The Messiah

[Wrangler]

This is the Non-Christian section of the forum.

Irrelevant. This is a Christian website and THE answer to your query.

I’ve issued a challenge for you to do a scientific experiment. Study the Bible for 30-days from the POV that it is correct. Pray before daily devotional readings that the Holy Spirit will show you what God wants to reveal to you.

Ponder throughout the day what you read. Pray throughout the day for you to be given the wisdom to understand the truth of Scripture.

Report back here the results of your scientific experiment.

 

[the.reverent.atheist]

Moving the goal posts. Again, you are failing to consider how the Bible is correct.

I would characterize it as a clarification on a minor point of no significance to the big picture of what the Old Testament is about. The point of my original posting on this thread was to show that the Old and New Testament authors had two very different and mutually exclusive conceptions of morality, law, and what would happen at the end of time. If you can't agree with that then you and I have no chance of arriving at a common understanding of anything of substance in the Bible.

 

[the.reverent.atheist]

Irrelevant. This is a Christian website and THE answer to your query.

I’ve issued a challenge for you to do a scientific experiment. Study the Bible for 30-days from the POV that it is correct. Pray before daily devotional readings that the Holy Spirit will show you what God wants to reveal to you.

Ponder throughout the day what you read. Pray throughout the day for you to be given the wisdom to understand the truth of Scripture.

Report back here the results of your scientific experiment.

Such an experiment would have no practical utility. I don't have your boundless ability to read books of fiction and fantasy like most of those in the Bible with my eyes shut. Do you think that prayer and devotion will inevitably result in the Holy Spirit guiding me to the truth? There is an absolute mountain of evidence to the contrary. Jews, Christians, Mormons, and Muslims all claim to pray to the same God-- the God of Abraham. But they all have completely different conceptions of what qualifies as scripture, who is a prophet and who is not, what constitutes salvation, what a person must do to be saved, and on and on and on. Prayer and devotion will never resolve any religious question. Ever. When you pray you are merely talking to yourself, and generally speaking most people simply reinforce their own preconceived ideas when they do that.

But I do have a different experiment to offer. Let's give the following questions to 100 Christians, 100 Jews, 100 Mormons, and 100 Muslims with the understanding that they should find the answers by praying and reading from all relevant religious texts for 30 days:

Is Jesus the Son of God?
Is Mohammed the greatest prophet of God?
Is the book of Mormon the word of God?

I'm pretty sure that I can predict right now exactly how all of the 400 participants in the experiment will vote. I'm pretty sure you can do the same. We could give them 30 days, or 90 days, or 30 years and it probably wouldn't change anything. Prayer and devotional reading are never going to resolve any of these questions. The only thing that would actually work is to compare what these various groups say they believe to what their preferred religious texts actually say. Your recommendation is that I should just close my eyes, hold my nose, and assume that everything in the Bible is true. Well, I can assure you that a Muslim would say exactly the same thing about the Koran. You don't agree with that-- but that's just your opinion. For the Non-Christian followers of this thread who are trying to figure out what to believe, I think the attitudes you have expressed say it all. Your faith is blind. And I suspect that for at least some followers of this thread, blindness is not enough.

 

[Waiting on him]

I would characterize it as a clarification on a minor point of no significance to the big picture of what the Old Testament is about. The point of my original posting on this thread was to show that the Old and New Testament authors had two very different and mutually exclusive conceptions of morality, law, and what would happen at the end of time. If you can't agree with that then you and I have no chance of arriving at a common understanding of anything of substance in the Bible.

Indeed, they had differing conceptions. Why do you suppose this is?

All the epistles saying disregard the law given by Moses.

 

[Behold]

Is Jesus the Son of God?

He's the only begotten, virgin born, of Father God.

A.) Yes.

Is Mohammed the greatest prophet of God?

He was a fornicating drunk, illiterate, who marred (sexually abused) an 8 yr old girl.

Reader, (just read the history, dont sit there with your mouth open in shock).

Some of you need to catch up, and stop being religious and owned by what the TV tells you to think.

Muhammad's Bedouin TRIBE picked him to be their "prophet"., and just before they did, they decided to get only one God.
"The moon God"...."allah".....as previously they had (muslims, Islam) 360 godz..
If you go and do an image search on GOOGLE......you'll see the Islamic FLAG.

= It has a MOON on it.

Yeah really.

"the moon god". = Allah

(but behold, that word just means "god")

So, as i said, some of you need to catch up..as you are way back there in the Dark.

Is the book of Mormon the word of God?

The book of Mormon is the theological insanity of Joseph Smith
Where he got it.........just ask the Devil.

