Word Study

[Episkopos]

Was Jesus being literal when He said that?

I think Jesus was speaking of the miraculous faith OF Jesus. The kind of faith that moves God to do the impossible.

 

[shnarkle]

I am defining faith as per Jesus' definition...the faith that does the works of Jesus. Moving mountains and such.

I would wholeheartedly agree with that definition. Christ himself points out that there are things he doesn't know, e.g. only the father knows when he will return, and he only does what he sees the father doing, or says what is given to him to say from the father. There is such a thing as faith seeking understanding, right? I'm not sure there is much of a distinction between what one doesn't know and what one doesn't understand. In either case, one can have faith in a God they have no real way to even imagine who or what they are like, and that faith is given to each of us by God. If it appear as nothing more than a mustard seed, it is more than enough.

It isn't something God runs out of.

 

[Episkopos]

I would wholeheartedly agree with that definition. Christ himself points out that there are things he doesn't know, e.g. only the father knows when he will return, and he only does what he sees the father doing, or says what is given to him to say from the father. There is such a thing as faith seeking understanding, right? I'm not sure there is much of a distinction between what one doesn't know and what one doesn't understand. In either case, one can have faith in a God they have no real way to even imagine who or what they are like, and that faith is given to each of us by God. If it appear as nothing more than a mustard seed, it is more than enough.

It isn't something God runs out of.

There is a mystery to godliness and what God is attracted to in us. It's an intangible that people can't really quantify because of our nature to destroy or ruin everything we try our hands at. So if we think we see something...we are more likely to get it wrong...since we tend to reason with our carnal minds based on previous experiences.


But God is wholly other. There is nothing in our experience that prepares us for God and His ways. These run contrary to our ways.

So part of faith is going against everything we think is realistic and logical. It is to throw out our puny brains in regards to God. Can we do that?

VERY few can even consider that.

I have said many times that IN Christ is no sin. How many people can accept that without getting their 4 pound brains involved so as to deny the power of God to do absolutely ANYTHING?

I can do ALL things in Christ. But almost nobody actually believes that.

Hence we don't see the kind of faith that changes the world. It's a lack of faith in God.

 

[Nondenom40]

I think Jesus was speaking of the miraculous faith OF Jesus. The kind of faith that moves God to do the impossible.

That sounds reasonable.

 

[farouk]

This is an interesting insight, but I'm not sure how you come to your final statement because the God that is known is not just objectively known, but known by an intellectual process which is integral to coherent language. Our language determines how we will think and know, and how we think and know something, is reflected in our speech. That direct connection to God bypasses all of that, and we are known by God. We are seen as we truly are rather than how we see ourselves and each other.

Just because we may not know God, it doesn't then follow that there is no faith left. All faith dwells in, with, and through Christ. It is the faith OF Christ that operates. Abraham sets out with no aim or destination in mind. He does this by faith, a faith that God has implanted within him. That can only be the faith of Christ.

Our knowledge of God is indeed bound up with our faith appreciation of what we read and understand of Scripture as led by the Spirit of God.

 

[shnarkle]

There is a mystery to godliness and what God is attracted to in us. It's an intangible that people can't really quantify because of our nature to destroy or ruin everything we try our hands at. So if we think we see something...we are more likely to get it wrong...since we tend to reason with our carnal minds based on previous experiences.


But God is wholly other. There is nothing in our experience that prepares us for God and His ways. These run contrary to our ways.

So part of faith is going against everything we think is realistic and logical. It is to throw out our puny brains in regards to God. Can we do that?

VERY few can even consider that.

I have said many times that IN Christ is no sin. How many people can accept that without getting their 4 pound brains involved so as to deny the power of God to do absolutely ANYTHING?

I can do ALL things in Christ. But almost nobody actually believes that.

Hence we don't see the kind of faith that changes the world. It's a lack of faith in God.

Again, I wholeheartedly agree except that last sentence, and that is only because sit sounds like you're saying that it's possible for God to lack faith I know you're not saying that, but when we start talking about lacking faith in God, that's really just a silly idea. It betrays what we really believe though which is what you're saying. When we get honest with ourselves, we abandon everything we depend upon, and place our trust exclusively upon God.

When you point out that God is wholly other, the word I usually use is "transcendent" which for me, takes it beyond the other, e.g. "Beside me there is no other" which isn't to say that God is the only "other", but that there is only God.

When you say there is nothing in our experience that prepares us for God and His ways, It's once again one of those ways of talking that can be taken two different ways. I think the carnal mind looks at it as completely foreign whereas the spirit, sees what there is in our experience that prepares us for God, and what is seen is actually nothing. It is when everything that we identity with is abandoned or denied or emptied that we encounter the truth.

All who are in Christ are completely sinless. All who walk by faith are perfected in, with, and through Christ. All are one in, with, and through Christ. For all practical intents and purposes, there is only Christ. Just as when one sees the son, they see the father, so too when one has seen a new creature in Christ, they see Christ, and that is what allows us all to believe.

I have a collection of what I call the Satanic verses of the bible. They're unwritten verses that most Christians see, but are nowhere to be found anywhere in scripture. One of the most prominent is: "All things are possible with God, except keeping His commandments".

 

[marks]

Question! curious if anyone can see the birthing, an act of God totally independent of the sinner doing anything but believing?

Absolutely!

To those who received Him, believing into His Name, these, being given the right to be born of God, were in fact born of God, a newly created being, who shares God's nature, being His child.

Much love!

 

[Joseph77]

Was Jesus being literal when He said that?

Could you be meaning or asking if Jesus was truthful, honest, when He said that ?

 

[Joseph77]

1 John 1:6, 8 and 10 are not Christians.

According to what definitions ?

In other words, what if those references do apply to Christians(by definition) during some centuries and today ? Then what is the main point of the passages: 1 John 1:6, 8 and 10, with all Scripture ?

 

[Steve Owen]

Was Jesus being literal when He said that?

Could you be meaning or asking if Jesus was truthful, honest, when He said that ?

The Lord Jesus was actually alluding to Zechariah 4:7. 'Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubabel you shall become a plain! And he shall bring forth the capstone, with shouts of "Grace, grace to it!"'

Zerubabel never moved a literal mountain. What he did was get the second Temple built, in the face of obstacles that must have seemed to him to be as big as mountains. That is the nature of the promise of our Lord to us.