rhetorician

@Lambie: OK, I think I understand the way you re-phrased your last comment. Yeah, I think I agree with jsw29's comment. Don

@jsw29: I understand what you are saying--I think! If you turn your comment into an answer, I'll likely upvote your answer. Don

@Lambie: I'm not saying that I can accord myself dignity and then in turn treat you with dignity. Dignity is something a person has or possesses, and when I recognize it, I let the person know that I recognize it, particularly by the way I treat them. Again, as I've said to other commenters, the meaning of the phrase is kind of evanescent. Once you--really, I--have it, it evaporates. Don

@Barmar: I agree with you, at least partly. Saying that what people mean when they say things the way they do, seems to relegate meaning to non-meaning. Frankly, I understand perfectly what a person means when they say "I treat people with dignity." I would not correct or person or think less of them for saying it. Maybe my question is more appropriate for a philosophy website on Stack Exchange. Don

@Barmar: Good point. Thanks for the comment. However, you'have changed the wording significantly. Don

@NuclearHoagie: We'll need to agree to disagree, agreeably I hope. My point of view makes sense in an evanescent fashion. The concept is the kind that is hard to explain, but it makes sense--again, in an evanescent moment. At least that has been my experience. Don

@FumbleFingers; I assure you, it's not a "peeve". I really would like to know why people say it the way they do. I already know that the people who are saying it think they know what they mean, but I'm not sure it means that. I'm not offended by your downvote--or anyone's downvote, for that matter, so I'll wait patiently for someone to provide an answer that makes sense to me. Don

I recommend viewing a humorous video, here: video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/… Don

With your anti-Trinitarian views, you are making a mockery of Scripture. Your faulty presupposition is to blame. By the way, I'm willing to have my iron sharpened by a truth-teller, but not by a false teacher. Seems to me you like the sparks of conflict but are not willing to be sharpened.

Ad hominems? I think not. I'm simply calling a spade a spade. A false teacher is a false teacher and is deserving of a rebuke. Jesus existed eternally as God the Son. As for his being the Lamb of God, he was the Lamb of God who was slain from the foundation of the earth. In other words, his death was a fait accompli from all eternity.

Frankly, I suspect that a "Christian" who suggests Jesus is something less than fully God cannot be a Christian.

Your modus operandi on the Stack Exchange is one of the seven things God hates and finds detestable: ". . . a person who stirs up conflict in the community" (Proverbs 6:19b), or, ". . . one who spreads [or sends out] strife among brothers (NASB 1995).

ARE you a Johnny One Note who takes delight in foisting your clearly unbiblical view on those Christians who believe that Jesus is and forever will be God in the flesh? Seems so to me.

@OneGodtheFather: I assume that you find some ideas to be heretical. If so, what might they be? I surmise that in your opinion the notion that Jesus is co-equal with God the Father is heretical. Your moniker on the Stack Exchange suggests to me that you have a hobby horse that you ride to death.

@OneGodtheFather: I crafted a new conclusion in my answer. Thought you should know. Don

@OneGodtheFather: You make some good points. I'll give you that. To me, your comment about 1600 years of repression sounds a bit conspiratorial. Cards on the table: With which of the following belief systems do you most closely identify?: Mormonism (Latter-day Saints), Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Armstrongism, Christadelphians, Oneness Pentecostals, Unification Church, Unity School of Christianity, Scientology (Dianetics). (learnreligions.com/…)

@OneGodtheFather: You mean Thomas's words ("My Lord and my God")? Quite simply, Thomas recognized who Jesus was upon seeing him resurrected; namely, his Lord and his God. I get the feeling, my friend, there is nothing, no line of reasoning, not even 2000 years of church history, that will shake your belief that Jesus is not fully God. Am I correct in this? Don

@OneGodtheFather: For me, the word "God" in Col 1:15 brings to mind the name of God that was given to Moses; namely, YHWH, or Yahweh ("I am that I am"). It also brings to mind the many compound names of God (e.g., Jehovah Jireh, Elohim, El Elyon, Adonia, El Olam, Rapha, Nissi, MakaddeshKem, Shalom, Shaphat, Sabaoth, Zidkenu, Raah, Hosenu, Gibbor, Jah Jehovahm, Shammah, and more!) Oh, by the way, you'll have to forgive "Doubting Thomas," who when he felt the wounds of Jesus in a post-resurrection appearance proclaimed with great exuberance, "My Lord and my God."

