ScottA
Well-Known Member
There is ignorance, and then there is innocent ignorance. God decides, not religious groups.
Is Ignorance Bliss?
- Thread starter Pancho Frijoles
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There is ignorance, and then there is innocent ignorance. God decides, not religious groups.
To me, you are a disciple of Jesus, Matthias.
How do I know? I try to apply the criteria the Jesus Himself established in Scripture… what He set Himself as the distinctive feature of His disciples
By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
You have shown to me love through your patience, your honesty and kindness.
I go now to have dinner, my friend. God bless you tonight.
And then there is standing on the other side of knowing. How can one know, who has not? It is designed this way. It is like a man standing outside the city of the Great King reading a book about what goes on inside the walled city. The door is before him and he feels the draw of it, but not yet, he says.in his heart. Let me understand first. Understanding only comes once one walks through The Door of the great city and becomes One with The King and the inhabitants of city. Understanding of the words of the Bible only comes when The Holy Spirit takes up residence within the child of God. This happens not with all other beliefs as The Truth is only found in Jesus.
Thank you. To you, though, so too are they who have no truck with me.
I’ve shown the same to staunch atheists.
Enjoy your meal. The one true God blesses us all every night.
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
@Pancho Frijoles, a Biblical way to set this juxtaposition, to use Biblical terms is the BALANCE between Truth and Grace. My former pastor wrote a short book entitled Grace and Truth, putting Grace first precisely because so many people are biased toward truth that Grace inevitably gets overlooked.
I can quote you the verse if you like but the Bible says we are free to do anything but not everything is helpful. I do believe that so far, the analysis in this thread as been the receiver of knowledge or the bliss that comes with ignorance. Let's flip the script. Imagine yourself the giver?
Also, consider that the root word of ignorance is to ignore. Some things are better of ignored. You have a wife and daughters. When they inevitably ask if their dress makes them look fat, the unvarnished truth is to tell them it is not the dress but their fat that makes them look fat.
This is true. Yet, it lacks Grace. A wise person knows when Grace (bliss associated with what is ignored) should supersede sharing knowledge and truth with others. The guide is love and helpfulness.
Earlier in my life I devoted myself to writing long emails filled with truth about how one co-worker or another was not living up to his or her responsibilities. Filled with examples and pivoting from one area to another. A former boss looked at one draft, smiled and told me that one point is the most important and the others, while all totally true, detract from what is most important.
This is true in business and it is true in personal relationships. Grace and Truth; bliss and knowledge. Guided by love and wisdom.
I can quote you the verse if you like but the Bible says we are free to do anything but not everything is helpful. I do believe that so far, the analysis in this thread as been the receiver of knowledge or the bliss that comes with ignorance. Let's flip the script. Imagine yourself the giver?
Also, consider that the root word of ignorance is to ignore. Some things are better of ignored. You have a wife and daughters. When they inevitably ask if their dress makes them look fat, the unvarnished truth is to tell them it is not the dress but their fat that makes them look fat.
This is true. Yet, it lacks Grace. A wise person knows when Grace (bliss associated with what is ignored) should supersede sharing knowledge and truth with others. The guide is love and helpfulness.
Earlier in my life I devoted myself to writing long emails filled with truth about how one co-worker or another was not living up to his or her responsibilities. Filled with examples and pivoting from one area to another. A former boss looked at one draft, smiled and told me that one point is the most important and the others, while all totally true, detract from what is most important.
This is true in business and it is true in personal relationships. Grace and Truth; bliss and knowledge. Guided by love and wisdom.
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
Truth and Grace - for the truth is many will also not be freed and will be thrown into the Lake of Fire.
I, myself, was freed before I accepted the truth. Indeed, while I was an enemy of the truth. See Prevenient grace.
“Almost persuaded to be a Christian is like the man who was almost pardoned, but he was hanged.” - Charles Spurgeon
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
This destroys the moral relativism popular today and reinforces the importance of coming to terms with absolutes.
Good morning, Mathias.
I don't know the context in which Pastor Voddie Baucham wrote this, but at first sight, just taking it as an isolated statement, it should be exactly the opposite: Everyone claims to be biblical, until it gets about loving Jesus.
Voddie Baucham seems to place the Bible as the acid test for love. It is completely the other way around.
The acid test for the believer in the Bible is the love for Jesus. That love is revealed and proven by actions.
