Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
92
How layered was He? I mean, this can be made to work so many ways. Those with less than o much faith can believe anything, for example. And such absurd, existential belief can enable a person to achieve unbelievable things. Cancer can be denied. Or sold. Whereas I only have faith in the faithfulness of Christ to save all. I have never failed to cure people of warts. Never. Including and especially those who utterly ridicule it with fierce rationalism, like mine. I believe that HELPS, at least just as much as being unresistingly suggestible. Now it may be that every wart I’ve charmed would have disappeared anyway. But we all know differently don’t we? Got any? They have to be bought with bright, new copper pennies. You’d have to authorize me to dispose of them on your behalf. I would photograph them for here and then bury them, or drop them in the Sence, your call. Your warts will go. Anyone?
Christians are supposed to pray for those things which are according to God’s will. Righteousness. I.e. social justice, and be the accountable answer, individually and collectively. Prayer is to keep the need in mind, find a way and fulfil it. Hurl the immovable mountain in to the sea. It’s that simple. And that hard.
[Ooh, and in the original spell, used by our family doctor, you leave the pennies at the bus stop.]
I just watched a church service, and the primary text for the sermon was Matthew 11:7-19. One of the main points was about expectations, and what you expect to see. Expectations can be manifold, and be completely wrong. Maybe it is the eyes (and ears) of faith that have the correct expectations.
Adam Hamilton preached a recent sermon series titled: “A Thinking Person’s Guide to Faith”. If you scroll down on on the linked page, you’ll see the list of the five sermons in the series. Many here (including you, @SuperBigV) might be interested in some of these. The very first one just lays out his own position on science and faith (how to read the 1st chapters of Genesis) … I’ll only say that he doesn’t subscribe to young earth-ism. So I’m not sure if there would be much there that should surprise most participants here. But I’m hoping that you will give some of his other later ones (one about “when Christians get it wrong”, and a later one about Hell) a good listen-to. I think he addresses a lot of stuff that many of you are bringing up here.
I like this. However, Jesus also taught us to pray a request: “Give us this day…”
What I especially like, however, about this post is the recognition of the sheer privilege of speaking with the greatest One of the universe.
I don’t know Sir. The Church you linked to sounds like a cool place, but at the end, they are still preaching an idea of a God. If there is a God, why not reveal himself to everyone in a clear way? Why does God hide himself and pretty much acts as an imaginary being?
Lets think about this. Here is a being that loves people, unconditionally. He loves everyone, yes? What is stopping him from making himself known?
I have an iPad that has a notability app on it. What is stopping God from writing a message to me? No need to move mountains, or make the lot size of my property larger. It should take very little effort, and yet, he never does this. Would you believe that you are loved by a being who makes zero effort of making himself known?
I just started watching the first one, and the second two of the scriptures at the beginning seemed pretty familiar (fyi, if you don’t remember offhand, they were Psalm 19:1-4 and Romans 1:20 ).
Later in the Bible it is clarified that if you ask anything in line with God’s will you will receive it. This is why Jesus says to ask in his name as in he has to approve it. I have had my prayers answered many times. In fact God once clearly spoke to me in response to my prayer. Prayers do get answered.
if he would make zero effort it makes you wonder haw so many people could have faith to begin with. I remember when struggling with puberty how I thought there to be no sign of my parents loving me because they did not fulfil my wishes. There are people who devote their life to that claim with regards to God, and Marshall Brain’s book “How God works” or his website why won’t God heal amputees to deny God’s existence based on his failure to make peoples wishes come true in response to prayer.
I then grew up and realised that love was not about someone fulfilling my wishes according to my expectations but about someone tending my needs when required. And needs and wishes are something worlds apart. When it comes to his sermon about God having to restore limbs when prayed for one only has to watch Life without limbs or Joni’ House to see what it means to be healed when your limbs are not what you wish them to be.
Christians insist that this is exactly what God did … by entering into our world personally with us in the person of Jesus Christ. Much better than any marks on an Ipad screen or mysterious writing in the sky. Life is much more than “intellectual ascent”. It is also a matter of the heart, and of obedience to God’s Spirit.