@OneGodtheFather: Uh, I don't think I have "image of God" as equal to "image of the Father." Paul makes clear in Romans 8 and elsewhere, "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters" (v. 29). Believers bear the image of God in our having been created to be rational, emotional, volitional, and moral creatures. Once born again, believers through the process of sanctification are being conformed to the image of Christ. That image is a melding of Christ's character into our humanity.

If a woman does "take matters into her own hands," so to speak, she will know if God is not pleased if she starts growing hair on the palm of the offending hand. There is a biblical reference to this phenomenon in Hezekiah 16:4-6.

I suggest you start with the word "incomprehensible" and go to wordhippo.com to see what synonyms the elephant gives you for that word. Don

How 'bout "cheek by jowl"?

@SvenYargs: The words of Jesus from Matthew 5:45 (viz., "It rains on the just and on the unjust") aren't even close to being equivalent to the Persian proverb. In context, Jesus' words have to do with God's goodness, not blind fate. Christians are to love and pray for their enemies and persecutors in light of how God, in his goodness, provides a good thing, such as rain, to both the just and the unjust alike. Perhaps Abraham's intercession for the city of Sodom is more apropos: "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?" (See Genesis 18.)

True enough!

Sure, Dick. I don't mind deleting my comments. Have a good night, wherever you are! Don

Writing something and then claiming an apostle wrote it when that is in fact not the truth is called lying. Good Christians aren't supposed to lie or bear false witness, right?

Yeah, Dick, you make a good point. I may just do as you suggest. By the way, I bear no ill will toward you. By the way, have you ever read anything by John R.W. Stott?

I hate to resort to analogy, but if I get a love letter from someone who claims to be my wife, I want to be dam sure that she is the one who wrote it and not some imposter who is trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

Well, I AM suggesting ways to improve what you're trying to say, and that is by at least recognizing that a good portion of Christians worldwide stake their lives on the belief that the Scriptures are canonical and trustworthy, IN PART because the men whose names are attached to the books actually wrote them.

No one goes to hell for not believing 2 Peter isn't God's inspired word, nor does one go to hell for believing Isaiah isn't one book and wasn't written just by Isaiah. What sends one to hell is rejecting Jesus as one's rescuer from sin and the boss of one's life.

Faith is needed, either way. Whether one believe 2 Peter is canonical or is not canonical, faith sustains that belief. Faith, however, is only as good as its object. If the object is unreliable, inaccurate, pseudepigraphical, well, is the faith good?

Careful study is good. In fact, careful study is very good. We all, myself included, approach our study of the Bible with preconceived ideas, presuppositions, and assumptions. Some are good, some are definitely bad, and some are relatively harmless. Which is which? This side of heaven we just cannot be 100 percent sure.

I'm reminded of Jesus' words, when he said, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."

which leads to destruction is also slippery. The point is, we all choose the road we take. Simply calling oneself a Christian does not make one a Christian. As the old wag said, "When we get to heaven, we'll be surprised both by who IS there and who is NOT there"!

By God-breathed, I do not mean--and say, as do many well-meaning but simpleminded Christians today, "The Bible is literally the word of God." I do, however, see the potential danger in picking and choosing (based on ultimately untenable presuppositions) what is God's word and what is not. I hate to resort to the tired argument (but it does have biblical precedence) of the "slippery slope," but Jesus said in effect that the broad road

You're right. I do have something on my chest. Well, actually, it is deep within my chest, and it's called a heart. I believe with all my heart that the 66 books of the Judeo-Christian Bible (yes, I know the Tanakh contains only 23 books, since they are categorized differently from the way our English Bible categorizes them) are God-breathed in the original manuscripts. Rest assured, I'm not a wooden literalist. I do, after all, have a Ph.D. in Rhetorical Theory from a reputable university.

