Such a casual dismissal!
Why do you need to know anything more? What does it change? Does God change? Do your actions change? Does your faith change?
God is beyond our human understanding. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?
Worship is acknowledgement that God is…
worthy of our worship.
you really do not need to know anything more.
Knowledge is power, so they say, do you think your knowledge gives you power over God?
I think you need to understand why you need all this knowledge.
Richard
Not casual at all.
If God actually matches the one Muslims call Allah, he isn’t worthy of my time but rather my opposition.
If He actually matches the YEC version he isn’t worthy of my time but rather my pity.
If He matches the Mormon version he’s not actually God at all.
But if I do not know about His character, I can’t know if He’s worthy.
Of course I do – see above.
I do know – I need to know His character. As I noted, if certain views are correct, he isn’t worthy of worship but deserves my opposition.
Now here’s the thing
Why do you worry what others think?
Why should you care if someone else has a different view of God?
Is God what we make of Him or is God just God?
It strikes me as you are trying to find a reason not to worship God. Or at least to try and convince yourself that God is worthy of your worship.
If that is the case, perhaps you are not worthy for God? You do not trust Him? You cannot allow Him to be anything other than what you want. God must be your God as opposed to the Hindus, Muslims or any other group. cannot God be what is best for each person? Why does God have to conform to a strict set of rules or guidelines Are you trying to box God in?
God has always been a one to one sort of guy (forgive the vernacular) He works on a ersonal level. It does not matter what anyone else believes. That is between them and God, and for God to determine how genuine their belief is. Do you not think that a person who has been brought up as a Hindu cannot be ever worthy of God? ( or His forgiveness)That would make life a lottery of where you are born and to whom
Look again at Romans 14 and see past the food. It is all abut your beliefs v others. And how we cannot judge others by what they believe, or even Judge God by accepting their beliefs.
God has gone to all this effort to forgive you but you can’t forgive someone for being a Mormon?
If you do not forgive others…
IOW you don’t need perfect actions but you do need perfect Doctrine
Yeah, Right!
Richard
Perfect? In the long run you’re dead right - or you’re dead, right?
It is beyond human ability to reach perfection, including that one.
I try to reconcile this human-defined God-ness with your remark on perfect Doctrine - those dots do not connect.
I hear a veiled reference to judging God for accepting beliefs we hold to be false. This only works if prior knowledge alerts me me to the fact that God wants devotion not accuracy (not a bad idea) yet at the same time we hear that correct doctrine is paramount.
What does forgiveness have to do with it? Do I condemn someone when I pull them out of the way of a speeding automobile? Surely adopting a false faith is different to a speeding automobile but the attempt to pull someone away is at least a valid concern. And for that matter the Mormon will do me the same “favor” - while neither of is condemns the other, and both attempt to share a deep concern about God.
I keep hearing this vague but persistent contradiction in terms. If Mormon doctrine is going to pass muster with God, then what is perfect when mine is both different and, but by the same token, acceptable to God?
That is the whole point. When does God demand perfection? In action? Or in thought?
He doesn’t!
But it would appear that some “christians” do.
“If you haven’t the correct view of Scripture and of God and of Docrine you won’t be saved!”
What right has anyone to make that judgement call?
What right have you to tell a Mormon he is on a train crash?
What right have you to tell a Hindu, whose family has been devout for generations, that he is damned to Hell, along with all of his family both near and distant!
Because of Scripture?
If that is how God works I do not want to know Him let alone worship Him!. .Fortunately my faith tells me God is not that way. It is human logic and doctrine, not God.
When your view of Scripture contradicts the view of God that Jesus revealed, then it is that view that is wayward. Jonah shows that God wants all His creation, not just the favoured few., be they Jew or Christian.
I think we need to reassess the parable of the narrow Gate. Maybe it applies to those who do not need forgiveness instead of those who have received it?
Richard
I agree with the statement ‘God made them male and female’. The question is how? Jesus’ statement does not negate evolution.
On a slightly tangential note, does everyone agree that per Jesus, in the new age to come there will be no such thing as human marriage, nor will there be procreation (as NT Wright says because there is no longer death)?
Does that mean whatever the ‘saved’ population is at the start of that time, there will be a finite and fixed human population on the renewed earth?
is truth/reality not important to God or us? Having said that, I think there’ll be quite a few surprises as to who is ultimately saved.
We may be talking past each other. I saw your statement that doctrine must be perfect. Can you address how multiple dissimilar doctrines can each be perfect?
Please read my answer again
Then why should we expect it let alone claim it?
Richard
I had hoped that you would provide better understanding of your statement that Doctrine must be perfect.
I never said doctrine must be perfect, in fact I am claiming the opposite.
Richard
Where did you com up with those questions??
Hardly. I’m interested in actually connecting with the actual Designer and Redeemer.
Rubbish.
The Allah of the Muslims is not God; if he exists at all he is a demon. The deity of the Quran is not good for anyone unless you want to argue that misogyny, hatred, pedophilia, oppression, murder, and more are somehow good.
To believe that Allah is the same as Yahweh is to spit on Jesus.
No one is worthy of forgiveness – that’s right at the core of the Gospel – or of God.
It’s about fellow Christians, not about others.