The Bible itself states what is its purpose. All doctrine or instruction we can derive from it has the purpose of equipping us to do works of love.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:16,17)
The primacy of love is not a banner of the Beatles. It is the banner of Jesus, since
- Jesus summarized all known Scriptures as Love God and love your neighbor (Mat 22:37-40)
- Jesus took this commandment as his commandment: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another." (John 13:34) and established it as the distinctive feature of his disciples "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (13:35)
- Paul, when he wrote "And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing" (1 Cor 13:2)
- John, when he wrote that "everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." (1 John 4:7)
- Peter, when he wrote "And above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins.” (1 P 4:8)
- James, when he gave the commandment “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” the title of "royal law" (James 2:8)
"All you need is love" is the essence of the eternal Gospel, preached by all God's Messengers since the dawn of time, and will have no end.
For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another (1 John 3:11)
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There is no relativism in the gospel of Christ.
It is either light or darkness.
The wide door or the narrow door.
The goats on the left, or the sheep on the right.
The life of the flesh, or the life of the spirit.
The error in numerous believers and preachers is to set the wrong criteria for belonging to A or B, light or darkness.
Such criteria are wrong because they were not set by God but by sectarian leaders, eager to make their followers belive they held a special status for what they believed.
Such sectarian leaders distorted the meaning of "faith", from trust in He who can save us, to trust in a set of dogmas.
Such sectarian leaders don't know the Scriptures, and even worse, don't know its power to transform lives.
Such sectarian leaders have made many think that, while doctrines are about absolutes to be taken seriously, love is about relativism, to be used by the weak and the fool.
Love, the engine and purpose of salvation, is not relativism.
The Bible says that God is love. Is God then, relative, or absolute?
Very interesting post, Wrangler. Thanks for that.
It made me think a lot, which is one of the main benefits of participating in a forum.
Perhaps truth and grace intersect at all points. They are different things, but intimately connected.
We need the grace of God to believe in any truth such that we live according to that truth.
Our brain, the family in which we were raised, the material resources that enabled our learning, the spiritual resources provided by friends, professors, pastors, reading the Scriptures, interacting with you and @Matthias and every single opportunity we got in life to know God, is a gift. An underserved gift of His Grace.
What a good insight from your pastor.
The question made by Jesus to his disciples "Who the people say I am?" brought many different answers, but the correct one was recognized by Jesus as being a revelation from God to Peter. It did not come for an intelectual feat of Peter. Didn't come from Peter's knowledgeability of the Tanakh. It didn't come from a careful analysis of Jesus' sermons. Peter was a fisherman, most likely an illiterate fisherman... an inpatient fisherman.
The evangelist doesn't present Jesus getting angry or sad or frustrated because the people didn't identified Him as the Messiah. As a matter of fact, it seems that Jesus didn't care. He spends zero minutes in explaining why He was not Jeremiah or Elijah but the Messiah.
The evangelist presents Jesus as blessing Peter for having been the receiver of an undeserved gift.
All emphasis of the story is not placed on the insufficiency of knowledge, but in the sufficiency of grace.
So, the grace of God was first, and Peter confession came second.
Grace precedes knowledge.
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Wrangler
Well-Known Member
Having raised kids and spend precious time with grandkids, I juxtapose with the human lament since the Garden of Eden that God is holding out on us. If only he gave us all the truth, all the knowledge, then things'd be great. This is what we tell ourselves but it is not true. We are not ready for it.
I told my kids and grandkids answers they could understand at their level of maturity, vocabulary, etc. Although I spoke honestly, going to the next level of detail, I kept things generic. For instance, they understand the word "bad." Somebody did something that was bad and SOME of the consequences I share. I don't have to go into details they are not ready yet to process.
I vividly recall holding my infant son and daughter when they cried from gas pains from drinking milk. Consumed they are with the moment, they fear will never end. I realized my primary purpose for these early days is to convey love and care for their needs. Them learning trust at this point needs to words, indeed. What words I do say only have meaning to them when understood from the emotional content they contain. Sympathy, comfort and joy. "Hush little baby don't cry. It will be all right" as I touch them soothingly and burp them.
When I re-married a decade ago, the ring bearer and flower girl were my fiance's grandchildren. I formed a tight bond with them already. I observed they know nothing about my politics or religion; only that I love them, spend time with them and rejoice in their presence. Really, that's all they ever need to know about me. And so is the same with us and our Creator.
Good afternoon, my friend.
Love is essential but “All you need is love” isn’t the gospel message that Jesus and the Apostles preached.
Disciples of Jesus aren’t made by listening to The Beatles. They were entertainers, not evangelists sent by the Messiah.
Look around us. ”All you need is love” is producing rotten fruit in schools, business, industry, families, even churches.
“All you need is love” - You don’t need to know who the one true God is. You don’t need the Messiah.
