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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 13, 2009 12:47:42 GMT -5
Hoo-boy, I know I'm opening up a can of worms with this one. ;D Let's all agree that there will be a diverse range of opinions here and we are each permitted to hold differing opinions. I do not want this to get into an argument, and if it goes that way I'll delete the thread. Let's just have fun with some thoughts. I've been reading through the Gospel of John lately (my favorite book). I go really slow when I read, sometimes camping out on one sentence for a week or more, just meditating through it. This time through I've been struck by Jesus' discussion of "His sheep." In chapter 10, the Jews surround Him in the Temple and demand that He tell them plainly whether or not He is the Messiah. During that discussion He says--as He has said previously in the Gospel--that these people He's talking to do not believe in Him because they are not His sheep. As I've reflected on this passage and the others like it in John, I can't escape the conclusion that Jesus is talking about an Elect here. Some of the people in the world are His sheep. These hear (recognize?) His voice and respond. The words He speaks resonate within them and they come, just as sheep run to the voice of their shepherd. It's as if Jesus could park Himself in front of any crowd, start speaking words of life, and watch His sheep separate themselves from the larger flock of not-His-sheep. (I even had a SF idea about how a "Gospel Ship" could lock into orbit around a planet, beam down a transmission of the words of life, and begin teleporting up those who respond.) The corollary is what has me especially interested right now. If some of the people in every crowd are His sheep, then it follows that some (maybe most?) of the people in that same crowd are not His sheep. Why couldn't these Jews believe? Jesus says it's because they were not His sheep. If they were His sheep (if God were their Father, to quote from John 8), they would hear and believe. But because they have heard but not believed, they are thus shown to be not His sheep. What does it mean that so many allegedly godly men so high up in a civilization dedicated to worship of the One True God were not His sheep? What does this mean for us today? Obviously there are still "lost sheep" out there. People who are His sheep and who will come to Him if they could only hear His words of life. And obviously there are still many more people in our world who are simply not His sheep. A large portion of the work of the Church, then, ought to be the extending and distributing and broadcasting of Christ's words of life so that these lost sheep might hear it and know where to come to find their long-lost Shepherd. My main point in all of this, though, is to expose what appears to be an error in how I've been thinking about "the lost." I think I've always thought of the lost as anyone outside the church. People without Christ. But really, if what I've been saying so far is true, that's not accurate. Most of what we consider the lost are actually not His sheep at all. They couldn't come to Him in faith no matter what, just as those Jews around Jesus couldn't come. It wasn't that they hadn't heard. It was that they had heard but His words of life simply had no impact on them. He had never been their Shepherd and could never be. To me, that changes how I think of "the lost." Now they're not this huge mission field ready to be harvested. Nor are they just this bunch of unwashed people who have decided they don't want Christ. They're not all potential Christians, in other words. Most of them are not His sheep and never could be. How I should be viewing them is not as a bunch of people who have simply rejected Christ because of their own selfishness, but as a great crowd of sheep who are not His sheep. They are the mass of bodies into which His few truly lost sheep have been hidden and obscured. They are the chaff from which the wheat must be winnowed. The mass of "junk fish" from which the good fish must be extracted. Now, I don't mean to say that most people in the world are worthless or should be exterminated or whatever. We should extend God's love to them as a testimony of God's love. Besides, we don't know if any individual is His sheep or not, so we have to assume that everyone we meet is a potential Christian brother or sister. (It does raise the question of where did the junk fish come from, but that's a different topic.) Even so, Jesus didn't mince words with those who were not of His sheep. He seemed almost curt with them sometimes. Perhaps it was the ones who purported to love God most but didn't receive Christ as Lord who were the most offensive to Him. Still, as I survey the world of people who do not follow Christ, I see things differently now. Now I see the masses as the haystack into which a few beautiful needles have been dropped. Most of them are not of interest to God, if I could be so bold as to say it that way. At least not in an eternal sense. And a read-through of Revelation certainly shows God's attitude toward those who are not His people. I heard someone say recently that we shouldn't feel bad if people don't respond to the gospel when we preach it (and I agree with that part; it's the Spirit's job to draw and convict) because "even Jesus wasn't 100% successful with His witnessing efforts." That part I can't agree with. The person was saying that not everyone came to faith in Christ when Jesus spoke, which is certainly true. But the