Ish, I understand you parrot the church mandated interpretation of the lesson of the rich man and his money, but they are wrong if the following premises are true.

1. Jesus never advocated that a man should work to earn a living.
2. Jesus never taught that man should save money or invests wisely.
3. Jesus never taught that a man should provide for his family.
4. Jesus taught that a man should have no concern for his family.
5. Jesus taught that a man should put other believers in higher esteem then his own family.
6. Jesus never taught to give a percentage to a church or good works.
7. Jesus made more than 2-3 references that having money is bad.
8. Paul taught to join a commune and give all to the commune to share equally.
9. Every reference in the New Testament referring to money was a teaching against the accumulation or savings, or use for your own purpose; or had some other negative intent in regards to money.
10. Jesus advocated that men should walk away from their living and care not for what tomorrow brings, as God will feed them as he does the birds.
11. Jesus taught that all rich men could not enter heaven as it is impossible for a camel to pass throught the eye of a needle. He made it clear that he meant all rich men rather than "that" rich man he used as an example, by using the words “than for a rich man to enter heaven…” rather than “than for “that” rich man to enter…”

It is clear Jesus taught of the impossibility for all who are Rich to enter heaven. So don’t candy coat it with your church mumblings… come up with something on your own, we’ve all read your Bible and the official church interpretations. Show us something we missed if you can. Before you do, you will need to start using your mind in a creative way instead of in a Xerox xian fashion.


Would you care for another Bible lesson?



[This message has been edited by critical thinking made ez (edited May 21, 2001).]

I don't have time to respond to much more of trash talking. I don't parrot other's stuff, CTME. I do my own thinking and my own research. Look around at some of my past posts in this forum and I think you'll see that.

Perhaps your problem is that you don't want Christianity to exist like it does. You seem to simply be afraid of Christianity. With that frame of mind, I doubt you want to objectively look at the facts. You can't because it would ruin your incorrect perceptions of what Christianity and Christians are like.

The way I read the rich man incident is correct and not simply church dogma. Also, I don't believe Jesus ever said it was "impossible" for a rich person to get into heaven as you said. He simply stated how hard it was. Once again, Jesus is obviously referring to the kind of person who puts money first in his life (kinda like the premise of this thread...).

Once again, if you're going to teach Bible lessons, CTME, you need to understand the Bible. If you notice, there are also verses that talk about the unbeliever not necessarily being able to understand. Imagine that!

Regardless, this will be my last post on the topic unless and until someone wants to be a little more objective toward and cordial to Christians, not always assuming the worst.

Ish

Let's see, I need an argument for people who
don't believe all my rhetoric about this new
religion... think think think... oh yeah, I
got it "There will be unbelievers who are
not able to understand". That's it! That's
what I'll say.

Ludicrous.

Here's a little excerpt showing why my ancestors (Native American) had cause to
be afraid of Christianity and don't exactly
feel cordial to them... remember, "Do unto others"....

Pope Clement VI, in a papal bull Intra arcana written in 1529 to Charles V, wrote:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kosh:
This line, which is pretty common among Christians when trying tell people why they
should give, has always struck me as a falacy and a bit of a contradiction.

Basically, you're asking people to adopt the
attitude that they shouldn't care so much
about money, and be willing to give it to
the Church. Then you follow it with a "but
when you give, you'll get it back with interest", which immediately appeals the
the subconsious greed of people. IT's a promise that by giving money to God (which
you're not supposed to care about - the money
that is) God will somehow make you financially more successful. Doesn't this strike you as odd?

It's not that you aren't supposed to care about money, it's having a generous heart that says God and other people are more important. It's not a black and white thing where either you are greedy or are completely and blissfully impoverished. Tithing is God's way of teaching us to have a balance.

There's a parable about the talents where several servents were given differing ammounts of talents (money) on invested and made a profit, another dug a hole and burried it. The person who invested wisely was commended and because did well when he was trusted with a little, he was then trusted with more. The person who didn't do well with a little, what he had was taken away.

As for the promise of return if you give contradiction... this is common to other areas of our walk with God too. Obey your parents and you'll live a long life... Forgive and you will be forgiven... Believe in Jesus and you'll go to heaven. The promise isn't necessarily to instill wrong motives, but faith and hope when it's difficult to what we know is right.

Also, I've never quite figured out how it is *financially* that you get it back with interest? If you're talking about the tax
break for charities, well, you only deduct
a percentage, and besides that's the Gov
helping you out there ( ;-) ). If you're
talking about benefits of being a part of
the "Good ol' boy" network of fellow Christians (epitomized by the Mormans),
then that's another thing, but not exactly
from God.