). Well, that's all for today, Dick. We'll meet again soon in THE future, I'm sure. Have a great day--what's left of it, that is, as you are six(?) hours ahead of me (it's 1:22, Eastern Standard Time).

Nicodemus, an intelligent and highly religious dude blanched when Jesus talked about the necessity of being born again (the words "born again" may be put into the category of "formulaic Christian acknowledgments" but they are words which are straight from Jesus' mouth--that is, if we are to believe that John was an accurate historian and transcriber of Jesus' words, or in higher-critical perspective IF John was actually the writer of the Gospel which bears his name!

In conclusion, then, I suggest that folks who treat the Bible as simply religious literature and nothing else are very much like the hangers-on in Jesus' day. And, to be blunt, if they have not been regenerated (born from above, born again), how can Christians expect them truly to comprehend what this new birth is all about?

There were many followers and hangers-on in Jesus day who were attracted to his words, his authority, and his miracles. They believed Jesus, but unlike Jesus' true disciples, they did not believe in Jesus--enough, anyway to allow his message to change their lives.

understanding something in ones head (i.e., intellectually) is one thing. Understanding and believing something in one's heart is quite another. In fact, I suggest the longest or greatest distance from one point to another in this vast universe of ours, is the 18 inches (21.6 cm) from brain to heart.

And speaking of the Holy Spirit, I do believe that if a person is not indwelt (uh-oh, Christian jargon strikes again) by God's Holy Spirit, the things of God cannot truly make sense to him or her; they are like a foreign language, so to speak. Oh, folks can understand the Bible as literature, and they can deconstruct it as they would a novel by Charles Dickens, but

Do I "work on it"? Of course. My work, however, is not a "pull myself up by my bootstraps" kind of work. It's also a process, a progressive process. Call it gradual transformation, if you will.

In summary, then, I, along with you, am wary of and avoid using "formulaic Christian acknowledgments." As for the acknowledgment that I am a sinner, well, the truth is, I am. It's not something I'm proud of, but it's a reality I deal with on a day-to-day basis.

"Technical" biblical terms and concepts such as regeneration, sanctification, atonement, reconciliation, and so many more, simply do not register with non-Christians, let alone make sense to them. Jesus, when speaking to the crowds, used simple words, simple concepts, simple parables (stories), and he didn't (as far as we know) drone on for hour upon hour when speaking publicly.

One of my personal "bugs" is the expression "accept Jesus Christ as your own personal Savior and Lord." Instead of "Savior and Lord" I suggested to my class that "rescuer and boss" might be better adapted to and understood by non-Christ-followers. And so it goes.

I detect in your tone (which is "between the lines" in your missives) that you are dead set against "formulaic Christian acknowledgments." Frankly, I do not blame you, should my observation be at least somewhat accurate. Just this past Sunday, I was discussing with my class the idea that when Christ followers interact with non-Christ-followers, that they tone down on "Christian jargon" and "the language of Zion," which are two ways of referring to Christian gobbledygook.

Oops! "In order to be honest . . .." Facts, too, will always be filtered through a grid, and that grid is subject to all kinds of influences, biases, and the like. Maybe I'd better move on . . ..

Of course, honesty itself is a pretty slippery salmon. When we think we're being honest, we may not in fact be honest. Then there's the ol' communication bugaboo, in which our symbolic map simply does not match the territory. To be honest, one first has to have a pretty firm grasp on facts, which is a difficult thing in and of itself, given our shortcomings as fact gatherers.

Hi, Dick: Rest assured you have not "overstepped the mark." I frequently tell my daughter, "Sweetie, you can tell me anything, as long as it's the truth; failing that (because not all things require absolute truth), just be honest."