underlying implication I thought I detected was that all of those people should've responded to Him in faith. But as I look at John, I'm thinking that might not really be the case. I think Jesus was 100% successful in His evangelization efforts. He called out and 100% of those who were His sheep responded. It was just that the crowds He spoke to were not 100% comprised of His sheep--and so the whole group didn't come. Now, I do allow for human free will. I think it's possible that someone who is of Christ's sheep could hear the gospel, know it's right for him or her, and yet still resist it for whatever reason. Maybe addiction or loyalty to a different religion or peer pressure or fear of repercussions. But from that moment on that person is conflicted. To know in his heart the truth and yet not align himself with it is to begin down a path toward psychological destruction. I think most people in this category will eventually come to Christ. (And this is a completely different can of worms, but I also believe that it's possible that a very small number of people who were not originally His sheep could become His sheep, and some who were His sheep could become not-His-sheep. But that's a topic for another thread!) Okay, that's it. We have a great mass of people out there. Amongst that mob are a few unsaved elect--a few truly lost sheep. But the rest, if I'm right, are not His sheep at all. They are, in Jesus' words, children of their father the devil (John 8:44). Yikes. Jeff
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Post by morganlbusse on Feb 13, 2009 14:12:38 GMT -5
Ha, ha, as soon as I saw the title to this one, I thought "boy, there he goes opening a can of worms!". Very thought provoking. And its made me rethink how I view the lost as well.
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Post by seraphim on Feb 13, 2009 15:05:45 GMT -5
While it is important to prayerfully ponder individual passages of scripture we must be wary to threepitfalls, first of lifting isolated passages without considering the rest of the context and teaching of the scriptures, second we must be wary of treating all passages the same...as being written at the same levels of inspiration and authority. For example there is the passage in the OT that permits divorce, yet when face with an argument that had this as its foundation Christ said that this was written because of the hardness of your hearts but from the beginning it was not always so." So we must be mindful that some passage might refect such condesentions to our weakness but are not what God has ordained as best for man and for His creation. If we are not we could easily find ourselves giving equal weight and place to such a condescention and undercuting or forcing an abberent interpretation on what should be the governing...more perfect will passage. Thirdly we must not entertain the hubris that ours are the first eyes, or the most insightful eyes to have ever read the Scriptures. They have been with us almost 2000 years, and 2000 years of wise and holy men might have some insights into how to best understand any given passage or teaching of Scripture, workmen who need not be ashamed having rightly divided the word of truth long before we ever were.
So with regard to the passage and point in question, there are some other passages that should be borne in mind along with it. Consider that He who said "My sheep hear my voice," is the same one of whom John writes, "He came unto His own but his own received Him not." One must then ask how can they or anyone be both "His own" and "not His sheep." Secondly there is the passage which says, "Christ is the saviour of all men, but especially of Christians." What is it then for Him to be the Saviour of all (both his sheep and those not his sheep) and yet more especially the saviour of Christians (presumablly...at least potentially all His sheep)?
It is interesting to note at this point a number of the saints and fathers of ages past took the attitude that all should be saved and they alone would perish. They saw all in the light of Christ's love and regard them as worthy of heaven, and in that same light saw their own falling short of His glory. And yet they did not despair. One old elder near the time of his death was asked by his disciples what he should say to Christ when asked if he should be sent to heaven or hell replied, "I shall say, wherever Thy love places me O Lord, wherever Thy Love places me, only do not seperate me from Thy love.
With respect to the question of flipping sheep from one flock to the other: Another old monastic on his deathbed wrestled with his heart wondering if he would be saved for as far as he was concerned he had not yet begun to repent. His disciples were very concerned and began to grieve for themselves for he was the holiest person they had ever known, and if he was not sure, what hope had they who were so far beneath him. But seeing their distress he comforted them saying, no man can save himself, but others can save him through their prayers. He would be saved by their prayers as they in part would be saved through his...like a net let down into the sea. We are saved personally but not individualistically;we are saved within the communion of those who have been saved and who are being saved. Each a member of the other, each joined by that which every joint supplieth in the Spirit. The hand does not have to fear drowning on its own for it is attached to the arm and the arm to the body and it will not perish so long as its communion with the body remains intact.
