12:02 AM
@Aigle I have found some interesting doctrinal work from the Vineyard churches, even though I have also found that they are not about dogma. (Anti dogma, even). That makes this IMO a tricksy question to answer for anyone (me included) not involved in that ministry or that specific community.
@LeeWoofenden Thanks, Lee. If nothing else, this question has introduced me to a fascinating association of churches. It touches me personally since we live not to far from a Calvary Chapel(who vineyard was once linked to, back in the 70's) where the infamous Hannah Overton, and her husband, was a member of the congregation.
12 hours later…
12:01 PM
2 hours later…
1:44 PM
2
I have practically no experience with Latin, but from what I understand Aurora Borealis roughly means northern dawn, and Aurora Australis roughly means southern dawn. What would be the equivalent way to say Christmas dawn? Would it be either Aurora Natalis or Aurora Natalicus, or am I way off the...
2 hours later…
3:53 PM
3
According to the Reformers, man is saved by faith alone in Christ alone, through grace alone, and not by any works- anything they can do. Consider the following passage from Luke. Luke 10:25–28 (NASB) And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit...
This is a fine example of how Protestant theologians negate Jesus' own clear teaching in favor of their misinterpretation of Paul's teaching. Jesus did not say, "Do this perfectly and you will live." He said, "Do this and you will live." Only by adding words to what Jesus said can you make him say what Protestant theologians twist his words to mean.
@KorvinStarmast "Hearsay, gossip, and rumor make a poor basis for a question at SE" Symbolism ,form/shape of an artwork,The history of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_antiquity Is not rumors!Anything but rumors
5:13 PM
@Aigle Aigle, the wiki link to classical history does not have the word pagan on the entire page. If you don't care for the SE standards, and meeting them, it's worth understanding that it takes a good question to get a good answer. Poor questions, or more precisely, poorlyo presented questions, get closed and/or down voted. That's how it works on ANY Stack Exchange site. The SE sites are not discussion forums. The
@Aigle The SE model has been worked on for a distinct purpose: to keep the signal to noise ration high, which is unlike most of the internet. Unless the community maintains SE standards, then the quality will degrade and the site will degenerate into the usual internet noise. That is why people take the time and effort to encourage improvement in questions and answers, and to adhere to standards.
@Aigle What is asked of all participants is to care enough to meet/maintain standards. (I edit my own questions and answers a lot, sometimes when I notice something sloppy, sometimes when I get feedback from any of the other members. As Andrew said in the comment yesterday, don't take offense. Quality is a community norm here, hence my comments to you on improving writing/presentation of your input. We care about quality.
3 hours later…
8:41 PM
@anonymouswho Taking interest in the classification as Unitarian. If interested I would like see if my belief fits within this structure. Or if a better classification even exists for what I believe.
I believe that the entity God (when not speaking) breaths and that breath has the current label Spirit.
I believe that all that does exist was made from nothing and then "his words" spoke into a nothing, and that everything then is made up of his words.
I believe that if I have nothing and add something to it, that what sits in the nothing, is that something.
The computer ram holds the nothing, then the programming language activates into the nothing and the operating system then "as words" activates the environmental settings.
Continuing with the computer analogy, I believe that we are a form of "artificial intelligence" built into the operating system.
He hears the input and output of the artificial life and then modifies the environmental settings according to the programs result.
Placing myself in a position of a programmer of an artificial life, and noticing that the artificial life continues to delete itself.
The program "also made of words" gets placed into the operating system in similarity of form to an artificial life object.
Since the anti-virus program completes the goal of the programmer, he sends all the artificial life into the anti-virus software.
The anti-virus software says, "send signals to the processor like this", and since this goal matches that of the programmer he sets the anti-virus software as the king.
However, and this is important, the exact format of how to say it came "directly from the programmer".
And explains that if only one program gives output, then the processor will receive the command. Therefore meaning "born of the breath".
That the "Son of God" specifically defines the object of the antivirus program, and that of what was said "directly from the programmer".
