Binding and loosing

[Floatingaxe]

We all have the authority of Christ. By forgiving or not forgiving, we are in effect, binding or loosing. If we retain a sin against us, we retain in it heaven. If we forgive a sin against us, we free God to forgive. That is basically what that scripture is saying. It is a matter of the agreement of heaven with the prayer of the righteous man.

How can you retain a sin against you in heaven. There is no sin in heaven. And we free God to forgive. WHAT?

Further you have completely turned this scripture around. Lets look at it again.

Receive ye the Holy Ghost. 23 Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.

Notice is says "they are forgiven them" It says nothing about "you" in heaven it is talking about the person who committed the sin. Hense the "them"

And again this is your personal interpretation. It is slightly mixed up to the actual words in scripture and does not agree with what the early church taught. Do you still think your interpretation is correct?

We retain a sin by not forgiving. God retains it against us if we do not forgive! This is how most biblical scholars interpret this passage, I believe. If I do not forgive someone, then they are not forgiven--yes, heaven will agree, but it is to my detriment, don't you agree? I have a responsibility to free not only myself but also those who would sin against me, so that they will have their forgiveness in full measure.

This is not my personal interpretation at all. I have learned this through reading, my leaders, and by the Holy Spirit's leading. A good trio of ways to learn God's Word thoroughly.

Ok lets put that to the test. The disciples of the Apostles read scripture, just like you. They listened to their leaders the Apostles. They were being led by the Holy Spirit. Yet they completely disagree with you. Do you notice anything different about how they were guided and how you are being guided. You are being guided by your church leaders. They were being guided by the Apostles. Does not God tell us that if we hear it from the Apostles we have heard it from God. These people heard it from the Apostles. Were not the Apostles indwelled by the Holy Spirit with tongues of fire. You are listening to the opinion of man. These men were listening to the opinion of God.

They don't disagree with me. You do, dear. There is no difference in the way in which guidance comes: through the Holy Spirit. We are also indwelt by the Holy Spirit. I am listening to the Holy Spirit. I don't know who you are listening to.

[Kansasdad]

Eric i am not going to spend endless post in a debate with you. This is not about proving your or my point. If you want to claim victory then great Eric wins. I am not going to engage any further in your side track. This is not the purpose from the OP and was not relevant to what I was responding to the OP. I have given you the context to the traditions and how it is related to the question from the OP. He has a verse of scripture he had questions on. We have many different interpretations. Which personal revelation is the correct one? and how do you justify that.

The correct interpretation is the one that good rules of exegesis and interpretation produce. Just because there are many interpretations of certain passages, we should not then come up with a set of external traditions that give interpretation to those passages. This is exactly the same mistake the Jewish leadership of Jesus time made. They came up with a set of Oral traditions so that there would be one accepted interpretation of the passages. The problem was that they lifted these tradition up to have actual authority. Jesus condemned them for this and pointed tham back to scripture itself. And for the record, you declaring something as an invalid question does not make it so. Neither does your declaring something "out of context". The word "tradition" is not used in the surrounding verses. My questions still stand

[Iryssa]

Some of those rules are seriously common sense...taking things in context, for example. I see people tearing things out of context WAY too often, as though that phrase were an island not meant to be associated with the rest of that passage's teachings. I'll bet we could eliminate half of those thirty-thousand interpretations just by applying that simple, obvious rule.

[Kansasdad]

We all have the authority of Christ. By forgiving or not forgiving, we are in effect, binding or loosing. If we retain a sin against us, we retain in it heaven. If we forgive a sin against us, we free God to forgive. That is basically what that scripture is saying. It is a matter of the agreement of heaven with the prayer of the righteous man.

How can you retain a sin against you in heaven. There is no sin in heaven. And we free God to forgive. WHAT?

Further you have completely turned this scripture around. Lets look at it again.

Receive ye the Holy Ghost. 23 Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.

Notice is says "they are forgiven them" It says nothing about "you" in heaven it is talking about the person who committed the sin. Hense the "them"

And again this is your personal interpretation. It is slightly mixed up to the actual words in scripture and does not agree with what the early church taught. Do you still think your interpretation is correct?

We retain a sin by not forgiving. God retains it against us if we do not forgive! This is how most biblical scholars interpret this passage, I believe. If I do not forgive someone, then they are not forgiven--yes, heaven will agree, but it is to my detriment, don't you agree? I have a responsibility to free not only myself but also those who would sin against me, so that they will have their forgiveness in full measure.

This is not my personal interpretation at all. I have learned this through reading, my leaders, and by the Holy Spirit's leading. A good trio of ways to learn God's Word thoroughly.