It seems to me then the job of sheep sifter has been applied for and taken by another better qualifed. We show ourselves most like the Master when with Him we take the lowest place and from there bear up all as faithful servants, preferring and anticipating their salvation before our own. And for ourselves we ask only to see ourselves clearly and the light of that vision not to despair but rather abandon ourselves to hope and serve in the love of Christ our God.
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Post by torainfor on Feb 13, 2009 16:24:13 GMT -5
And now for something completely Calvinistic...
I suppose it would be like my son going to Thailand one day when he's older, looking at the ten million faces in Bangkok, and trying to figure out which two are his sisters.
Or, as a friend from church says of the day we first met, "I talked to you, and you were so delightfully sarcastic, and I said, 'Ahh! She gets it!'"
Or my husband, sitting in a pub in Colorado Springs on a Sunday afternoon (before we got NFL ticket), watching a Broncos-Chiefs game and seeing one other guy in red and yellow.
Or pick your genre of people-like-you-hiding-in-plain-sight: Heros? Harry Potter? Fans of speculative Christian writing?
We are how God chose us to be (Amen and amen). The problem with Calvinism is it can make you lazy. And it's stinkin' confusing (pre-destination vs. free will). It shouldn't change how I treat people. Thinking of needles in haystacks does give an interesting picture of the grander view, though.
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Post by morganlbusse on Feb 13, 2009 19:00:34 GMT -5
Seraphim, not sure what you meant by two things. First, when you said of scripture "we must be wary of treating all passages the same...as being written at the same levels of inspiration and authority." My understanding is all of scripture's inspiration and authority are found in God alone (no levels... He inspired all under His authority). Perhaps you meant you need to look at the context of the passage (what was happening, what kind of book is it i.e. poetry, and what is the culture surrounding it and perhaps the meaning of the passage would be applied to day in a different way.
Second: "We are saved personally but not individualistically". My understanding of scripture is that each person either chooses God's gift of salvation or they don't. Just because I am saved does not save my son, my sister, or my father. They each in turn must choose to follow God themselves. Now we are not individuals in that we live our christian lives alone. That is what the church is: the body of Christ, each part connected and gifted in unique ways to support one another and glorify God.
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Post by seraphim on Feb 13, 2009 20:10:57 GMT -5
Dear Morwena,
You read me more or less correctly the first time, all scripture does not stand at the same level as others. This can be true of passages from books, books, and groups of books. This does not mean they do not have God as their inspiration. For example in the Orthodox Church the Gospels stand above all other Scripture and are treated with the greatest deference and respect, following them come the general epistles, and after them the Psalms, then the rest of the OT, then those portions of the Apocrypha that are not considered part of the primary canon. They are all scripture, all given by God, but they are not all equal any more than a lower order of angel is equal to the Cherubim or Seraphim. Its like the example I gave from Christ. There is an OT passage that says God allows divorce, but Christ said, that saying was given because of the hardness of our hearts. It was not so at the beginning. Then he goes on to say the only reason permissible for divorce is adultery by the other spouse...and even then divorce is not required or even necessarily encouraged...just permissible. What Christ said trumps any absolutist reading of the the earlier OT passage. But such clear examples should make us aware that those may not be the only examples and we must handle scripture with great care, and as a body, not individualistically. Now all the other things you mention are useful in gaining insight into any given passage, but they do not establish every book and every passage from every book as having the same place of honor or authority within the canon.
