Tyler S.

Hey all! Just a quick morality/doctrine question. Like food for thought. There seems to be two types of evangelists in the world; one type I call hellfire preachers and the other I call the goodnews preachers. Type 1 speaks of Hell far more than Christ and they stress the scrutinization of every aspect of your life to weed out your sins lest you burn forever. They more or less try and “scare” people to God and to the faith. Type 2 leans away from teachings of Hell and of punishment and sticks to the Biblical good news of having faith and love and fellowship. Does either group “have it right?” Or does the right way sit somewhere in the middle? I feel like we should adapt our evangelizing to what people respond to in the age...and, like it or not, yelling at people that they’ll burn won’t bring them IN to the faith it usually scares them off. By the SAME token, however, neglecting the teaching of divine punishment may lead people to believe that God’s grace is a license to sin. Not looking to start a flame war here ? just a sensible and loving conversation! Bless and thanks!

Well I wouldn’t really know about the money aspect as I’m at the mercy of my parents (who do love me and are trying to move the family into a nicer area). I do give God thanks for what I have! I’m just worried that my excitement is loving worldliness too much. I’m well aware that God means more to me than the house though. Thank you for the response!

As a younger individual, I’m worried about when “enjoying life” crosses over into “loving worldliness.” An example would be: we may be moving to a nicer home/area soon and I’m excited. Is me being excited to move to a nicer house “loving worldliness?” I recognize that this good point in my life is a blessing from God and I certainly have thanked him for it...but I feel guilty for my excitement. This is just one example. Getting any new thing, meeting a cool new person, achieving something in life...and being happy about it. Is that happiness sinful? This is really getting at me. Any advice would be appreciated thanks!

I think my final and ultimate confusion about my eternal destination HAS to be the WAY we are saved. Paul, in his many letters, restated over and over and over (and I’m paraphrasing here) that it is by FAITH that we’re saved! He thinks of good works as profitable and pleasing to God and we’ll be rewarded but they don’t SAVE us. This seemed to make sense until I read on to James and saw that, apparently, faith without WORKS is dead and that God doesn’t recognize faith that isn’t augmented by WORKS...but I thought all out righteousness was like filthy rags? So how can I have faith in the finished work of Christ’s mercy and have “assurance” of my salvation if James says I need works...effectively EARNING my salvation. Originally I thought “oh well James wasn’t writing to ME so it’s fine” but, then again, neither was Paul right? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks! ?

The more I read the Bible and listen to worship music and such I seem to get this picture of God as a being who loves his children so much he’ll chase them to the ends of the earth to save them. My question is HOW can an infinite creator that created all of us possible have some special love for ME and be paying attention to ME and trying to lead ME to salvation. Like...it seems to be a pervasive image of God ESPECIALLY in modern worship music. So, aside from the lost sheep parable, what biblical basis is there for this image of God? I WANT to believe this image of God. It would be so comforting. Thanks!

Ok I think I understand. And that’s what I always thought! Didn’t he give em like 400 years too? BUT what about some of the more specific OT laws and things. I’m just imagining a woman “lying about being a virgin” and then being stoned to death by all the men in town. That doesn’t sound like “ample time” or “slow to anger”...like, we today get chances at forgiveness and we have the privledge of living under grace in a more modern age...so why didn’t God allow those poor people back then to have ample chances?

But they didn’t GET the chance to even live in the age of grace as we do today! How can a God of mercy and justice condone that? Honestly...how can you say that a perfect God of mercy and justice must’ve predestined some of his beloved children to eternal torture and anguish? That’s a literal double standard. A contradiction. I want to love the God we see in the New Testament...a forgiving God of love and mercy and justice. But I don’t see the same God all the time in the Old Testament.

Then you have to state that out God doesn’t institute justice amongst his children that he “loves.” There were innocent people that died and...what...God just must’ve wanted them to die in sin and be condemned to eternal torture?! That’s a complete contradiction to Jesus’s direct words. God must not have loved those women and babies that died worshiping false gods...never knowing the gospel. I refuse to believe that. “God so loved the world.”

Life it’s fair...but the way God deals with all his children MUST be fair in order for us to truly be able to say that he’s a God of PERFECTION and JUSTICE. He MUST have a plan for those poor people right? Or else you must concede that some people are predestined to HELL which would spit in the face of the fact that Jesus said that Gods will is that NONE shall perish.

I suppose...but then what about those people (the heathen nations)? They didn’t get to live in the age of peace and grace...so those human beings didn’t get the same shot at salvation as we get today. Doesn’t that seem unfair?

But why, then, did God COMMAND the Israelites to genocide all of those unbelieving tribes? We’re those chidren of God in his image not worth salvation? I just don’t...can’t believe that God would command his people to literally slaughter entire races for “sinning” when saved Christians themselves sin as well. It seems like a double standard and God is not the father of confusion. So I’m really not understanding...

Hello all. I am happy to say that I am a believing Christian and I’ve begun to feel called to study the history of the faith more as well as study the scriptures. In this pursuit I’ve stumbles across some worrying things that have, and I regrettably and humbly say this, question, not the existence of, but the nature and ways of our God. See, I read AND hear that our God is a god of justice, love, peace, righteousness, mercy, and grace. I do believe this. Thank GOD that he is because where would we be without his sacrifice if Jesus? But, in light of this, I sometimes wonder how Christians, in the past, have done some of the most HORRIBLE things imaginable and claimed wholeheartedly that God backed them on it. Do you think, for example, it really was the White Man’s “manifested destiny” to basically poach what amounted to over 90% of all Native Americans (peaceful ones or otherwise)? That doesn’t sound like peaceful conversion, loving thy neighbor, and not killing. And it made me think “there’s no way God wanted that! How is that justice? God love ALL his creations and surely he wanted them to come to the truth through peace and careful teaching” and then I read how God dealt with the Canaanites in the Old Testament....and my entire image of my loving, slow to anger, merciful, and most importantly JUST God....was turned on it’s head. I want to make it CLEAR that im still a believing Christian and I’m honestly just trying to understand this. Because, as a Christian today, I can’t imagine myself claiming that God told me to steal somebody else’s land and kill them...whether they’re a believer or not. Please help! Any advice is appreciated! Please keep it civil too as I know that this is a contentious issue. Bless!

