christ-on-a-stick

Just a *bump* for spurly, in case he missed it

Sabine Grant

Salut again Lauri...
As a christian I do not think that considering Christ as divine is unique to myself. I chose Christ to be representative of God's character mostly because I find his teachings to be productive for me both spiritualy and in terms of behavior and character. There are many other evangelicals who also dwell mostly on the Gospels for their faith. There is no presumption on my part... there is a quest for qualities and behavior which Christ modeled. The message Christ pertained to bring out to people does not need to be relying on whether or not it all happened as the Gospels describe it. The message to me is valid and beneficial. The divinity of Christ resides in the sense that human nature is challenged to improve in ways that cannot be accomplished without God's intervention ( I do not have any problems personaly with depending on God). It works for me but may not for someone else.
To me Christ is the final manifestation and revelation of God to mankind. I do not believe that it is necessary to dwell on the OT to be a christian. A christian needs only to entrust Christ to be the sole mediator between God and mankind and follow his teachings. The principle for example to " love your enemy" is against our nature. Every fiber of us wants to despise or hate our enemy. Christ offers the alternative to forgive to achieve a state of peace and renewed state of mind towards that enemy. However it is a great challenge to anyone. We also pertain to judge... that is also part of our nature. Christ offers the alternative to stay in touch with our own weaknesses so that we may not demean other people thru their weaknesses. I can see the divine thru those alternatives. The redemption is not only offered thru his sacrifice but also thru his teachings which redirect us to improve our nature.
People come to christian faith for various reasons... the majority dwells on the fear of hell. Some however recognize personaly their limitations as human beings and seek God's intervention to help them be " better versions of themselves". So Christ has become more than a savior of the human soul... He has become the guide to that better version. The struggle is still there... but with God's intervention thru the character of Christ.
I hope that answers your question. Even a bible fundamentalist will aknowledge that the coming of Christ means a change between the way God relates to people and vice versa. I dwell on that change as my personal quest thru my faith.

Sabine Grant

Hi Rousseau... your arguments stand if there to challenge christians who believe in the concept of the " original sin". However... not all christians attribute the concept of sin to how it is presented in Genesis.
Another concept is the part of the human nature which is inherent to each of us whether you want to call it conscience, the mind or the soul. That part which makes the difference between choosing to do good or evil. The sin part is the choice we may make to steal or kill or lie etc....it is part of us. That sin part is constantly sollicitated by circumstances. One needs not to be a religious individual to aknowledge the presence of good and evil in us.
That sin part is where redemption applies IMO and as a christian.

christ-on-a-stick

*bump* to keep it visible for spurly

spurly

Lauri,

Been busy all day. Have a counseling session to do tonight. But I will get to it. I don't have time to post right now - but I'll post within 24 hours.

Gotta get busy. In 10 minutes I am meeting with a group of students to help get things together for a day camp we are sponsoring for children of prisoners during spring break.

Kevin

christ-on-a-stick

Thanks, Kevin, I appreciate the feedback

Have a lovely evening ~

Lauri

Jobar

When I posted about the archeological lack of evidence for the Exodus, I made a snide comment about Sabine Grant- which was actually made with our other Catholic female with the two-part name, Gemma Therese, in mind. I can only plead lack of sleep and a severe need for memory-enhancing drugs. Sabine, I may disagree with you often, but you are not prone to the sort of know-nothing denial that I see so often with Gemma- my apologies, and my honest recommendation of the book to you.

I had no intention of derailing the thread, either. It was by way of a parenthetical comment to COAS, who I had mentioned the book to in a different thread.

Sabine Grant

It is OK... hugs, Veronique.

spurly

Christ-on-a-stick:

I am finally getting a chance to type a reply. Please forgive the delay. Also please realize that if I ramble, I am really tired. I have not had much sleep lately. I am hoping to get some tonight.

I will try to answer your questions in this post and also reply to some of the questions raised in posts that other people made.

To be honest, I don't know where all of the male first born Egyptians ended up. I always thought that it was not just babies who were killed, but the first born child in any family, no matter what their age might be.

Where are they? Before I answer that question I need to explain that as a Christian I am just about as far away from a Calvinist as you can get. I am a strong believer in free will and see that as the only truly logical answer to the problem of evil in our world.

As to the children who were killed, the ones who were babies or who had not yet reached the point of making a decision whether or not they were going to serve the one true God, I can rest pretty assuredly that they were taken right into the bosom of God. However, the older ones were probably judged based on what they did with the knowledge they had (see Romans 1:18-32).

Under the Old Covenant, the children were punished for the sins of their fathers. But one awesome thing about the new covenant is that now each of us are responsible for our own sins. But even in the Old Covenant times, people could break the chain of the sin of their fathers by worshipping Yahweh alone. An example of this is Hezekiah, who was the son of the most evil man who ever ruled as king over God's people.

One thing I notice on this site is that many people don't understand the difference between the Abrahamic Covenant, the covenant with Noah and his ancestors, the Mosaic Covenant, the and the New Covenant. Whenever we are talking about the Scriptures, some of the most important questions to ask is "What covenant did this originally apply to? What is the context of this scripture? Did it apply only to the _______ covenant, or does it apply to other covenants as well because it lines up with the nature of who God is?"

Kevin

spurly

If you look seriously at the book of Exodus you will see that the hardening of Pharaoh's heart did not begin with God, it began with Pharaoh himself, who made a decisiont to harden his own heart.

After Pharaoh decided to do that, God allowed his heart to continue to be hardened.

One has to remember what this confrontation between Pharaoh and Yahweh was all about. In Egypt the Pharaoh was considered a "god". When he refused to bow to the one true God, God unleashed a torrent of plagues, all of them directed at one or another of Egypt's false gods. This was a showdown in the desert - and God was not going to let any other false god get the glory that belonged only to him.

Kevin