A non-Christian understanding of the Christian Bible

[badger]

If Iron Man was a morally good person, he would have no reason to fight Jesus. If there was a battle here on Earth, Iron man would probably win. But Jesus is not of this world, his kingdom is heaven. If Iron Man wanted the fight in heaven, he would lose.

Hello Eric, the real Jesus was of this World, he was a man. Well, that's what I believe.
This is our heaven, or our hell, and imagining some future kingdom is ok, it's fun maybe, but I don't think it's there.

Scholars can write a ten thousand word dissertation, but do they have to act on those words. The world is flooded with knowledge and opinions.

Christians can quote ten thousand verses, but how many of them live exactly as Jesus suggested?
All I see is mammon

I was out volunteering with the Street Pastors about 3am this morning. We walked in the middle of an angry drunken brawl, searching for a peaceful outcome. No amount of knowledge could help in such a situation, but having a childlike trust in God is a profound help.

That could be in the UK. We have street pasties here. Are you in the UK?

 

[EricPH]

Perhaps you have a different understanding of what it means to have knowledge or use knowledge, but I would respectfully disagree with your contention.

Before we go out with the Street Pastors, we have a simple prayer. Lord, place in our path the people you need us to see. Lord, help us to do your will, help us and guide us to deal with any situations we encounter. After we place the the night in God's hands, we trust our Lord when he said, "For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Every fight we encounter is an unknown, drinks, drugs, broken bottles and large tools have been used as weapons. We don't know if we are dealing with a psychopath amongst a dozen or more people.

We constantly give thanks to our Lord for all the good things that keep happening. We give glory to God, because we recognise good things happen when we trust in him. The dilemma is choosing between knowledge and a childlike trust in our Lord.

This is my understanding, I am not asking anyone to agree with me, we have been doing this for about eighteen years. My2c

 

[EricPH]

That could be in the UK. We have street pasties here. Are you in the UK?

Yes, we are in Hampshire, and after people called us street pastels, we started giving out fruit pastels. Sometimes when we are in angry situations, we give out a couple of packets, and say share them out with your mates. We have had some interesting outcomes.

 

[badger]

Yes, we are in Hampshire, and after people called us street pastels, we started giving out fruit pastels. Sometimes when we are in angry situations, we give out a couple of packets, and say share them out with your mates. We have had some interesting outcomes.

All very good. I live in Kent.
I have just noticed that my mobile spell-checked my 'pastors' to 'pasties'. Now I would enjoy a pasty!!

There are both 'street' and 'beach' pastors in Whitstable/Herne Bay.

 

[koinonos]

(later) I'm not sure that I know what it means to be saved.

In the parts of the Christian world there is quite a confusion about this. Some think that when they say certain formulas and accept with their faith the Lord, they are "saved". But that is not the salvation. To understand what is salvation, one has to know what is the spiritual regeneration. It is a process, in which a man is putting off his old will and old understanding, and putting on a new man, that is a new will and new undestanding. Thus, instead, of loving himself and the world more than God and the neigbour, a man is gradually assuming the new undertanding with regard to those things, and new will together with those virtues. However, those new true and good things are like the continuous loan from the Lord to a man. And then, when a man lives from that new will and new understading, trying to shun evils as sins against God, then eventually, in the other life, he is saved. The process of that salvation is the separation of everything evil and false that were still harassing men in the world, but because a man has been changed in the world as to his main love of his life, main ruling love, which became love to God and to the neigbour, it is then possible in the other life to separate that new will and new undestanding from the old ones, in such a way that they would not essentially bother a man to eternity. It is not that they are separated as burnt by fire, but they are just put to non-active state, while the active state is of the new will and new understanding.

