In love, through the lens of competent, omnipotent love. He wants us to love. I’ve no idea what purity/holiness is separate from that.
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Sin. Sin is our lack of love for you and me and him, if I understand your response. Anything not like him is lacking.
I hate my family, if my love for him isn’t far greater. Yet, I can love him more than all others because He deserves it. He has never betrayed me, or turned his back on me, or required that I must be who I cannot be. He loved me when no one else cared. He has made me into some one I could barely dream I could become–like loving others enough to be kind to them regardless how they treat me or others. He raised me up and communicated that He saw the good in me–with his Spirit in me, empowering me to love and not to hate.
Falling short of these things is covered by his love, but not all things are.
He refuses to let us hate forever without consequences. That’s why choosing him is important. On my own, I can’t be what He made me to be.
In the transcendent nobody is alone. He chooses everyone.
I love the God behind the primitive allegories in the Bible, even if some of the writers and some of the readers took… take them literally.
You know what the weirdest thing in the whole universe is? Can you guess?
I asked the one written about on those pages if He was real. I will never forget the exact words although it was many years ago. “Okay, if you’re there, come on in.” It was no big deal. I forgot about it. I remembered saying that in my mind looking up into a beautiful Arizona sky, but it meant nothing to me. I meant it. I really meant it sincerely, but I knew there was nothing to it. It was like asking Santa Claus something. It was ridiculous. I knew that better than anyone and I would prove there was nothing to that nonsense if anyone mentioned it again. And that was it. Utterly preposterous.
Oh my. My oh my. He heard me. That tiny, insignificant, request, He heard me Klax. He really did. I’m not crazy (mother had me tested! right?) What He can do with the smallest step toward him.
Brian Welch from Korn
Q. What have you learned in these fifteen years? Have you had friends, mentors or people who have helped you grow in the faith so that you can now help others?
A. "I had a few mentors who helped me in the beginning, and the good thing is that most of them told me, ‘I am mentoring you to go to Jesus yourself, because He is alive’. So they stirred me and corrected me when I was a little bit off. But they told me that the big thing is that Holy Spirit will teach you and you can go the Scriptures yourself. That was a big help.
There is an open door directly to God, directly to Jesus Christ. I think that we need to get our foundation on that intimate relationship with Him ourselves, because when things come in this planet, like the coronavirus, and people get fearful… If you have your relationship with God yourself, you will have a strong peace in the midst of devastation or loss of job or sickness. You will have this hope, this firm foundation. It is an anchor for the soul, as it says in the Bible."
Yes, it’s so quaint that Jesus and Paul took themselves seriously. I don’t believe you love Jesus’ God.
You are an expert in rationalizations, even false ones. Your Jesus is purely imaginary… based on scripture, right?
My Jesus was the master of transcending His culture.
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He meets me where I’m at too Ralphie. I envy you! As I am in an… indeterminate place…
It’s ironic that God of the Bible whom you reject, and his Jesus, who appears to be different from yours, hasn’t been able to influence any cultures at all throughout the centuries and around the globe with his transcendent message until now, isn’t it. Oh, wait.
So God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, loans a gift to all living things. Since it is His, He can retrieve it at any time without the receiver having any just cause to condemn Him for it.
The gift is LIFE. The Father loans it to us, He gives and He takes it away, blessed be the LORD.
Mankind are, sinners, rebels, thieves, murders, sexual perverts, idolaters, covetous dirt bags, are they so righteous that they can condemn the Father for taking back His own property.
Fools judge God but the righteous honor Him. Who are you oh man to judge your maker?
2 Peter 2:10 Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings;
2 Peter 2:5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
Blasphemy: The act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God.
Correction. I only insult the primitive monstrosity you falsely claim is God.
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Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right?
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He did do right. He took back what belonged to Him
Is that why he made a covenant promising to never do it again? God promised to never do what is right again?
Vinnie
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The next time will be with fire. He will destroy this death filled creation and make a new heavens and earth where abidith righteousness. He will establish His throne in the New Jerusalem. He will be my God and I will be one of His people and those who have been made righteous will worship Him but the ungodly will be cast out into the Lake of Fire with the devil and his angels where there will be weeping and nashing of teeth. Like Jesus said.
Jesus said, “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be when the Son of Man returns.” Jesus is right and those who disagree with him are wrong.
I don’t much care for magical, apologetical what-ifs in clearly mythological narratives. Not to mention, your I must harmonize and make the account more palatable goggles misses the point.
Karen Armstrong wrote, "In older flood stories, gods and humans alike were overwhelmed when they saw the devastating effects of the deluge. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim, the sole survivor, recalled his desolation when he finally climbed out of his Ark:
. . . stillness had set in,
And all of mankind returned to clay.
The landscape was as level as a flat roof.
I opened a hatch, and light fell on m face.
Bowing low, I sat and wept,Tears running down my face.
Like many of the survivors of the Holocaust, Utnapishtim felt no elation at having been spared. We know that, on the contrary, survivors often feel acute guilt or even despair. When life as they know it has been destroyed, they can neither find else nor meaning in their continued existence. Noah, however, expressed no such horror when he stepped out of the Ark and surveyed the devastated landscape and the bloated bodies of the Flood’s victims. He seemed to experience no distress when he gazed upon the empty world, to feel no ambivalence about the divine cause of the catastrophe. He obediently led his family out of the Ark, released the animals, and, with out hesitation, offered a sacrifice to his God, the Destroyer. Nor did God betray the same kind of distress as the gods of Mesopotamia; instead he only showed perfunctory regret . . ." In the Beginning, pg 44-45
It’s not about modern apologetical eisegesis or speculation about what is not written in the Biblical account of the flood where there is no ceiling to one’s imagination. What is not said speaks volumes since it is about how the narrative juxtapositions with other more ancient flood accounts of the region and how it casts God and Noah in comparison to them. That is the appropriate historical context and interpretive framework.
Vinnie
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There is already enough weeping and gnashing of teeth to go around for everyone caused by those believing in a literal Genesis and lake of fire.
And no, given the context of other flood myths where the gods showed distress as what they had done, this is the Biblical versions noncommittal regret. They are forced to suppose the flood was a just action of God and only offer this modest compromise.
Vinnie
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Like I said,
So you are wrong. Since Jesus is Lord, it would behoove you to trust him and change your way of thinking.
Luke left blank details others included. Why? Vince Lombardi was a domineering, crass, loud bull of a man and coach. He got tremendous cooperation from his players and dominated the NFL in the 60s. Bill Walsh was a x’s and o’s innovative, heady, soft-spoken guy who is known for the West Coast offense and winning 3 Super Bowls in the 80’s as a head coach. So?
We are all different. I don’t think we can conclude too much from what is not included in the OT about Noah, personally.