Where do you get these leaps of illogic?!?
You need enough doctrine to know Who God is. That’s the lesson of the handful of actual ecumnical councils: the critical thing to gt right is just Who Jesus is.
In the scriptures it’s known as idolatry.
But the Mormon God is not Yahweh, and the Mormon Gospel is no Gospel.
Yeah. That’s the God of the novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where all that counts is enthusiasm.
A Mormon who really believes Mormon doctrine will end up like the Telmarines in Narnia, rejecting the real God for not matching Mormon doctrine.
“Right”? There is no “right”, there is duty, just as there is duty to admonish anyone who claims to follow Christ but denies Him through their false definitions – false definitions result in a false Gospel, as Paul makes plain.
To make such a declaration is to judge scripture, which is to judge the Holy Spirit.
Jonah shows that all must repent. You’ve thrown that part of the message out the window.
They don’t exist. That’s the secret of the Parable of the Good Shepherd: there are no “ninety and nine”.
Romans 14
10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister[a]? Or why do you treat them with contempt?
You judge others by their beliefs. And the yardstick is your beliefs.
You have set yourself as the sole authority on what can or cannot be believed. IOW you are setting yourself equal to God.
And it disgusts me.
You do not show the prime proof of the Spirit which is Love.
Instead you come across as superior and callous.
Where does it actually say that?
Or is it your definition of brother and Sister?
Christ’s definition was not
Those who believe as I do. It was
For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
And who are you to claim that these others do not do the will of God? Just because they do not believe exactly what you do!
Then you will never know God.
God is not understood by human doctrine.
So you set yourself up as judge jury and executioner!
I would be very careful if I were you declaring what is or is not of the Spirit>
So you set yourself up as God. Good luck with that.
Richard.
PS
Matt 10: 41
Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.
It would appear that Christ disagrees with you
“Is God what we make of Him or is God just God?
IOW you don’t need perfect actions but you do need perfect Doctrine.”
You realise I was being ironic?
If you truly believe it then I am sorry for you.
I do not think that the perfect doctrine actually exists.
Richard
That doesn’t explain why you’re pulling judgmental questions out of thin air.
“Stay alert”. “Watch out.” “Judge righteously.” “Judge all things.”
You’re pulling Romans 14 out of context – it’s about “works of darkness” and how that applies to fellow Christians. It’s not an excuse to throw away the Gospel by claiming that all religions are valid.
My yardstick is the same one Jesus and the apostles used – the scriptures. Not doing that is to throw away God’s yardstick and replace it with one of my own imagining.
Not even close.
The alternative is to throw out the command to have no other gods. Paul’s use of “brother” is indicating fellow Christians.
If thy do not follow Christ but instead follow another god, the chance that they are doing the will of God is negligible. In following a different God, they declare that they do not do the will of God.
The alternative is to approve of slavery, kidnapping, lying, rape, arson, and more – those are things that some gods command.
No, because they manifestly set themselves above the scriptures and follow a different god.
To call scripture “human doctrine” is to be lost.
One of the earliest things we know about Christian worship is that the scriptures were read (aloud) in church. Those writings were and remain the voices of those chosen by the Holy Spirit to set down His messages. Unhinge yourself from those messages and you hav nothing but your own understanding.
Where do you get these wild notions? They certainly don’t come from what I wrote!
The Spirit inspired the scriptures – they are His messages. If you set yourself above the scriptures, you set yourself above the Holy Spirit – that is simple logic.
We are given standards for judging; the scriptures are a generals one. Another is preaching a different Gospel, which includes affirming belief in a different god. Another is Paul’s core message, Jesus Christ crucified; any message that lacks that or changes it or adds to it is false. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists, Muslims, and many others fail that test.
What you quoted agrees with me! Those who do not follow Christ are not righteous, and they are not prophets. I welcome both prophets and righteous.
More like, IOW everyone can make up their own version of God and that’s just as good as following Jesus.
You claim there aren’t any righteous! How can you welcome them?
You do not have the authority to make that call.
Inspired still does not mean dictated. The words of Paul came from Paul
No that is your logic based on your beliefs
You are claiming that God could not have revealed Himself to other cultures or people?
You are also claiming that God only listens to a fraction of the population and / or cares for only that fraction. Is that the God Scripture describes?
You place too much weight on the exclusivity clause. I think you will find that god does not have those blinkers. Again, Jonah would be a good indication of this. The Ninehvans were not Jews.
I do not think that was his core message. it is the one that you most like and find satisfying to your pride and faith. Plus you conveniently ignore the aspects of Paul’s faith that do not fit, such as slavery, and God’s manipulation of all humans, male chauvinism, and possibly even the restoration of Judaism (To name but a few) Paul was still a Pharisee.at heart.
Mormons believe in Christ Crucified. They also repent and ask for forgiveness. Is God deaf to this? Is God legalistic?
Or does God look differently
1 Sam 16
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
(My bold)
You presume too much.
It is not your place to test or judge others.
Again you impose your own criteria and mock
There is only one God.
I would not presume that He cannot be identified differently from Christianity.
The exclusivity and selfishness of Christianity is its failing.
It limits God and is self serving.
Christ claimed to be only for the Jews. Was He lying?
Richard
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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