With regard to salvation those of the Orthodox faith do not regard our salvation in individualistic terms. Let me put it this way...Christ saves the Church. Thus our salvation is not individual but corporate depending upon our relation to and integration within the life of the Church. We do not just learn of God on our own, someone tells us, someone brings us. We do not get our own private scriptures, we are given that which was given to all and passed down across the ages. We do not invent our own forms of worship or spiritual experience, but receive that which has been passed down to us and approved from the Apostles. We do not baptize ourselves, another does it for us. We do not commune ourselves, another does it for us. We do not do anything in Christ in or to ourselves apart from the rest of the Church. Our personal salvation is always interwoven with the prayers and ministrations of countless others going back ages upon ages. Christ gave the ministry of salvation to His Church, if we want it to get it we must become partakers of it in relation to, in context of, and in union with His Church. He doesn't do it any other way and never has. That's why we are taught that we are engrafted, not just individually enlightened or convinced of this or that truth proposition. That is why we are shown the example of the Apostles fishing with nets not with lines and hooks. For the Orthodox the organic unity of the Body of Christ is no mere metaphor, it is the reality of the existence of the Church. It is not a symbol or a conceit, it is the description insofar as human tongue can tell it of what the Body of Christ is and how it is joined together. The Church is a living being, not just a human religious organization. She speaks with the voice of the Holy Spirit as we see in Acts 15 and at the end of the Apocalypse of St. John. As St. Paul says she is the pillar and ground of all truth.
As a codicil it would help to point out that what Orthodox mean by salvation is not exactly what many other Christian confessions mean by salvation. Salvation comes from the word salus...whole, healthy. To be saved to be made whole, hale, healthy, healed. The metric of that healing is Christ...until we come to the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ...till Christ be formed in us...that we may be made partakers of His divine nature...as He is so are we in this world. Anything short of that is still in need of healing. The Church then is also the hospital of souls and Christ the great physician. All degrees of infirmity and health are found within it, from those just beginning their therapy to those who have been healed and are on a maintenance regimen. So when we speak of saving and being saved we do not mean first and foremost getting to heaven or not, rather we mean how far we are along the way of becoming heaven.
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Post by metalikhan on Feb 14, 2009 3:11:35 GMT -5
Naw, this isn't a can of worms — it's a 1000-gallon vat of them!
Scriptures that made me think about this very subject came not only from John but also Matthew and Luke.
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. 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?" And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" (This passage is echoed in Luke 13:24-28.)
John 6:37 All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. (Jeff, there's a 100% success passage.)
John 6:65 And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
Spool forward to the present and read poll after poll by differing pollsters that shows alarmingly high percentages of people claiming to be churched Christians (from every denomination) who believe salvation through Christ is not the only way to come into the Father's presence. The first time I saw one of these polls, I dismissed it as being biased. Now, I'm not so sure because I've met some of those people who say they are Christian but also believe Christ is not the Way, the Truth and the Life for everyone. It is the theology exemplified in the movie "Oh, God!" in which George Burns plays the role of God; and when asked if Jesus was his son, he answers that Jesus was his son, Buddha was his son, Mohammed was his son, then tells the other person (a reporter, I think) to move on to the next question. Initially, a cute comedy; but when you consider the eternal implications of the message, it's no less chilling than a horror movie.
And then, there are the occasional testimonies that trickle out of places where Christians are persecuted, where choosing to become a follower of Christ is reason enough for imprisonment or a death sentence. You hear of a shining man, impossible to see clearly because of his light, appearing to someone in dreams days or weeks before the person actually hears the message of salvation. Did God prepare that person's heart to come to Him before any Christian tells him or her about redemption through Christ's death and resurrection?
Our place is not to judge whether the person next to us or across the world from us is one of His sheep or not, is saved or lost. That judgment is God's. He gave us the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. We can't know which ones among so many are His sheep so our work for His kingdom is to spread the news to all — the results are in His sovereign hands.
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Post by seraphim on Feb 14, 2009 13:16:55 GMT -5
I would think so. If I remember correctly I once read of an incident when Russian missionaries first started visiting among the Aleuts and Tlinglits, there was one place they went where the village shaman was basically waiting for them, having been visited by a "shiny" man from the mountains who had met with him from time to time over the preceding months letting him know about the important messengers who would be coming.