 

[the.reverent.atheist]

Indeed, they had differing conceptions. Why do you suppose this is?

All the epistles saying disregard the law given by Moses.

Why would God concoct an extensive code of laws and give them to the people only to recommend that they be ignored a few hundred years later?

Why would God deprive Adam and Eve and their descendants of eternal life only to decide four thousand years later to resurrect the dead, put them on trial, and grant eternal life to some select number?

Those don't sound like the actions of an omniscient and perfect God.

 

[the.reverent.atheist]

Mohammed:
He was a fornicating drunk, illiterate, who marred (sexually abused) an 8 yr old girl.

The book of Mormon is the theological insanity of Joseph Smith
Where he got it.........just ask the Devil.

I wasn't defending Islam or Mormonism. I'm just pointing out that the adherents of the separate faiths of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism all claim to be praying to the same God, the God of Abraham and yet they can't agree about much of anything. And therefore prayer is never going to resolve any theological question.

 

[Behold]

to be praying to the same God, the God of Abraham

And i explained to you that "allah" is not the Father of Jesus, nor is Muhammad a prophet of The Father of Christ.

 

[Behold]

Why would God concoct an extensive code of laws and give them to the people only to recommend that they be ignored a few hundred years later?

Not ignored, but understood that they can't provide the righteousness that God requires that we have, so that God can accept us and keep us.

Why would God deprive Adam and Eve and their descendants of eternal life only to decide four thousand years later to resurrect the dead, put them on trial, and grant eternal life to some select number?

Everyone who is born again, has eternal life.

Adam and Eve were not deprived of Eternal Life.

Those don't sound like the actions of an omniscient and perfect God.

You don't understand Salvation or Eternal life.
So, that is why it "sounds" as it does to you.

See, in your case......you are trying to understand God and Christianity.........like a person is trying to understand Chinese, by reading a manual on how to install a transmission in a Toyota.

Forget it.
Give up.

 

[rockytopva]

As a teenager I had fell in with my generation and that was where my walk focused on three things...

Attention
Appreciation
Acceptance

I moved in with my grandmother and ended up away from my former cares. I would end up farming and attending revivals at the local Pentecostal Holiness church. At the end of that summer we had a good revival in which the Lord seemed there in a mighty way. On reading the book, Run Baby Run, by Nikki Cruise, I felt a voice telling me to put the book down. I paused, and then continued again to read. The voice said again, Put the book down. I slept in my Grandmothers living room on an old fold away cot by the open living room door. The Katydids seemed to be singing very loud that night. There in my Grandmothers clean linens I heard the Spirit speak again, "Where is all the stress, worry and hatred?" In which, upon examining my heart, there was nothing there but pure beauty. I thought to myself. "Oh my! I got exactly what those people got!" I would spend the rest of the summer rejoicing with the people and in revival. In the words of GC Rankin…

“As I sat there that morning listening to the earnest exhortation of the good man my tears ceased, my distress left me, light broke in upon my mind, my heart grew joyous, and before I knew just what I was doing I was going all around shaking hands with everybody, and my confusion and darkness disappeared and a great burden rolled off my spirit. I felt exactly like I did when I was a little boy around my mother's knee when she told of Jesus and God and Heaven. It made my heart thrill then, and the same old experience returned to me in that old country Church that beautiful September morning down in old North Georgia.

I at once gave my name to the preacher for membership in the Church, and the following Sunday morning, along with many others, he received me into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was one of the most delightful days in my recollection. It was the third Sunday in September, 1866, and those Church vows became a living principle in my heart and life. During these forty-five long years, with their alternations of sunshine and shadow, daylight and darkness, success and failure, rejoicing and weeping, fears within and fightings without, I have never ceased to thank God for that autumnal day in the long ago when my name was registered in the Lamb's Book of Life.” - The Life of George Clark Rankin

So... My experience and understanding of the Messiah was not something that was taught... But was something that was experienced. If I had to of experienced the Messiah intellectually I would of likely have never experienced him spiritually and would have remained an atheist.

 

[Wrangler]

If you can't agree with that then you and I have no chance of arriving at a common understanding of anything of substance in the Bible.

Yup. No chance. However, it is not because you are not of the body but because of your superior intellectual understanding of the Bible compared to me not grasping the first thing of my own sacred text.

 

[Wrangler]

Such an experiment would have no practical utility.

An article of faith. Proving your not the student of science you fancy yourself to be.

 

[Wrangler]

Do you think that prayer and devotion will inevitably result in the Holy Spirit guiding me to the truth?