In other words, you’ll believe in God if and only if you have no conceivable alternative.
Should I believe that a person had any desire to love and honor a being if they make zero effort to seek him?
and who refused to recognize the many signs and means by which he has already communicated, since what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world?
There is something reminiscent here of those Pharisees that came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.”
Not to mention, if the Christian faith is what it claims to be, God has made quite the significant efforts to communicate and make himself known, right down to personally becoming incarnate, and “of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Granted this was done in such a way that only “those who have eyes to see” will see. That was, after all, why for those outside everything is in parables, so that “‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand.”
So, respectfully, I hear you saying that you will believe in God if and only if you have no conceivable alternative, and are essentially intellectually forced to do so. If “belief” in the base sense of “acknowledge the raw existence of…” is all that is required for salvation and relationship with God, then God “proving” his existence may prove beneficial. You could achieve the same kind of intellectual assent as is understood to be held by the devil and his angels. But, after all, “ Even the demons believe—and shudder!” I’m. Thus I’m not exactly sure why you think that would be in any way helpful?
If, however, as is all over the Bible, raw intellectual assent in the mere existence of God provides no essential benefit to a person, then perhaps it is not surprising that God would give enough evidence that those who want to see him would do so, while declining to reveal himself in such a way that would force people to intellectually assent to the brute fact of his existence when doing so would do nothing for the state of their hearts.
After all, if they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead, or get a personal note on an iPad.
I am personally thankful, and astounded, at all the ways which God has made himself known.
Well, that’s not certain for me that Jesus entered the world. Secondly, Saul/Paul received a personal appearance of Christ even though he lived in the general area where Christ apparently lived just a few years prior.
Do you get an impression from my posts that I’ve made zero efforts before my deconversion? Perhaps a Muslim God could claim this, and a Hindu Gods too as I’ve not been praying to them ever.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means…
You mean the part where many of the Jews refused to believe even in the face of someone rising from the dead, and Jesus had to lower his profile because of the increased hostility, and where their persistent unbelief was so strong it led them to plot to assassinate the guy who had been raised from the dead?
I have a hard time seeing the supposed “contradiction” you see between this and the observation noted in Luke’s gospel that some people still wouldn’t believe even if someone rises from the dead…?
John 11:45 Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary, and saw what He had done, believed in Him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done.
Luke’s gospel says that the resurrection won’t accomplish anything as far as getting Jews to believe. In John’s Gospel, many in fact believed because of the resurrection of the Lazarus.
Luke’s gospel says that Jesus’ resurrection accomplished getting his own disciples to believe.
Not to mention, Luke says nothing of signs or miracles or resurrections being completely ineffective at encouraging belief in anyone whatsoever. If those who “do not listen to Moses” will not be convinced by a resurrection, then those who “listen to Moses and the prophets” may (or may not) “be convinced if someone rises from the dead.” Not to sound demeaning, but this is basic reading comprehension.
So Luke observes that some people won’t believe even if someone rises from the dead, and John observes that some people didn’t believe even after someone rose from the dead.
I fear that you must be working overtime to contort basic language to find a contradiction there, when Jesus says unmistakenly clearly that that certain people won’t believe even in the face of a resurrection, and you can read that to mean that a resurrection will not and cannot convince anyone?
So, why would Luke’s Abraham not raise the rich man? Some will believe if that were to happen, no? You have admitted this. This is what happens when harmonizing. You inevitably start disagreeing with the storyteller who wrote a version 2.0 or 3.0 in this case.
Luke 16: 30 But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Thanks for clarifying what Luke meant!
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
111
Talk about Chinese whispers.
Luke’s Abraham wasn’t asked to raise the rich man.
The point of the allegory is that if someone listens to, heeds Moses and the Prophets, the social gospel interpreted through the speaker Jesus as in the vision of the Transfiguration, they don’t need someone rising from the dead. If they don’t heed, then what use would someone rising from the dead do? How would it make them heed?
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