I don't consider tax money from God. It's not a 'check' from heaven that we get, it's our NEEDS which are met despite not having the funds we would have had if we weren't tithing. If two people have equal paychecks and one tithes and the other doesn't, the person who doesn't has more spending money for bills, entertainment etc. Often times we give out of Faith that we'll have enough to afford the things we want or need... and we do and then some! That's the blessing.

Can you give me examples of how it is your
tithing is being paid back to you (financially) with interest? Does God base
it off the prime rate? :-)

Perhaps you can give me an "epitomal" example?


Cute play on my username.

As for personal examples... I don't know where to start. We tithe regularly and our lives are full of financial blessings. Here are just a few ways that, because we tithe we would not have been able to afford higher monthly payments but 'coincidentally' things just fell into place. (In other words, we believe that God arranged it)

We found a house which cost us much less than market and was PERFECT for what we needed and where. We put first the needs of the church to have a large living room for a home group in a certain location and despite the tight market in that area, we found a house the people had marked down numerous times... when we found it, it was at a price we could afford.

There was a problem with the stucco outside that we knew about and had plans to fix at some point when we could save enough. A year and a half after we moved in, because of our great location and their need to advertise in this area, a very repitable siding company came to us with a great deal. We had done comparisons and the price was about 1/2-1/3 of what the others quoted us, which we couldn't afford. Siding was the best option, but we WERE going to go with just patching the loose stucco... Now we have improved the value of our home for a cost we never could have dreamed about.

Those are two of the biggies that have impacted our financial situation in the last couple of years. There were a few smaller money ammounts which have come our way through unexpected bonuses and a teaching job I didn't even TRY to get but just came to me. We have consider ourselves very blessed and give thanks to God for all we have... and we continue to give both a tithe and in offerings and 'alms' - or charities so that we can help to bless others.

Some of my friends have more drastic examples as to how their lives changed after they began tithing both in their attitude towards God and money AND their financial situation. But those are all second hand experiences and I don't know if I remember all the details...

I post this fully knowing the skeptics will all say none of our blessings were from God, it was all luck or chance. But timing and prayer makes it more probable in my mind to give me faith that God influenced these situations...

Epitome

Ok, I have to answer this. They were wrong, Kosh. I have a great dislike for how they went about that.

I'm going to be a hair politically incorrect here and say that I doubt that your people were always completely innocent. Settlers were slaughtered too. Can you prove to me that those settlers always provoked your ancestors into killing them? Should I hold you personally responsible because your ancestors possibly killed or maimed some of my ancestors? Well, I wouldn't, because there were more than likely "bad apples" on both sides. Please don't label all Christians by the ones who obviously got it wrong.

I'm not particularly proud of the way that Europeans butted into the Native American's land, but then I can't do anything about that because it is in the past...

I get tired of having examples from a world away and hundreds of years in the past thrown in my face. These kinds of examples are reverse discrimination pure and simple.

Regardless, I doubt many of the Christians you would meet today are like the people you quote. I also believe that there were plenty of Christians even then that would have thought that proclamation was junk and treated your ancestors with respect anyway.

Ish

Several of my ancestors, including children, were killed by Native Americans on the Tennesee frontier. Of course, as it turns out, one of my direct ancestors is a Native American.

Not very clear, is it?

Lance

Ish: Jesus H. F*cking Christ!

That's the stupidest thing I've heard you say yet, you're on a roll bud.

The INDIANS who the Christians STOLE this land from are guilty too?

Only of fighting back when robbers tried to take their land...and not being advanced enough technologically to win.

Go ahead and parrot the company line and that history lesson from the pulpit...we're all ears.

I've never once heard anything from the pulpit that attempted to justify the stealing of Native American lands by Europeans. What churches have you been to that have preached this?

Well, I'll say no if you can show one country
that doesn't consider settlement by another
country (without their permission) to be
non provocational ... ;-)

but we're way off topic now even for this.

This is a twisting of what I said! Seem to me that you're just trying to stir up animosity, Lance. Quote my exact words and it's much harder to make my post look the way you want it to.

As guilty? No. Completely innocent? No.

I bet that if you did a little research, you would find raids on settlers who had done nothing to provoke the Native Americans. I have heard stories of whole settlements completely wiped out, Lance. It's real history if you care to look. To believe that the Native Americans as a whole were completely innocent is incredibly naive.

The whole point, which you missed anyway, was that "you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater"! This is a lesson that seems to be lost on many here.

I can't help you if you "parrot" CTME, Lance. I don't believe you were "all ears" from the start, so it's probably pointless to continue now.

Ish


[This message has been edited by Ish (edited May 21, 2001).]