Ok lets put that to the test. The disciples of the Apostles read scripture, just like you. They listened to their leaders the Apostles. They were being led by the Holy Spirit. Yet they completely disagree with you. Do you notice anything different about how they were guided and how you are being guided. You are being guided by your church leaders. They were being guided by the Apostles. Does not God tell us that if we hear it from the Apostles we have heard it from God. These people heard it from the Apostles. Were not the Apostles indwelled by the Holy Spirit with tongues of fire. You are listening to the opinion of man. These men were listening to the opinion of God.

They don't disagree with me. You do, dear. There is no difference in the way in which guidance comes: through the Holy Spirit. We are also indwelt by the Holy Spirit. I am listening to the Holy Spirit. I don't know who you are listening to.

Sorry dear, now you are trying to make this about me again. I quoted the very, very early church leaders. You know, the people that learned from the Apostles and their disciples. And what THEY said is in stark contrast to what you and your leaders are saying. So dear, by all means do not accept my opinion it is after all just an opinion. But you still have not dealt with the fact that your opinion, which you say is being guided by the Holy Spirit, is in contrast to the opinion of the disciples of the Apostles. Are you saying they were not guided by the Holy Spirit.

[Floatingaxe]

Maybe not! This is not down to opinion, but rather, TRUTH. I follow after the Word of God in any matter. If anything doesn't line up with it, I toss it out. Your so-called fathers of tradition may have veered away from TRUTH and instituted some erroneous doctrine.

[Kansasdad]

Some of those rules are seriously common sense...taking things in context, for example. I see people tearing things out of context WAY too often, as though that phrase were an island not meant to be associated with the rest of that passage's teachings. I'll bet we could eliminate half of those thirty-thousand interpretations just by applying that simple, obvious rule.

On this I actually don't disagree. But that still leaves 15,000 sorry couldn't resist.

Actually it is amazing that this is receiving so much resistance. Paul tells Timothy( first generation of disciples) to train men to be good teachers (second generation) and to hold on to all that he has been taught. So that these men will also teach others (third generation) I have provided teaching from these very men that Paul is talking about. If what they said contradicted what Paul said then I could understand the rejection. But it doesn't. Their teaching provides a very literal teaching of the scripture in question. If you have a very literal interpretation of scripture demonstrated with examples of how the very people Paul and the other Apostles taught carried out these scriptures, then any other interpretation seems quite suspect. Sorry but if I have to decide who is being guided by the Holy Spirit, a disciple of the Apostles who takes a literal interpretation of scripture or some one 2000 year later that takes a diffused broadly applied interpretation of the same scripture, Whom should I believe.

God Bless,

K.D.

[Kansasdad]

Maybe not! This is not down to opinion, but rather, TRUTH. I follow after the Word of God in any matter. If anything doesn't line up with it, I toss it out. Your so-called fathers of tradition may have veered away from TRUTH and instituted some erroneous doctrine.

Again you are trying to make this personal. They are not my so-called fathers of tradition. Paul talks of these very people. I don't think you have grasped of whom I have quoted. These are the very first leaders of your faith. If you reject them then you have absolutely nothing to base Christianity on. They were here before the Bible. It is God working through the very people you are rejecting that we have the Bible.

[Northern lass]

Kansas Dad - can I just point out that the OP is a SHE, not a HE!

[Kansasdad]

Kansas Dad - can I just point out that the OP is a SHE, not a HE!

OOOOOOOPs Thank you

[Smalcald]

Some of those rules are seriously common sense...taking things in context, for example. I see people tearing things out of context WAY too often, as though that phrase were an island not meant to be associated with the rest of that passage's teachings. I'll bet we could eliminate half of those thirty-thousand interpretations just by applying that simple, obvious rule.

On this I actually don't disagree. But that still leaves 15,000 sorry couldn't resist.

Actually it is amazing that this is receiving so much resistance. Paul tells Timothy( first generation of disciples) to train men to be good teachers (second generation) and to hold on to all that he has been taught. So that these men will also teach others (third generation) I have provided teaching from these very men that Paul is talking about. If what they said contradicted what Paul said then I could understand the rejection. But it doesn't. Their teaching provides a very literal teaching of the scripture in question. If you have a very literal interpretation of scripture demonstrated with examples of how the very people Paul and the other Apostles taught carried out these scriptures, then any other interpretation seems quite suspect. Sorry but if I have to decide who is being guided by the Holy Spirit, a disciple of the Apostles who takes a literal interpretation of scripture or some one 2000 year later that takes a diffused broadly applied interpretation of the same scripture, Whom should I believe.

God Bless,

K.D.

It bothers me a great deal.

Part of American Protestant and sometimes even Catholic Christianity is a negative reaction to all tradition, any tradition is seen as bad and onerous and burdensome. Unfortunately what that means is that when we remove all tradition, we get stuck with modern culture filling the void, and this is what has happened too many of our congregations. Why would anything "new" be happening in our faith or our beliefs? Our churches have become so trendy, its depressing.