I have no idea what you're talking about. It doesn't sound like anything that's being discussed here.
Okay, fine. Tell me then, by what other motive would anyone desire to refer to Sunday as the Sabbath?
Both of these statements absolutely reek of Christo-intellectual snobbery.
No they don't. It is your use of the phrases "neo-Gnostic elitism" and "Christo-intellectual" that smacks of intellectual snobbery. Not 2% of Christians alive today could tell you a single thing about what Gnosticism even is (was) without looking it up, and the fact that I've been debating people online for decades hardly makes me a "Christo-intellectual" whatever that highfalutin term means!
As for paradigm level issues, that is simply offered as a hard fact. People deal with paradigm level issues all the time. You do believe what you believe because of a paradigm you've accepted. That isn't a criticism it's just the way it is. It's true of everyone. If you're a leftist, its because you've accepted a paradigm that is conducive to those beliefs. If you're pro-life, it is because you have excepted a paradigm that is conducive to the beliefs implied by that stance. Whether you're a capitalist or a communist, a theist or atheist, a Christian or a Muslim, a passivist or a warmonger, everyone holds a paradigm that enables their specific beliefs. Paradigms are the underlying framework that turn individual beliefs into a unified whole and if a new idea comes along that doesn't fit into that paradigm, the result is almost always rejection and usually an emotionally charged rejection because people understand intuitively that paradigm shifts are expensive (intellectually and emotionally speaking), even life changing events.
To give a clear example, when a person accepts Christ, it is VERY often a major paradigm shift for that person, especially if the person is an adult. It is precisely this shift in paradigm that causes them to tell people that their conversion was a life changing event. That's what they mean by "life changing", even if they don't think of it in those terms. Another example has to do with a paradigm shift happening within the whole church. It was just few decades ago that practically the whole church had been swept up into the "judge not" paradigm. It, in no small measure, is what enabled homosexuals to come out of the closet. Now, however, the pendulum has been swinging back in the otherm, and much more biblically correct, direction and the church is now less afraid of offending evil doers. That's a pretty amazing paradigm shift! Christians in the 1980s would read Matthew 7:24 and not even notice that they read it. It was as if the verse was invisible. The "judge not" paradigm blinded them to it. They actually call this phenomenon, "Paradigm Blindness" and we ALL have it! No exceptions!
And so, look, I'm not trying to be condescending. On the contrary! I totally get it! I completely believe you when you say you don't see it. The fact is that I gave you the whole answer already but you don't see it but that isn't your fault. It just means that I haven't laid the ground work needed to enable you to see it, which, as I already mentioned, is all but impossible to do in this format.
The questions I leave for you to ponder are...
Is there any such thing as a more correct paradigm?
If so, how do you know that you hold the correct paradigm?
Have you ever given any thought to whether your doctrinal paradigm is superior to someone else's?
How does one go about evaluating one paradigm vs another?
When you do figure it out, you'll wonder how you ever missed it.
Do you really think I don't know what Gnosticism is?
The question was prompted by how incongruous the accusation was with anything I've said to you. Imagine if someone accused you of mocking them after you had wished them happy birthday. That wouldn't fit, right? You might be prompted to ask whether they understood what the word "mocking" meant.
Except, perhaps, for the thirty years of experience you wear like a badge of honor?
...which, no doubt, has led you to believe that this is the way Christians are to deal with erring brethren:
He is no brother of mine and even if he were, evil performed by a brother should be dealt with much more harshly than that done by anyone else because their evil does more harm.
You can insist to your heart's content, but what it boils down to is an opinion as to what constitutes the last word in hermeneutics
This is just you reading way more into what I've said than what I've actually said. I don't pretend to have the last word, just great arguments that no one has been able to refute for almost a full three decades now. That's a far better record than I experience the previous two decades of my life, I can tell you that's for sure! I grew up being blown all over the place by seemingly ever wind of doctrine. At best I held to a smorgasboard of disconnected doctrines that I picked on practically an a-lecarte basis. I was smart enough, at least, to hold to whichever doctrine based on the best argument that had been presented to me. I, for example, believed that one could not lose their salvation, in contradiction to the teaching of the church I attended, because someone on that side of that particular debate had presented to me a better argument than anyone on the other side. And that was THE WHOLE reason! At that time of my life, had someone shown up with a better argument for being able to lose your salvation, I would have switched immediately.
This happens to be, to one degree or another, how almost every lay person does their doctrine! The intentionality varies from person to person and the arguments take various forms, some more emotionally based than others and some simply come in the form of sermons from the pulpit, but the basic process is the same. People, by and large, believe whatever it is they've been taught to believe and rarely expose themselves to more than one flavor of teacher.
from a person who's asserted themselves as the arbiter of the subject after being a part of an established community for less than a month.
And who likely not will last here for another whole month. This is the biggest bunch of waste of time fools I've ever encountered on any "Christian" web forum. This is the "Christian" web forum that will delete your posts and ban you for discussing the Trinity while allowing whole groups of people to post anything they want that denies the deity of Christ. Rediculously foolish!
D) None of the above
I don't see that they even address the same issue at all since I just take each passage as it actually reads rather than categorize them as soteriological fodder for a debate.
It wasn't presented as a multiple choice. I presented several possibilities just to show that I wasn't fishing for a particular answer. The fact that you'd instinctively look for a fourth option is no surprise because you've adopted this needlessly hostile attitude toward me. Your answer is more or less typical of the average Christian. Ignore the context of any potential proof text in order to maintain your doctine. That's just the way it goes for very nearly any Christian you happen to meet.
The point of the question was to demonstrate that you are forced, as is everyone, to figure out some kind of way to resolve the appearant conflict between those two passages. Luther wanted to rip James out of his bible, you somehow have convinced yourself that one or the other isn't talking about getting saved (I'm using small, more common words live "saved" instead of "sotteriology" so not to come off as being too intellectually snobbish, by the way), others convince themselves that they are both teaching the same thing!
Continued because of the assinine and arbitrary limits placed on post size by this forum....