Well blindly following the teachings of a pastor can be a slippery slope and can lead you away from the literal word...but it’s less about that and my question was more along the lines of: will the lord fight for ME and I need only be still? Or will he fight for the Jews and THEY need only be still? I’m asking if God’s word as written in the context of the old covenant can still apply to our lives today because so many people use it to win people over or encourage others. Thanks!

As the church of gentile Christians living in the ministry of Paul, how should we interpret and keep the Old Testament/covenant? I see many songs and preachers nowadays valiantly proclaiming such encouraging verses as, for example, Exodus 14:14 or Lamentations 3:21-24 to ease peoples mind and praise the lord. If the Old Testament/covenant was written to the Israelite Jews...then how can many of us today, as Christians of the church age, use these verses to worship and encourage and ease minds if these promises were never meant or written to US? Thanks for any advice or responses!

Ah thank you ?. I was worried there. And yes that is an interesting interpretation! So how would you reconcile Jesus’ references to hellfire or the Bible’s references to eternal punishment?

Hey! Thank you for the advice and explanations! How would you define CI. I’m assuming you mean Christian Identity? I’d love to know cuz I got a pretty worrying response online ?. Thanks!

You seem very well versed in various new age Christian philosophies and I’m afraid that I am not ?. If ECT is what I THINK it is then I’d totally agree. It kinda takes responsibility away from us and just plays on people’s desire to turn away from accountability. But I think that, as you said, a type of universalism may be at play if “every knee will bow” and “every mouth confess Christ as lord” then wouldn’t, technically, all people come to the truth eventually? I’ve often pondered the subject because there are people in the world who’ve never even been exposed to the good news or were exposed to it in a corrupted fashion...and if God is a God of justice then I feel as though he’d have a plan for those people as well. Thanks!

I agree with you both and, as I’ve read, that’s the same conclusion that I myself have come to. I feel as though this is actually coming pretty close to universalism though. There are plenty of verses in the Bible that describe universalism as a viable thing (and yes I know there are also verses that contradict it). What are your thoughts on this subject? Because it’s definitly interesting to me! Thanks again! ??

Ah I understand. So would you say that SALVATION ITSELF doesn’t come from what we do because none of us could EVER do enough to EARN our way to God? That being said I’m well aware that God still desires us to strive for holiness for holiness sake.

Well I doubt they were “sinless” only Christ was. So maybe he was calling for them to renew their minds in Christ’s new covenant truth? To realize their imminent deaths in sin and turn to HIM for salvation rather than to THEMSELVES and their WORKS for salvation? Thank you for engaging with me!

I apologize ? I suppose I’ve always just thought of it in such general terms. I guess that’s dumbing it down though, in which case I’m afraid I don’t actually know. Are you referring to when the apostles spoke on tongues and all the different peoples were able to hear the scripture in their native languages? If you are weren’t they called there BECAUSE they heard talk of a messiah? I’m sorry I guess I really don’t know the answer in specific enough terms ?. Thanks!

This really strikes at the HEART of my issue... “don’t even eat with such people?” Wouldn’t outright shunning the sinners TRULY damn them? They may do bad things but I don’t think that I can name a single person who can do something bad enough for me to HATE them and purposefully keep Gods love from their lives....that would essentially be me condemning them to hell. And the whole analogy of the sheep and goats makes me think...if the world truly is divided up that way does that mean that some people are...just goats? And are therefore PREDESTINED to hell?! That would completely erase everything I hold true. Aren’t all able to come as they are regardless of their pasts and be saved and accept the truth? I mean come on...what would have happened if Jesus had basically shunned the theif on the cross who’d spent his whole life doing the wrong thing? I feel like the phrase “don’t even eat with them” is wayyyy harsh and doesn’t reflect the way Jesus himself treated the “bad” people of society. Thoughts? Am I wrong? Did I miss the picture? Thanks!

Wasn’t it the lowly people of the society? Pagans, lepers, the poor, the hated (like the tax collector), he even saved the Canaanite woman. Also he instructed that all, even gentiles, are available to be saved. The only people he really rebuked were the Pharisees as far as I can see. Also, follow up, do you think that if a Pharisee who’d spent his whole life basically focusing on the wrong things and attacking the credibility of Christ, therefore leading others astray, would be accepted by Jesus if he repented of his ways and found the truth?

I agree with you! But can’t you see where they come from? It makes me question if I’m doing it right because they seem to have biblical backing for “exposing sin” and “judging righteously.” But I don’t want to judge! That’d be hypocritical because I too, though I work to stop it, sin of course ?. And I feel like “exposing” them and all that would push them MORE away from God’s love. Thoughts? Is there a middle balance to come to? Thanks!

Again, I thank you all SO much for the eye-opening discussion and advice. It really is helping me! And to Willie T? I believe, personally and I may be incorrect, that repentance is the act of realizing that you’re dead in sin and NEED jesus to reform the way you live. It’s kinda like a change of the mind a “renewing.” And, from that, comes the natural DESIRE to live a better life and be more loving. How does that sound?