AnOrangeCat

Scripture reinforces scripture. I John 5:2-4 confirms that we show love for God by following His commands. "This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith." The way I see it is repentance is an ongoing process. God knows we're going to stumble and fail from time to time, especially those suffering from addiction and past conditioning. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do our best and put up a fight against sin. Going against our sinful natures and not taking the easy way is a very real way to show our love. I personally find it to be a daily battle.

I had a similar thought regarding my cats. The current one loves chewing on electrical cords every now and then which causes me no end of frustration and worry. Much like sin it calls for discipline, because left unchecked and again like sin, it would lead to death. I thought about that and how as the one giving the discipline there's a line to walk. Too soft and it's ineffective, too hard and it could be damaging physically and damage the relationship in the process. It really gave me some appreciation for what we put God through and the similar but higher position He has in relation to us. I don't feel like I have a whole lot to add to OSAS so I'm not going to go deeply into that but I feel like this part of your summary is really part of the core narrative of the Bible. Humanity messed up in the garden but God still wants reconciliation and provided Jesus for that purpose. That said there's an addendum to keep in mind. God has principles and isn't ruled by His desires. In Genesis 6:6 we see God grieving over the state of humanity to the point that it it says He regretted making them. Jesus prayed that the cup would pass from Him but was obedient to God's will despite that desire. It works to our benefit that God sticks to His promises instead of throwing up His hands in frustration and leaving us to our own devices or just destroying us. But it's also important to keep in mind that many of His promises are conditional. Unless we stick to the terms laid out we may not always get what He desires to give us.

I agree. With a few exceptions Jesus didn't really dwell on people's sins or emphasize them much. The exceptions tended to be the hypocrites and people taking advantage of faith for their own gain. That was a different ball game entirely. But for everyone else, including the woman caught in adultery, it was just a simple "Go your way and sin no more." I don't really get a feeling of endorsement either. Jesus said enough to establish His credibility. In the end that was all that was needed to get her receptive.

This is an excellent point. There can be times when being married from a legal perspective is going to be a disadvantage, and many young couples may face financial difficulties. A commitment made before God ought to be enough. I'm also going to say that merely living together is by no means a sin. It's certainly a risk factor and more temptation than many can handle. That's why it's frowned on and advised against. But it's not inherently fornication. We shouldn't assume that it is and place ourselves in judgement over people who are living under the same roof. These days having roommates is a fact of early adult life for many. That said, when it comes to young couples in particular, it's definitely fair to ask whether or not they've made a true and serious commitment.

These are pretty amazing. In the spirit of the thread, Psalm 139:14 says we're fearfully and wonderfully made!

Just wanted to add a confirmation of this. My mother was a heavy drinker and experienced this twice when she ran out of funds to drink all day every day. The first time she fell unconscious, stopped breathing, and had to be hospitalized. The second time it happened she also had to be hospitalized but didn't make it.

I have mixed feelings about this. Yeah, there are sometimes people who are quite deliberately trolling or misrepresenting the Word for whatever reasons. It's also certainly tempting to respond. I believe we have a certain level of due diligence to perform. To cite an example, a thing I often encounter in dealings with the so-called progressive Christians is that in the ancient world they didn't have the same understanding of homosexuality that we do, and therefore the Bible's mentions of homosexuality are referring to something else not at all applicable to the homosexuals of today. I don't think the argument holds water at all, and I doubt many Christians outside of that movement see the argument as anything but a cop out either. The thing is that even ridiculous ideas can and do gain traction, especially if they aren't challenged. In the New Testament we see this very thing in action. People going "I'm of Paul." "I'm of Apollos." and so on. People telling the early church that they had to be circumcised in order to be saved. False doctrines creeping in to different branches of the church as described in the first few chapters of Revelation. The men of God inspired to write the NT clearly spoke out when people were in error. We should, too. The question for me is how far do we go with it. I think we get an answer to that question in Matthew 18:15-20 where Jesus said to confront someone privately, then with two or three witnesses, and then bring it before the church. If they still persist in their error the church expels and shuns them. With the public nature of a forum being a little different the approach privately part is often skipped over, and I think that's okay. Any erroneous beliefs and teachings still end up being brought before the body of believers who make up the forum and its leadership, and then the leadership can decide whether or not to ban. For my part I'll try to continue what seems like a discussion in good faith as long as it takes, but once I feel like someone is playing games I usually try (key word) to stop after 2-4 posts. Usually that's plenty of room to say what needs to be said and depart before it descends too far into madness.

This is pretty much my take on it as well. David was called a man after God's own heart. More often than not he was doing right by God, with the obvious exception. By our modern standards some of the deeds listed in the OP may seem cruel or harsh but that was life at the time. We're also not privy to the full scale of the deeds of the ones he punished, but we do know that Israel's neighbors were often aggressive, wicked, and deeply idolatrous. I do think there's a bit more to take home from all of this anyway. David was someone in authority. That comes with the temptation to abuse it, and even someone so highly regarded by God succumbed to that and made a big mistake.

