[valley]

Has anyone noticed the popular view of biblical christianity these days? Kinda its hard to miss, lol. If you promote the gospel of Christ you are considered an intellectual lowbrow, basically. We are thought of as misguided at best and nutcases at worst. Either way...terms like "ignorant" "illogical" and "mindless" are attached to us to discredit and ridicule us in front of other people. No wonder so many christians refuse to preach the gospel in its pure form. We run around trying to sugar-coat it because it embarrasses us and makes us look foolish. And how many "wise" people do we hear saying "hey, thats ok....thats your truth. Good for you...you're welcome to your foolish version of religion, your foolish perspective...to your silly and simple story of a crucified Jew. Thats your truth and thats fine...but it aint mine!"

Well then we have a problem...because salvation comes only through a belief in that very gospel. No gospel, no salvation. The exclusivness of it has always been an embarrassing message to proclaim to sinners. But the truth is the truth.....I dont care about the finer points of theology or how bad it makes me look...I care about the gospel of Christ and the message of the Cross. One God...one gospel...one way to heaven, and that is through Jesus Christ. You arent getting there because you are smart enough to find your own way. You dont get there by spending lots of money on charity or sending sick children to disneyland. You get there by believing in Him who died for your sins. Gods terms, not yours. I bet that really sticks in people's craw. How dare God tell us what to do! No no no....we dont want that God....we want our own god...one that is what we want him to be. I want a god that gives me virgins when I die...I want a god that lets me cheat on my taxes. I want a god that will overlook my drug addiction, a god that lets me curse and swear..a god that doesnt ask a thing of me! I want a god that will let a woman push her husband around and a god that tells the man that that is perfectly normal. I want...I want...I want...sinful demands made by sinful people, nothing more nothing less. And then we wonder why we have no peace, no joy, no contentment in our lives.

But I am getting off track here....I am wondering...what do other Christians here think about the Cross? Why is it that we never talk about it to people? We certainly promote a very unattractive picture dont we? I mean...it does shock people. That roman soldiers executed the God of the universe on a cross like a common criminal really offends our rational minds. It offends the pride we carry for having the gift of reasoning that puts us above that kind of savagery. That people could do that is really embarrassing.

The pure straightforward gospel is hard enough for people to believe as it is but then you have the people who promote it, who are common people! Oh my! hard to believe that God could use someone like a cook, a garbage man, a mechanic or a even a housewife to spread His word and not someone powerful and mighty in the media that the world looks up to for their dashing good looks, fat wallets, success and above-average intelligence. Look at the apostle Paul..he found out the hard way. By the time he finished his missionary journeys, he's been whipped, beaten, thrown in prison, chased out of one place, laughed at, stoned and made a fool of. He had plenty of reason to keep his mouth shut and to feel ashamed but he never once considered changing the gospel to stroke people's egos. He never sat back and said "oh...well here is my opinion...and...and..I certainly do apologize if it bothers you in any way..." He declared it without apology or compromise. If only I could be that bold! But i'm not...certainly not in my face to face discussions with both believers and unbelievers. But I sure know people who are...praise God for the work that they do!

So why do we do it, Christians? If Paul put up with all of that...and here we are sitting comfy and cozy in a country where we have the right and the freedom to say anything that we want...then why are we so ashamed to share the gospel?

I think the major thing that bothers people about the gospel is that it is so confrontational. It exposes man all for what he really is. It ignores how bad it makes him feel and offers no comfort when it comes to the struggle of being human. It goes to the profound and eternal issue of the fact that we are eternally damned and desperately need to be rescued. Thats a hard thing to tell someone who thinks he is wise enough to figure it out on his own. Maybe thats why we dont say anything...because we want to fit in and be liked by people? I dont know...I know I have my own reasons but I am wondering what other christians reasons are, is all.

So...last point about wisdom....God has established that no one could ever come to know Him by human wisdom. The only way anyone can know God is by divine revelation (scripture) and through the Holy Spirit. The final word on human wisdom in the scriptures is that its all nonsense. Man, by his own powers of reasoning, cannot know God. Why not? because man's heart and mind is pitiful compared to God's and is blinded by sin and unrighteousness. So how does man know God? lol....easy...through the foolishness of the message that is preached. Jeremiah 8:9 "the wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord; so what wisdom do they have?"

1 cor. 1:18 "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God"

v 21 "through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who are lost."

vv 23-24 "we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews, a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."

...so there is only one message and men are only tools for delivering the message but the message doesnt come from them, it comes from God. My beliefs arent my foolishness but the foolishness of the gospel. And I have to tell you...I feel pretty good having the apostle Paul as my brother in Christ. Yes..I am sometimes embarrassed at how foolish I must look to people who dont believe but i'm still not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. Why should I be?

[RandyG]

Sorry, I couldn't resist!!

RandyG climbs up on recently vacated soapbox . . .

I am not going to belittle your belief. I respect your belief. I do not believe in it, nor do I respect the audacity of one of the world's "youngest" religions dictating that it is correct, and all of the others are wrong.

Your gospel is "true" to you and those who believe. using your own logic, I am going to have to say that the Scripture you quote is just as fallible as Man, as man is the author, whether divinely inspired or not. His pathetically abysmal brain (compared with an entity who is purported to be Omniscient) can not comprehend, nor translate what the Almighty really means.

