: The Jews were always on the alert to entrap the Messiah's feet and bring Him into contradiction with the law of Moses. The law of Moses, as first given to Israel, was that if any should be found in adultery they should be stoned to death; but the Rabbis, by nice discriminations of words, practically had rendered that law a dead letter, by reason of which the adulterers in Israel escaped the punishment that God had decreed against them. Therefore, they thought if they could take a person who unquestionably had been guilty of this crime and bring him or her into the presence of Jesus, they would either bring Him in conflict with the law of Moses, or with the tradition of the elders, and in either case would have sufficient cause to denounce Him before the people.

So they found a woman, caught in the act; they dragged her through the streets, and cast her at His feet. "Master," said they, "this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us, that such should be stoned; but what sayest Thou?" He re plied, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." One by one they slunk away, until the woman was left alone with Jesus. When Jesus looked around and saw none but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?" "No man, Lord," she said. Then Jesus said: "Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more."

That is how God deals with sinners. It is written that God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance, and that is true, he cannot; but how about the sinner? Why, He may look upon the sinner with infinite compassion. While sin must always be hateful, yet will He help and love the sinner, if he will but go his way and sin no more. Such is our human weakness, and so nearly the level upon which we all move, that there is none of us but will plead mightily for mercy; and, thank God, we shall not plead in vain; for, while our Judge cannot look upon sin with any degree of allowance, His heart goes out in compassion and love to men, and He will help them to overcome sin, to fight a good fight, to keep the faith, and at last enable them to win the crown of righteousness in the kingdom of God.

Jesus, moreover, was tolerant. You will recall the circumstance of His having to go through Samaria, and you remember that the Samaritans hated the Jews, and Jesus was a Jew. Some of His disciples went into a village of Samaria, through which Jesus would have to pass, and sought to make arrangements for the Master to stay over night; but the Samaritans closed their doors against Him. They had heard of Him; He was a Jew; and in the narrowness of their minds they would not admit the hated Jew into their homes. This very much angered the disciple John, who loved Jesus dearly. He was one of the "sons of thunder," and possessed of a spirit that could love; and being strong in love, as is often the case, he was likewise strong in hating. He was the type of man that does both heartily.

Hence John he went to the Master and asked Him if he might not call down fire from heaven upon those Samaritans got thus rejecting the Master. Jesus replied:

"Ye know not what spirit ye are of. The Son of Man came to save, not to destroy."

A broadness, a liberality truly glorious. But, then, Jesus was properly broad minded—liberal. On one occasion some of the disciples found one casting out devils in the name of Jesus, and they forbade him, because he followed not the Master. When they came into the presence of Jesus, they reported this case and told what they had done. Jesus said, "Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in My name, that can lightly speak evil of me." Then He gave the other half of that truth, "He that is not for Me is against Me," by saying, "For he that is not against us is for us." Thus He corrected the narrow-mindedness of His own apostles.

"He that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is love:—and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in him." (I John iv:8-16).

According to Saint Paul, all men are sinners, and those who pass judgment on their neighbors will feel God's judgment, for they commit the same misdeeds. God rewards men according to their deeds, and if the pagans do not follow the light they have, yet are responsible for their sins, how much more will the Jews with their greater light be held accountable and feel God's wrath and anger. They are in a more serious condition than the pagans whom they condemn. God shows no favoritism (Romans 2:1-11).

Paul also condemned Christians who make harsh criticisms. The brother whose faith is weak should be welcomed, but not in order for others to pass judgment on his doubts. There are conscientious differences of opinions. One man's faith allows him to eat anything, while a man of weaker faith thinks it necessary to be a vegetarian. Paul gives other illustrations. The man who judges his brother must also stand at God's bar. (Romans 14:1-11).

Every person who follows Jesus does so at their own pace. As Jesus taught in a parable, not all are doled out the same talents. God understands, so why cannot all Christians do the same?

It is this very penchant for condemning and distancing, even rejecting, the faith of others that led to the hatred for Jews. Isn't it time to stop following hatred and start fiollowing in the footsteps of Jesus?


M:)RGANITE

[Starman]

I dislike intensely anti-Semitism and all other forms and expressions of pride by those who pretend that they and they alone now the will and mind of God.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that such an opinion was justifiable for Israel since they were the chosen nation through which enlightenment was being dispensed via inspiration. Later, Christianity became that channel, not apostate Christianity, the Christianity that Christ and his Apostles taught. But as I pointed out in my other posts, there is more to salvation than just knowledge.

BTW
Isn't it expecting too much for people to choose a religion while believing that it is not the best way to enlightenment? If not the best or closest to the truth then what would be the motivation for choosing it?

[Morganite]

Starman,

There is nothing wrong with choosing the way one believes is best suited to attain salvation. I have no problems with that. What I do dislike are those who believe they have found that way - that would be most of us - and who then proceed to hammer everyone else.

It is possible to disagree without burning the other fellow.

Happy Easter to you.




M:)RGANITE

[31pumpkin]

Morganite,


We don't have to ATTAIN salvation. Salvation is a one time commitment/ or confession of Jesus' sacrifice(that He died for our sins) And at the same time we ask Him to come and be Lord of our life. This is the step we confess for salvation or Born Again. That is a given after that. It only takes five minutes.
So I noticed that you get negative after that. I am very perceptive. So after the moment of our salvation, we as Christians(or should I say-Born -again Christians try our best to live according to the Biblical teachings. And of course, if we are wise and faithful servants, we do try our best, in all things...