I like this take. I'm honestly of the opinion that God isn't really hung up on specific instruments. The message and the state our hearts are in as we offer it up to Him are what matters.

This is a pretty good point and something I don't often see come up in these discussions. Good way of explaining it though. Something that's been showing up a lot in my Bible reading lately is a theme of keeping God's commandments as a sign of our love for Him. Our actions really do show who and what we love.

This is pretty great, and I agree. Paul calls us the body of Christ and points out that we all serve different purposes. But it's ultimately the people that make up the body, rather than a building or a formal institution.

That's fine. Like I said earlier in the thread my experience certainly isn't everyone's. I've posted this on Worthy a few times before, including here, but there was a time when I had a death in the family, was on the verge of homelessness, and was walking several miles in agony from my bad back to get to and from churches because I had no transportation. I got a lot of "I'm so sorry" and "God bless you" in my tour of local churches before one pastor took the time to pray with me and drive me home after the service even though I was a complete stranger to him. As much as I don't want to boast about myself I do love telling others about that pastor. That encounter really lifted my spirits and he struck me as someone who genuinely displayed God's love toward me and others. Even now I'm smiling a little revisiting that memory.

I'm not going to presume to know their hearts. Some people can simply be honestly mistaken or they were misled, others may be full blown false teachers. Jesus and others in the Bible did say that there would be false teachers, and Jesus also said there will be people saying "Lord, Lord" to Him but He'll tell them to depart and that He never knew them. I personally stay away from a lot of the tv preachers because of the history of scandals and feeling that my own intake and study of the Bible are adequate as is. People here have provided a lot of good verses from the Bible to back up their positions, and the Bible is our first and last source for spiritual matters. Not preachers.

Necessity? Sure. But that's not really my point. It's less about what they did and whether or not there was organization (I imagine there was!), but rather, the spirit in which they acted. My observations and personal experiences have led me to believe that the love of many has indeed waxed cold, even in the church, and that the sort of generosity and mutual concern found in Acts 2 is more rare within the modern church than it should be.

My personal belief is that we indeed can lose our salvation and that there's a strong scriptural case for it.

I'm going to take a different approach here because the dates and places are, IMO, not strongly relevant. In Acts 2:42-47 we see a constant fellowship to such a degree that it seems they functioned as one and were even willing to sell property and personal belongings. It's a demonstration of real, Godly love. From my perspective we should at least reach for a similar degree of love for each other, and like I said in a previous post in this thread I've seen a troubling and discouraging lack of it. So far as the sharing of experiences goes it feels a bit much like boasting for my taste so I'll decline on that. God sees what we do in secret, and that's enough for me. But I will point out that doing unto others as we would have them do unto us implies proactivity and seeking opportunity, which is something that should occur naturally when we have the sort of love for each other demonstrated in Acts 2. Simply not doing what we don't want others doing to us is nice, but it's also very passive. The coat hangers in my closet don't offend or hurt anyone. I'd like to be thought of as more productive and beneficial to have around than any coat hanger.

I'm referring you back to the verses I quoted in my earlier post and actually posting the warning verse this time. Hebrews 10:26-29: "If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think one deserves to be punished who has trampled on the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and insulted the Spirit of grace?" There's some different camps of thought on this but neither gives a very good forecast for your salvation. The once saved always saved crowd takes the position that a person doesn't lose their salvation but that those who continue in sin never truly gave their hearts to Jesus in the first place. Meanwhile the camp that says you can lose your salvation is pretty self explanatory. Reinforcing the verse from Hebrews, at the end of Luke 9 Jesus had a bunch of people aiming for discipleship and they wanted to do things like see their friends and family. He concluded by saying that those who looked back were unfit for the kingdom of Heaven.

No one said he got drunk on the stuff, but historically speaking the wine was often safer to drink than the water back at the time, and as pointed out His first miracle was turning water into wine. Wine was also customary during the Passover so it's a safe assumption to say that he consumed it, but again, getting drunk is another matter. It's also believed that wine during Biblical times had lower alcohol content than what we have today. FJK gave an excellent argument from the perspective of morality and logic. Here's a few verses for you. Romans 6:1-2: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" Romans 6:15-16: "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?" I John 2:1-4: "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. We know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commands. Whoever says, “I know Him,” but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person." These verses make it clear that we're not to go on willfully sinning and that we declare our allegiance with our actions. When James speaks on showing our faith through our works whether or not we willfully sin reveals how deeply our convictions run. It's one thing to be struggling with sins and addictions and fail. It's another to be indulging in them and in so doing abuse God's goodwill toward us. Hebrews 10:26 gives a stern warning about that.