Ancillary to the question of Christ being the only way we have to ask the question about those who never had the chance to hear and examine the Gospel in any conventional sense? Does God just chuck them out because they had the misfortune to be born into an Amazon jungle tribe in 1152 and never got to know anything at about such a thing as a Gospel? If we are not content to say that such persons are automatically hell bound for eternity then that means some type of salvation is open to them as well that does not involve anything we normally associate with conversion like baptism or a confession of the faith? But if by some means they are or can be saved, then we must ask is this a salvation outside Christ and His Church? If it is not then we must come to a larger more expansive understanding of the power and reach of the Gospel and the penumbra of grace. If such a one is saved, even if they are pagan, or buddhist, or animist, or something else, they are saved by Christ and unto Him. It is not then some other way of theirs that brings them to salvation, but rather some other way of Christ and the Church Triumphant reaching out to them. The Spirit goes where He wills. We can say where He is (in the Church) but we cannot say where He is not. There are some things simply not committed to our knowledge or judgement.
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Post by duchessashley on Feb 14, 2009 15:45:27 GMT -5
Does God just chuck them out because they had the misfortune to be born into an Amazon jungle tribe in 1152 and never got to know anything at about such a thing as a Gospel? If we are not content to say that such persons are automatically hell bound for eternity then that means some type of salvation is open to them as well that does not involve anything we normally associate with conversion like baptism or a confession of the faith? But if by some means they are or can be saved, then we must ask is this a salvation outside Christ and His Church? I think God, regardless of our circumstances, finds a way to make Himself known to us. Just as He gives us "divine appointments" or even "coincidences," He places people, objects, and/or events in our path to lead us to Him. And sure, we may not see it or believe it, but that's the beauty of free will. It's up to us to make that choice. Who's to say the example individual never had an encounter with the one true God? And who's to say that he simply overlooked it or was so fearful of it that he ran the other way? God uses people differently. My gift is certainly not witnessing directly. I know people who can and I applaud them for that. I try to witness through example and by sharing the talents I do possess. But I rely on the thought that God is in charge. He knows how things are going to go down and even who will choose Him in the end. He is working to reach them, no matter if they are deep in the Himalayas (or the Amazon...) or living right next door to a church. I agree that there is much that we are not meant to know. Scripture even tells us, "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12) There are many things I'm glad I don't know. But all we have to do is be still and know that He is God.
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Post by metalikhan on Feb 14, 2009 15:51:22 GMT -5
John 6:37 All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me... (Italics mine.)
I think even those who have not heard the Gospel are covered. I won't write the verses out here, but every Bible translation I've read is pretty close to each other in the content. Romans 1:17-21 and Romans 2:12-15 implies that God calls all His sheep to Him, that what may be know of God is manifest in them because He shows it to them, that He writes His law in their hearts and their conscious bears witness, that no one has an excuse for not believing and glorifying God.
The ones who have the testimony of Christ (whether by being in His presence before the crucifixion or by hearing of Him from later Christians) have a more pointed decision to make, accept or reject salvation through Him. The Romans passages don't give the impression that, once hearing the message of Christ's redemption for all, anyone can say, Well, I don't believe that story, but I can still go to heaven if I join another religion that I like better. Once hearing, anything we do to try to earn our way into God's presence becomes an attempt at redemption by works rather than grace. The one who has not heard and has no access to scripture but still responds to God in faith has the justification by God's grace.
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 15, 2009 9:21:52 GMT -5
Ah, the worms are wriggling in the can, are they not? LOL. Love it.
Thank you all for keeping the tone gracious. We each have passion for these topics and sometimes zeal can be misinterpreted or misapplied. But you guys are doing great.
I appreciate seraphim's reminder that we take the whole body of Scripture into consideration when we evaluate a single passage (or book) in the Bible.
In this case, we can find Scriptures that seem to support God's universal concern for all humans and His desire that everyone come to faith in Christ. We can find other Scriptures that seem to point to an Elect.
Perhaps one way to reconcile this would be to posit that God cares primarily for His Elect, the scattered sheep, and yet would rejoice if even those who were not of His flock would come to Him through genuine salvation. As I mentioned previously, I think such a thing is possible, though I suspect it will happen on a very limited basis.