 

[Longfellow]

In the parts of the Christian world there is quite a confusion about this. Some think that when they say certain formulas and accept with their faith the Lord, they are "saved". But that is not the salvation. To understand what is salvation, one has to know what is the spiritual regeneration. It is a process, in which a man is putting off his old will and old understanding, and putting on a new man, that is a new will and new undestanding. Thus, instead, of loving himself and the world more than God and the neigbour, a man is gradually assuming the new undertanding with regard to those things, and new will together with those virtues. However, those new true and good things are like the continuous loan from the Lord to a man. And then, when a man lives from that new will and new understading, trying to shun evils as sins against God, then eventually, in the other life, he is saved. The process of that salvation is the separation of everything evil and false that were still harassing men in the world, but because a man has been changed in the world as to his main love of his life, main ruling love, which became love to God and to the neigbour, it is then possible in the other life to separate that new will and new undestanding from the old ones, in such a way that they would not essentially bother a man to eternity. It is not that they are separated as burnt by fire, but they are just put to non-active state, while the active state is of the new will and new understanding.

I’m thinking that maybe salvation in the New Testament means freeing us from the sinful side of our nature, so that we can enter God’s kingdom.

 

[Longfellow]

I have an idea of how pie-in-the-sky salvation was substituted in the place of God’s will being done on earth, as what the gospel of Jesus is about. It might have been from the overseers at the end of the first century importing that idea from gnostics or others who were promoting it,

 

[koinonos]

I’m thinking that maybe salvation in the New Testament means freeing us from the sinful side of our nature, so that we can enter God’s kingdom.

In a sense, yes. But it is not possible without our cooperation, thus we need to do our own part, as if by our powers, though in fact it cannot be properly done without the Lord, and as we are doing it, then the Lord is regenerating us, and eventually saves, thus putting the old part as it were to sleep, while we remain in what is "new", in what is His Own with us.

 

[Longfellow]

I wrote this in another thread, about Jesus:
- I accept Him as God and the Son of God, but not in any way that Christians think that means.
- I accept Him as the fulfilment of every OT prophecy that He applies to Himself, but not in any way that Christians think that means.
- I think that believing in Him is the only way to be saved, but that doesn't mean the same thing to me that it means to any Christians.

Someone said that it looked intriguing to them, so I decided to write about it.
- I think of Him as the presence of God in the same way that some other figures were in the OT. More than that, I think of Him as having all the power and authority of God that there is in the world. Whatever He says is God saying it. Whatever He does is God doing it. That might sound like a Christian belief, but I don't think that He is God in any physical way.
- I think of Him as the Son of God in the sense of being the king that God promised to David, saying "I will be his father and he will be my son." I think of it as an analogy, like a King's son ruling in his place. I don't think that he is God's son in any physical way.
- I think of Him as acting out the role of the suffering servant, like Ezekiel acting out the subjugation of Israel by foreign powers.
- I think of Paul saying that He paid a ransom to redeem us as meaning that His death was like a ransom paid by Israel to free a child of Abraham from captivity so they could return to the kingdom. It played a role somehow in freeing us from captivity to the sinful side of our nature, so that we can enter His kingdom.
- I'm not sure that I know what salvation means. Maybe freedom from slavery to the sinful side of our nature. Whatever it is, I think that it happens when people see God in Jesus, and for that reason want to serve and obey Him as God's regent, learning together to live the way He says to live. Of course that isn't possible in a literal way for most people, but I think that something equivalent to that can happen to anyone, if God so chooses.

 

[Longfellow]

I forgot to say what I think about Trinity doctrine. God is telling us to consider what Jesus and the Holy Spirit say and do as Him, God, saying and doing it, but that doesn't mean that they are the same person as Him or as each other. "Three distinct persons" doesn't mean that the Father and the Holy Spirit are persons in any way that would mean in any other context. It doesn't mean that they are distinct from each other in any way that would mean in any other context. It's just an awkward way of saying that no two of them are the same person even though together they are one God. Also, it isn't actually saying anything about their common essence. I think that I'm in agreement about that with at least one of the people who signed the creed at the first council, although they did have to agree that it is not physical, for all of them to sign it.