Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Christianity

... And that's fine, we certainly don't want people in church who don't want to be there.

Schools would be wonderful places of learning if we could make that a reality in education.

I can't see how a lover of God and a lover of people wouldn't want to attend a local Church...

So those being a lover of God and People is conditional to attending a local church?
Jesus left Nazareth for Capernaum to get away from narrow village mindsets.

Re Paul....... In the first place I don't believe Jesus intended to trust His message/ministry to a "church". According to many scholars, the word that is translated as "church" more accurately means a "fellowship", but that's really beside the point. It seems most unlikely to me that after what the Jews did with their priests and temple that He would want to duplicate that.

Jesus was revealed as the Christ to John the Baptist and then to Peter. Read the verses around those events and especially the words of Jesus following Peter's confession.Those along with other statements lead me to believe that His "church" was founded on the Father's ability to reveal Jesus as the Christ to individuals.

Paul had a profound Spiritual Experience on the Damascus road. If you've ever had a similar experience, you know they don't come across like a movie or TV show.You get a central "message" and your mind fills in details usually with a big assist from the ego. I don't doubt that Paul's central message was to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles, the fact that he succeeded in such a dramatic fashion lends credibility to that.

But..... being an extremely legalistic Jew, I doubt he could conceive of a simple Fellowship with no preachers, deacons,elders and such.

We will never know what Christianity would be today if Paul's letters had not been counted as Scripture. It's for damn sure there would not be as much to argue about.

I doubt any human could ever make me see Saint Paul as anything but a man who loved God but took himself too seriously. There's a lot around like that.

Run across some loud ones?

I like most vagina's, but alas I am only allowed to listen to one..........

curdog
What exactly do you mean by Paul's original sin theology?

Another pesky truth from God's word:

Hebrews 10:24-25 (NIV)

24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

It's easy, if I go to a church and they are many where it's, sing a few songs, take up the offering, preach and were out I can't stomach it. I've tried. I went to a church for several years that was holy spiritleadthag was the most amazing church. Worship may last the whole time or only play one song or stopithe middle of preaching and have a time of prayer from any and everybody that the spirit lead. Nobody on the planet can convince me that worship is gonna be 30 minutes and preaching is gonna be 1 - 1.5 hours every Sunday for years and it's spirit lead. I feel like a prisoner in a church like that.

Paul preaches "Christ, and Him crucified". As if dying on a cross was all Jesus was about.

Not all, to be sure, but most definitely the main event.

You think not?

Perfect analogy except that the boyfriend didn't create the girlfriend. Nor is the boyfriend the objective standard against which all is judged.

But ya know... other than that is a perfect analogy.

My 'lapsed' Roman catholic parents and grandparents were not regular church goers , yet they conducted themselves much like good samaritans
throughout their lives assisting people in the community less fortunate than them, including those shunned and condemned by society like prostitutes
and single mothers or just families in gross disarray . They really had no time or inclination to spend sundays grovelling to a priest or mix with all the
community church asslicker judgemental two faced gossip types those groups consisted of, nor did they put money in the church plate.....instead they
preferred to just go about actually demonstrating christian values in day to day life and spent their money and donated needy goods to help people
directly as they saw fit. and they didn't care or ask what religion or beliefs those recipients had or point out their faults.

That is the way they conducted their lives before and throughout WW2 in Europe, as well as after as migrants.
Because they owned local businesses, they were very much already in touch with what was going on in the
community through face to face interaction with variety of people. Word also became established through the
community that they were the people one was able to approach to see if some form of assistance was possible.

A God didn't create the boyfriend nor is a God going to judge anybody. God's and all the fairly tales about them are created in men's minds. Just because some men wrote their delusions down doesn't make those delusions true. When I was working if you had a problem employee that needed to fired you had to carefully document the reasons for firing them. If you didn't carefully document the incidents that led to you firing them the union would be able to overturn the firing. Even the union believed that writing down the infractions made them "the gospel". I remember as a young kid hearing the bible being discussed (and later on reading it myself) and thinking that this was some crazy stuff and how could anybody believe it. I figured that as I got older maybe it would might begin to make some sense but the exact opposite happened. Do you believe your God loves all living things or just humans that believe in him?