Jeff
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Post by dizzyjam on Feb 15, 2009 15:22:48 GMT -5
Wow! A can of worms indeed! More like a an Olympic swimming pool full of worms. Where have you dumped us, Jeff? Yikes! Let's see how much of this I can respond to. First of all, a slight redirection of what Jeff said originally: It's not so much that those not "in the church" are mainly not of God and that we have to find the few that are of God. It's more like they aren't of God until they become of God, yet I have to address the issue of those "in the church" that are not of God too. Those that are "in church" but aren't really of God are represented Biblically by the scribes and pharisees that rejected Jesus. Jesus said they were of the devil and that's who he was indicating, not the general mass of people who weren't "in". Today, this can be many people in leadership and I've met quite a few that can preach a sermon real good but show no compassion to those in need. I believe scripture makes it clear that if the love of God is not found inside of someone that person isn't saved and therefore is not one of His. And these people of course are highly respected and such. I like the Message version of the Bible, so I'll quote from there. Starting near the beginning of Matthew Chapter 23: "The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God's Law. You won't go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don't live it. They don't take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It's all spit-and-polish veneer. "Instead of giving you God's Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn't think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called 'Doctor' and 'Reverend'" There's more, but you get the picture. This is talking about those in leadership that really aren't of Him. This was what He was talking about when He said they were of their father Satan. This doesn't mean that there aren't those in the church that are lost. I believe that there are quite a few people that come in thinking they are saved and in the end are not. Not to knock the true prophetic and apostolic movements that are happening even now in the Body, but going with the quote of scripture Metalikhan used from Matthew 7:21-23 (quoted here again from The Message): "Knowing the correct password - saying 'Master, Master,' for instance - isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience - doing what my Father wills. I can see it now - at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, 'Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.' And do you know what I am going to say? 'You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don't impress me one bit. You're out of here.'" So going with that, I fully believe there are people that are being brought into the Body thinking they are saved and using the prophetic, but are in fact being used by the devil. This doesn't mean that there isn't a true prophetic movement that has been happening over the last couple of decades or so now, or that just anyone you see that's "popular" is of the devil, but the ease with which people are instantly elevated in the church nowadays is frightening and we should be wary of this. And since you're in John, Jeff, I'll quote John 3:16-18 as well to further show why I believe that the great mass are not necessarily automatically not His: "This is how much God loved the world: He gave His Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending His Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in Him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust Him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person's failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to Him." As we see, only the people who hear and refuse to believe are the ones condemned. And since everyone has a full life to live (however long that full life is), then just because someone rejects one time doesn't mean they have a lifetime rejection. They might come to know Him at the very end of their lives, but at least they finally got to know Him. That leads directly into the next topic I wanted to reply to: What if someone didn't hear and died? Would they automatically go to Hell? Or does God have alternate plans set up for other cultures until they hear the Gospel? I think one of the biggest fallacies of European Christianity - and therefore the Christianity that America inherited and have made their own without doing away with the fallacies of the European ancestors - would be trying to impose one culture onto another culture when sharing the knowledge of Christ. Jesus meets us all where we are at, and as those who are to be like Christ, we need to meet other cultures where they are at and introduce Christ to them in reference to their own culture. A most awesome example of this is Paul. When he would go out to other cultures, he looked around at what they had and used it when he spoke to them. He saw a statue to an "Unknown God" and used that as the launchpad to talk about Jesus and the Holy Spirit brought a number to the saving knowledge of God. We as Believers in Christ have a greater covenant than the Jews do under Israel and Abraham, yet what they have is an eternal covenant, so when actually followed the way God had set it up for them, I fully believe that the old covenant can still work. That doesn't mean we shouldn't show the new covenant to our Jewish brothers, but what we don't need to be is pushy with it. As violent as the Islam faith has been to America, there is some validity in that God met Ishmael out in the desert after he and his mother departed from Abraham and God promised to make him great. Even in the Koran, there is a passage I've heard a Minister of Jesus quote one time that basically tells the reader of the Koran that if they have any questions to go to someone who holds the other covenants for the answers. Hello? That's us people. We hold the other covenants. So we also hold the answer. As far as Buddhism, Hinduism