You don’t need bodily resurrection. You don’t need baptism. You don’t need substitutionary atonement. You don’t need obedience. I’ve heard your message.
”All you need is love“ -> is an anti-New Testament message.
“All you need is love” -> is a message that is taking people down the path that leads to destruction.
Which Jesus?
Paul knew and warned about those who would come preaching “another Jesus”. He was critical of Christians who were listening to them (2 Corinthians 11:4).
The real Jesus is defined by what is reported about him in the Bible - not in post-biblical creeds, not in other sacred books, not in novels, not in movies, not in dreams, not in feminism, not in world religions.
You came to me with an Islamic Jesus; a Jesus who plays second fiddle to Mohammad in the Quran.
You came to me with a Jesus who preaches “All you need is love.” That’s a Jesus who isn’t even the Islamic Jesus.
You came to me with “another Jesus”.
Pastor Baucham was talking about the difference between Jesus and “another Jesus”.
We both know that :). You were the one who brought the Beatles. I am just piggybacking on the name of the song to remind us all about the primacy of love. The primacy of love is solidly founded in the New Testament, as I have shown above.
Society often calls "love" things that are not "love" in God's eyes.
A man who rejects the Holy Spirit will call "justice", "wisdom" or "love", things that are actually "vengeance", "foolishness" and "egotism".
We may discuss in other thread what love is, what love implies, how love appears and grows, etc.
There are clear descriptions of love in the Bible, so that nobody gets confused.
Going back to the main topic of the thread, my proposition is that preaching the Gospel implies increasing the chances of the person who listens to us to live a new life. A new life based in loving more and better. That's the life of Christ.
Some doctrines have a direct impact on that. For example, believing that we need to be born again and that God love us and can effective forgive our sins and change our ways.
Some other doctrines do not have a direct impact on that.
"We need Christ" means we need the Message of Christ.
"We need Christ" means we need to the spirit of Christ in our lives.
"We need Christ" does not mean we need to believe or reject his preexistence, deity, miraculous birth, substitutionary atonement, and a dozen of doctrines about Christ.
Which Jesus? The only one who
- summarized all known Scriptures as Love God and love your neighbor (Mat 22:37-40)
- took this commandment as his commandment: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another." (John 13:34) and established it as the distinctive feature of his disciples "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (13:35)
Perhaps a false Jesus is a Jesus that demands from the repented sinner to pass a quiz on Theology about his deity, preexistence, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection and inerrancy of the Bible as pre-requisites to be forgiven and transformed.
That is a false Jesus.
Sola Scriptura is a paradox, because there is no evidence whatsoever that the Bible set temporal limits to God's revelation, or to its own canon.
Whoever were the Reformers who proposed Sola Scriptura, they could not have derived such belief from the Scripture.
Certainly, I am open to discuss and be corrected in another thread on this topic.
“Love isn’t a sin, isn’t wrong, isn’t impure, isn’t a phase. Love isn’t a disease or mental instability.
Whether it’s between a man and a woman, or two women, or two men, or a woman and a non-binary person, or a man and non-binary person, or two non-binary people … or just. Any two humans!!!!!!
Love is beyond these trivial differences of gender or sex or sexualities or romantic or sexual orientations.
Love is love; this purified, polite phrase unleashed across all merchandise and marketing during the Pride Month.
Love is Love is a phrase meaning that the love expressed by an individual or couple is valid regardless of the sexual orientation or gender identity of their loved or partner.
Love is love, no matter what type of adversity we’re going to face, we’re going to be together. This movement is one of unity. …”
www.thekaran.in
Who is the Karan?
“The Karan is a spiritual healer.”
”All you need is love” -> a message from the occult world, not from the Bible.
Whether it’s between a man and a woman, or two women, or two men, or a woman and a non-binary person, or a man and non-binary person, or two non-binary people … or just. Any two humans!!!!!!
Love is beyond these trivial differences of gender or sex or sexualities or romantic or sexual orientations.
Love is love; this purified, polite phrase unleashed across all merchandise and marketing during the Pride Month.
Love is Love is a phrase meaning that the love expressed by an individual or couple is valid regardless of the sexual orientation or gender identity of their loved or partner.
Love is love, no matter what type of adversity we’re going to face, we’re going to be together. This movement is one of unity. …”
LOVE IS LOVE (LGBTQ)
We believe the LGBTQ+ community is part of us. Our love and support for the community goes beyond stereotypes. Love makes us equal
www.thekaran.in
Who is the Karan?
“The Karan is a spiritual healer.”
”All you need is love” -> a message from the occult world, not from the Bible.
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