Yes. Yes, I do think that prayer and devotion will inevitably result in the Holy Spirit guiding you to the truth IF you pray in truth. John 4:23.

There is an absolute mountain of evidence to the contrary. Jews, Christians, Mormons, and Muslims all claim to pray to the same God-- the God of Abraham.

And the key word is claim. Notice Jesus words here. John 14:10-18 The Voice
10 ...The Father has given Me these truths that I have been speaking to you, and He empowers all My actions. 11 Accept these truths: I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me. If you have trouble believing based on My words, believe because of the things I have done. ...

13 Whatever you ask for in My name, I will do it so that the Father will get glory from the Son. 14 Let Me say it again: if you ask for anything in My name, I will do it. 15 If you love Me, obey the commandments I have given you. 16 I will ask the Father to send you another Helper, the Spirit of truth, who will remain constantly with you. 17 The world does not recognize the Spirit of truth, because it does not know the Spirit and is unable to receive Him. But you do know the Spirit because He lives with you, and He will dwell in you. 18 I will never abandon you like orphans; I will return to be with you.

Anybody can claim anything. The proof is here, acting on the access code Jesus gives us here, which the Mormons embrace. (Not sure why you refer to them in that litany).

One could say this explains the entire purpose of Jesus' ministry for us on Earth; to have the Spirit of God dwell in us here, now. In the OT, the Spirit of God was not so available as it was after the Spirit was crushed out from the Anointed's body.

 

[Wrangler]

I don't have your boundless ability to read books of fiction and fantasy like most of those in the Bible with my eyes shut.

Yet, your mind, eyes and ears are shut, closed, hardened and locked.

Jettison this blasphemous arrogance is step 1 of the experiment.

Let me tell you something friend. I am graciously giving you the benefit of my experience. After half a century of living, I tried the experiment I now implore you to undertake. In less than 30-days, it changed me. I do believe it could change anyone who earnestly seeks God.


You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13 ESV

 

[Waiting on him]

Why would God concoct an extensive code of laws and give them to the people only to recommend that they be ignored a few hundred years later?

Why would God deprive Adam and Eve and their descendants of eternal life only to decide four thousand years later to resurrect the dead, put them on trial, and grant eternal life to some select number?

Those don't sound like the actions of an omniscient and perfect God.

Jeremiah 7:22 KJV
[22] For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
Hebrews 10:6 KJV
[6] In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

You need to realize that Moses was raised in the house of an Egyptian pharaoh. Egyptians were still writing on stones when he wrote the Torah. There’s a reason why they murdered the true prophets of God.

You see?

Acts 7:42-43 KJV
[42] Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? [43] Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.

 

[Waiting on him]

Why would God concoct an extensive code of laws and give them to the people only to recommend that they be ignored a few hundred years later?

Why would God deprive Adam and Eve and their descendants of eternal life only to decide four thousand years later to resurrect the dead, put them on trial, and grant eternal life to some select number?

Those don't sound like the actions of an omniscient and perfect God.

John 1:17-18 KJV
[17] For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. [18] No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
Jesus came to set the record straight. He is Gods first creation. When Moses penned Genesis what he wrote was his fleshly comprehension of the vision God gave him. As @Mr E stated earlier it’s a parable.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Just as Moses penned; Let us create man in our image. And God placed the man in the garden, Jesus the light of the world, first to have knowledge of good and evil

 

[the.reverent.atheist]

Adam and Eve were not deprived of Eternal Life.

Then the LORD God said, "See, the humans have become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now they might reach out their hands and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever"-- therefore the LORD God sent them forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which they were taken.
(Genesis 3:22-23, NRSVue)

So yes, Adam and Eve WERE deprived of eternal life. That's the whole point of the fairy tale of the garden of Eden.

 

[Behold]

So yes, Adam and Eve WERE deprived of eternal life. That's the whole point of the fairy tale of the garden of Eden.

Eternal life is not a Tree., as this is symbolic.

And here is a mystery for you.

Jesus who is Eternal Life, died nailed to a tree.

Also, the spirit in a person, never dies.......its only the body that dies.

Adam's body died, but not his spirit.

 

[Waiting on him]

So yes, Adam and Eve WERE deprived of eternal life. That's the whole point of the fairy tale of the garden of Eden.

Take a closer look at the scripture @Behold quote. God put them out of the garden to till the ground from which they were taken?


Hebrews 13:12-13 KJV
[12] Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. [13] Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.

 

[Waiting on him]

So yes, Adam and Eve WERE deprived of eternal life. That's the whole point of the fairy tale of the garden of Eden.

The whole of the story is God needed to till the ground.