and all those other "isms" (Oops, Catholicism anyone? Yikes!), the thing is how much did God talk with the original person who started these beliefs and how much was added on later? Or did God even talk with them at all? Here's an interesting link for you: reluctant-messenger.com/main.htm Don't click here just yet. That link is the main page link, but here's what I really want you to look at: reluctant-messenger.com/the_story.htm Again, don't click just yet, but read further to know what it's about. Whenever you get to the bottom there will be a link that says, "Continue with The Story Part #" where "#" is whatever numbered part of "The Story" is next. At times, there are other links that add more information to what you are reading. To the right there will be a list of links in the order you will be reading "The Story". I recommend following the links for the story at the bottom of each page because there are so many additional links on this site (even those embedded into the story itself) that you can get confused real easy if you don't take it slow and methodical. This site is something I stumbled upon one time when looking up things about Creation and Evolution. One of the pages in this "Story" dealt specifically with that, or maybe it was one of the additional pages, I can't remember, it's been a few months back. I just bookmarked it to come back to later after reading almost everything I could find on there. Anyway, as I started reading this "Story" part of the website I was amazed at how this person has drawn various religions together and in very simplistic ways makes connections between them. I'm not saying I really buy it all, but it sure could be convincing. In either case, the combination of religion and science came in as well, and in one shot you suddenly have an explanation for the various religions as well as how creation and evolution could both work out. It was staggering which is why I bookmarked it. So I thought I'd post the link on here to add even more to this "can" of worms Jeff has opened up and see what discussions take place from it. I'd recommend reading all of the story first before posting, even if not the "extras" so that you can see just what I'm talking about, but read the "extras" too as you're able to. It sure is wild if you've never put your mind toward this way of thinking before. Anywho, I've been wanting to bring this one up for discussion, but was wondering how to open that particular can, so I figured I'd just add to what Jeff's already started. Be encouraged, David
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Post by seraphim on Feb 15, 2009 22:51:47 GMT -5
At the risk of being impolitic...the stuff on that site is perfect for a worm bed.
There is nothing that I see there remotely convincing...well I might agree a little about a couple of its points of critique about western Christianity...but not where he wants to go with it. In the first couple of paragraphs he lists 6 "true" religions...given that a number of the truth claims of each are mutually exclusive, all of them being equally true is just not a reasonable proposition. You can't just dip cafeteria style into the bits you like and ignore the bits you don't, that is disrespectful to the integrity of their various traditions at the very list.
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Post by metalikhan on Feb 16, 2009 3:25:11 GMT -5
For the sake of clarity, what is meant here by "the elect"? I've heard a lot of definitions, some so off the wall I wondered what book had been read. The elect is anyone who is saved. The elect is a particular portion of the total saved. The elect is those Jews who convert to Christianity. The elect is the group of individuals converted via direct apostolic succession. The elect is the virgin men and women dedicated solely to God in the end times. The elect is a particular denomination. The elect is... Perhaps one way to reconcile this would be to posit that God cares primarily for His Elect, the scattered sheep, and yet would rejoice if even those who were not of His flock would come to Him through genuine salvation. As I mentioned previously, I think such a thing is possible, though I suspect it will happen on a very limited basis. Jeff When I read this, three people from scripture came to mind immediately. One was the thief on the cross who recognized Jesus' innocence, perhaps even His deity, and asked that he be remembered in paradise. One was the woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter of demon possession; when Jesus told her He was here for the lost sheep of Israel, she responded that dogs may partake of what falls from their master's table. The third was the centurion who asked Jesus to only say a member of the centurion's household be healed and it would be done. None of these people sounded prepared by the religions of the day, they may not have known that He was the Son of God; but they knew He represented God's presence among them in a way they could not understand and what they asked of Him He could grant. The second two especially did not seem to be the particular lost sheep He was looking for at that time, but they sought Him in faith and were not rejected by Him. "Seek and you will find..."
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 16, 2009 8:31:03 GMT -5
Good thoughts.
Metalikhan, those are good examples of what I'm talking about.
Others would be Rahab and Ruth.
Of course, here I'm using Israel as God's people. Some folks were allowed (grafted?) in who weren't naturally so, and some folks who were naturally in were cut off.
But I'm concerned now that I've done more than open a six-pack of worm cans. I'm concerned I've started something divisive.
I apologize for that, folks. We have lots of fun ideas about this stuff but there's no way to satisfactorily answer or solve them all.
So how about I let this thread run another 24 hours and then I lock it?
You guys are great.
Jeff
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