The Omniscient and Omnipotent entity you describe as your God is not the Omniscient and Omnipotent entity I call my God. They might well and truly be the same entity, but since my understanding, and your understanding, is limited by that entities will, why would you insist your perception is better than mine?? Because you do not question what was written by Men hundreds of years ago, and follow it blindly?

I never thought of Fervently religious folk as lowbrow, ignorant, nor illogical. Mindless is close, but not a nice term, as that denotes no thought at all. "Lemmings by choice" is a better term. you are taught not to question, because His will is too great for us to understand, but then you denigrate every other religion on Earth as wrong, and offer nothing more than your belief.

Why is your belief more important than mine? I happen to think I am right. You happen to think you are right. the simple truth of the matter is, we are both going to be more wrong than right, because of our limited understanding and comprehension. We will not know the truth, until we are dead, and if we are wrong about an afterlife, we won't even know it then.


Love ya Val, and I hope this thread doesn't go down in flames!

[LANMaster]

* LAN lights a match *





j/k

[valley]

Originally posted by RandyG:
the simple truth of the matter is, we are both going to be more wrong than right, because of our limited understanding and comprehension. We will not know the truth, until we are dead, and if we are wrong about an afterlife, we won't even know it then.

Randy...what purpose do you think the Holy Spirit has on this earth?

Love ya Val, and I hope this thread doesn't go down in flames!

and I loves ya right back...thanks for the high hopes for this thread ...but trust me...its was doomed before it began. I knew it, but just had to do it anyways.

[valley]

Originally posted by LANMaster:
* LAN lights a match *

lol...you're on a roll today, you troublemaker!

[eggplant43]

Did you hear the one about the dyslexic, insomniac, Agnostic?

He stayed up all night wondering if there is a Dog?

[oldie]

Oldie is watching and waiting in the wings

Brave post Val, and refreshing to see a Lady starting a thread in CivDeb

May we shout at you

Oldie

[RandyG]

Originally posted by valley:
Randy...what purpose do you think the Holy Spirit has on this earth?

See, there ya go!!

I'm not Christian!! I don't believe in your Holy Spirit. That is just one part of the Triumvirate that Christians call God.

[valley]

Hey Bruce...how many Atheists does it take to change a lightbulb?

None! Atheists never "see the light" anyways.

[valley]

Originally posted by oldie:
Oldie is watching and waiting in the wings

you're probably not the only one..

May we shout at you

umm...only if it makes you feel better.

[eggplant43]

Originally posted by valley:
Hey Bruce...how many Atheists does it take to change a lightbulb?

None! Atheists never "see the light" anyways.

Oh, I think atheist's see the light. It's just not the light you're seeing

[LANMaster]

Originally posted by valley:
lol...you're on a roll today, you troublemaker!

I'm makin' lots of trouble today.

[ComputerFix]

trying soo hard not to get too tangled up in the "faith threads" again, but Valley, just wanted to give you some food for thought on this phrase...

So...last point about wisdom....God has established that no one could ever come to know Him by human wisdom. The only way anyone can know God is by divine revelation (scripture) and through the Holy Spirit.

I was brought up in a fairly lax religious home, which is to say I was not required to attend church every Sunday, and my parents did so sporadically at best. That being said, clear into my early teens my faith was fairly simple. God exists, He brought Jesus to our world to help us evolve in living and thinking. (basically, be nice to people, my life is given so you can now start "clean"). He was born on Xmas, but not really, but thats ok, date not important in relation to message.

Pretty simple.

Where did that come from? Couldn't tell you. It was always there, I could not "prove" these thoughts, but also could not explain how they came about. They were simply there.

It was not until my mid-teens on up that the "details" were of issue. The Bible. Frequent church attendance. Specific stories, true or untrue? Etc., etc. Do you know why these supposed issues came about? Other people. Other people, faithful or not, challenging me to accept all or accept none, their stance really didn't matter. It was as if it was a mission for man to say "That's not good enough, we want you to believe more, or you are not faithful".

So you say I can only know God thru scripture? Absolutely not! I "knew God" from my earliest memories without ever reading a single word from any book, regardless of title or "origin". I believe that this is, in fact, by design. My faith was as automatic as breathing. It was man, not God, who said "you have to believe more". Man, almost exclusively Christian, have done more to rattle my faith than I, or any athiest/agnostic, could have ever done.

Now, hopefully I didn't ruffle anyones feathers on this, as I do not mean to. It is precisely that reason that I try to keep "me" out of these threads, but "me" is likely more than one person, so maybe it will pull another out of the wings as well.

P.S.- Love the Atheist joke, and glad to see you hopping back in full swing again.

[GoneForNow]

Ahem......
From another thread:

Originally posted by Valley
GB...I've changed my ways and am a new woman! Scouts honor! No more brawling for me...but that doesnt mean I have to roll over and play dead either.

I'm forced to say........LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!

Valley we once have this discussion, how religion is a personal matter between you and God not you, God and every other unfortunate soul you happened to come across.

Its called proselytizing and it can become annoying.

[eggplant43]

Nothing comes between me, and my relationship with God. There is God's law, and man's law. It's easy for me to choose which one to follow.