This is certainly true. That said I'm a firm believer that how we say something and the circumstances we say them under are also quite meaningful. It's one thing to say "I believe X and Y". Quite another to say "I believe X and Y and anyone who disagrees is wrong." Certainly we can take an absolute stance with the plainly stated fundamentals, such as the divinity of Jesus and Him dying for our sins and so on. But when it comes to prophecy we're no longer in that domain. It's like when Paul said we're seeing through a glass darkly. A good case made for a particular interpretation of prophecy should speak for itself. It doesn't need to be touted as fact. Bearing in mind the heavily symbolic nature of Biblical prophecy I'd personally say that we show more respect to it by being humble about it and acknowledging that the interpretations we favor aren't in the realm of 100% certainty.

Yeah, this sort of thing is pretty much my gripe as well. My church experience was solid in the youth groups. We all got to know each other at least a little. Sunday school was similar. Less intense but with the questions and answers we still got to understand each other. But the actual church service outside of that, even after becoming an adult myself? Felt like a lot of the interactions were superficial at best. Not a lot ever seemed to promote real fellowship. I still quite enjoyed the praise and worship and prayer time but when it came to the actual fellowship that seemed to be swallowed up by things like what you mentioned. When I ended up in a pretty dire situation I experienced a lot of James 2:15-16: "Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?" Everyone wished me well but it was multiple churches and conversations before one pastor took the time to listen to me, pray for me, and drive me home despite me being a total stranger. He really made a lasting impression on me. He demonstrated the kind of Godly love and fellowship that I thought was really missing from a lot of my past church experience.

I completely agree with this. Surely God intended for His people to adapt to changing socioeconomic systems and forms of government, so long as their faith isn't compromised. This I somewhat agree, somewhat disagree with. Changing structure and format and aesthetics? Absolutely okay. For me the important thing, and something that we SHOULD hold up as an ideal, is why the early church behaved as they did. My understanding is that it was because they were a community of love and support united by the common cause of serving and praising God. That's something worth striving for, but the NT seems to indicate that the early church fell short of the mark at times too. My experience, which certainly isn't everyone's experience, has been that the modern church is somewhat lacking in that area. But Jesus did say in Matthew 24:12 that because of increasing iniquity the love of many would wax cold. This is really unfortunate but it was also foretold, and IMO it serves a purpose. In this day and age I feel like a lot of people would try to take advantage of it and the church's generosity would end up exploited constantly. It's not perfect, but again, it never was. It can just look that way until we take into account things like legalism, dubious doctrines, and so on that we see various branches of the early church rebuked over in NT.

Complex questions. As much as we consider people like Joseph and David and others as heroes of the Bible it's important to remember that Jesus aside they were only human and had their flaws. David was considered a man after God's own heart, yet there was Bathsheba. Acknowledging that these people failed and made mistakes is a good thing and helps put our own view of God's expectations for us in the proper perspective. Perfection wasn't expected of them, and neither is it expected of us. We're bound to fail at times. Another important thing to keep in mind is that we don't have an extremely detailed moment by moment account of things like Jacob's parenting or what was going through Joseph's heart as he was testing his brothers. The Bible doesn't tell us about his Plan B, or what he had in store if his brothers didn't return, though given what we know of Joseph there probably wasn't any vengeful or malicious intent. Looking at Joseph's story overall his being sold into slavery certainly wasn't fair. His rise to power wasn't fair either. He suffered for a short time but ended up rising far above his original station. That's more than fair, that's generous. I see a picture of eternity in that. We as Christians may suffer for a while but eventually God more than repays us, and we have eternity to look forward to.

My impression is that we weren't told what it was for a reason. Imagine if Paul said he had temper tantrums. Instantly relatable to others with anger issues but not so much to others who don't have that problem. With the nature of it left up in the air it's something we can all potentially relate to. We can look at something in our lives that's persistent and undesired and say "That's my thorn." and patiently endure it.

I read a lot about it as a teenager and watched a lot about the end times (to the point that I was mildly traumatized by it), and I grew up thinking pretrib rapture was what everyone who wasn't in some weird cult believed. It was a bit of a shock finding out otherwise. I've dug into it a lot and my conclusion is that a lot of these viewpoints have some merit, but things like the timing of the rapture, what various things symbolize, and so on ultimately aren't that important to my theology. I've come to accept that some things are just going to be mysteries until God reveals them to us in Heaven. A lot of the end times specifics fall under that heading IMO, and I'm content with that. Definitely looking forward to Heaven, though. Like Jesus said where our treasure is there will our heart be also. As I grow older Heaven seems increasingly precious and hopeful.

Your post as a whole really resonated with me but especially the laughing. I've ended up giggling at some stuff that probably wasn't intended to be funny at times, too.