9:46 PM
@Andrew But back to the point, if that's what Jesus meant, why didn't he actually say it? Why did it have to wait for Paul, and then another 1,500 years for the Protestant Reformation, before anyone could understand what Jesus meant? Is Jesus really that bad a teacher? Is Paul a better teacher than Jesus? Are Luther and Calvin better teachers than Jesus and Paul?
10:09 PM
@LeeWoofenden Certainly, if you do the Law, then no fault will be found in you and you will have life.
11:00 PM
@Andrew That's not what James meant, as his examples make clear. A person who thinks it's wrong to murder, but doesn't think it's wrong to commit adultery, has no respect for the entire law, because s/he thinks s/he can decide which laws to keep and which to break.
James does not mean that if you commit one minor sin, you're just as guilty as if you broke every law in the Ten Commandments. He means that if you think it's perfectly okay to break one of the Ten Commandments, you have no respect for the Ten Commandments as a whole, and you are a lawbreaker.
Keep in mind that this is his preamble to saying that we are justified by our works, and not by faith alone. It would be nonsensical to argue that James is arguing that good works have nothing to do with salvation. He says precisely the opposite just a few verses later.
Nowhere does James say that we must be perfectly sinless in order to be saved. In fact, one of his examples of a person who was justified by her works is Rahab the prostitute--who certainly was not perfectly sinless, considering her profession.
This is yet another example of Protestants misreading everything else in the Bible due to their misunderstanding of Paul.
@Andrew Be aware that the word "point" ("one point") in the KJV and various other translations of James 2:10 is not in the original Greek. The obvious antecedent is "law," so that it should be translated, "but offends in one law." The next verse makes it clear that James is talking about breaking a law, not breaking one (minor) point of the law.
The general idea is, "If you keep most of the (major) laws, but you break one of them, you're going to jail as a lawbreaker."
11:18 PM
"nevertheless we know that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified."(Romans 8:33, italics added)
@Andrew Right. Being an observant Jew will not justify and save a person. That has become such a basic principle of nearly all of Christianity that present-day Christians don't understand what Paul's argument was. Because at the time Paul made the argument, there were Jewish Christians in Jerusalem who said that you do need to keep the Law. And today there are Messianic Jews who also say that you do need to keep the Law.
@Andrew Nope. Both Paul and James teach that doing good deeds is necessary for salvation. Read Romans 2. Paul does not contradict himself.
@Andrew What Paul never says is that we will be justified by faith alone, or that we will live by faith alone. That is the fundamental error of Protestantism. They have added alone in many places where the Bible simply does not say alone. And James 2:24 is conclusive on that point. It is the one place where "alone" is added to "faith," and in that one place it is explicitly rejected.
11:31 PM
@LeeWoofenden No, working will not save a person. In the most definitive soteriological statement in the whole of the New Testament, Paul says "God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)
, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
11:40 PM
And Paul continues: for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, there is not even one."
@Andrew And you are a much harsher judge than Jesus, who says in Matthew 25:31-46 that those who do good works for their fellow human beings in need will go to eternal life.
@Andrew This verse is talking about the general corruption of Israel. But in a larger sense, no, on our own there is none who does good. Only God is good. We have no power to do good on our own. But with God in us, we have God's power to do good within us. And the good deeds we do from God are what justify us.
11:48 PM
@Andrew Being united with Christ isn't just a matter of faith. It's a matter of love, faith, works, and many other things. Christ doesn't have faith alone either. When we are in Christ, we are in Christ not only with our head, but with our heart and our hands as well. There is no "faith alone" in Christ, and "faith alone" does not bring us into Christ.
@LeeWoofenden Paul is clear that those who are in Christ are already in him, and have been included in him, chosen in him before the foundation of the world. It is because we are in him that we trusted, having heard the good news of our salvation. We were already saved even before we stopped sinning.
@Andrew Throughout the New Testament. Jesus says that if we love him, we will keep his commandments. And his commandment is to love one another. And he makes clear what that means in many places, especially including Matthew 25:31-46. We can't be in Christ if we don't love him. And we can't love him if we don't keep his commandments. And his central commandments are to love God above all, and love our neighbor as ourselves.
« first day (1864 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (2777 days later) »