Apostle John, who was an eyewitness of Jesus’ earthly ministry, who believed in Jesus, and then after He died he quit believing, and then after the resurrection he started believing again, who was ultimately arrested by Emperor Domitian and put on the island of Patmos to rot, who had seen more bloodshed personally than most of a whole bunch of us put together, who had lost friends to acts of terror by the Romans and by the Jewish Temple leaders, who had seen the entire Jewish Temple destroyed, said that, “God is love.”
When Jesus was about to be crucified and He gathered with His closest followers that last night together, He said “this will be the distinguishing mark of those who follow me”…not whatcha know, not whatcha read, not whatcha memorize, and not whatcha do on Sunday morning…“the distinguishing mark of those who claim to be my followers is that you love one another.” Why…? Because that love for other people reflected the nature of God.
What passes for Christianity nowadays is very different from the first-generation passion of what it meant to follow Jesus back then. And that’s very likely why the church isn’t connecting with our current culture. The gospel of grace was and is an irresistible message. The first century approach of advancing the gospel of grace modeled by Jesus and His apostles and His other followers is the exception rather than the rule nowadays. It’s no wonder that so many people resist it, reject it, and rebuff its followers. The fault doesn’t lie with Jesus or His teachings or His life’s example. He taught a simple ethic in the great commandment: love God and love others; love others as I have loved you.
You try and reject the Bible all why kind of quoting it. You paraphrase the Bible while rejecting it. If you don't use the Bible where do you get your spiritual knowledge?
You have no idea what original Christianity was like with out the Bible. How can you not see how nonsensical your position is. Your claim about how bad Christianity is today compared to original Christians requires the Bible to make.
You haven't understood a word he's written. Or worse yet, you have understood and are deliberately misrepresenting it.
He never said Christianity itself was bad. Just the man-made edifice put up around it by the likes of you and crampy glamper.
Having an understanding of how ‘the Bible’ came to be is not only enlightening, it bolsters one’s confidence in the Gospel. There’s a big difference between knowing the stories in ‘the Bible’, and knowing the story of ‘the Bible’. Most of us have a personal copy of ‘the Bible’ that has been chaptered, versed, mapped, and wrapped in genuine imitation leather. Many even have footnotes. The Hebrew scriptures are bound together with the Christian manuscripts of the New Testament comprising ‘the Bible’.
Jesus is the reason that we have ‘the Bible’. The story of ‘the Bible’ does not begin with Genesis. The story of the Bible begins with Jesus’ resurrection after He had been crucified. If Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead, ‘the Bible’ wouldn’t even exist. There would’ve been nothing to write about. The reason people documented the life of Jesus is because He rose from the dead. So we have these documents of the Gospel that were accounts of Jesus’ life. And these documents were considered reliable, valuable, sacred, and inspired. But ‘the Bible’ itself still didn’t even exist. There were just separate accounts of Jesus’ life that the early church held in high regard.
And Paul and others left Judea and started telling the Gentiles about Jesus. And more and more Gentiles in different parts of the world embraced the Gospel and came to faith in Jesus. And churches were created and the Epistles were generated. And these early Gentile Christians, who previously had zero interest in the Hebrew scriptures, saw that they pointed to the Messiah, who they recognized and believed to be Jesus. The Hebrew scriptures didn’t become the first part of the Christian Bible, first.
But they began to accept the Hebrew scriptures, in addition to the Christian manuscripts of the New Testament, and it set the stage for the inclusion of the Hebrew scriptures into ‘the Bible’…the Christian Bible…in the 4th century.
Christianity not only preceded the Bible; Christianity is the reason that we have ‘the Bible’. And there were many thousands of Christians before ‘the Bible’ ever came along in the 4th century.
Apostle John, who was an eyewitness of Jesus’ earthly ministry, who believed in Jesus, and then after He died he quit believing, and then after the resurrection he started believing again, who was ultimately arrested by Emperor Domitian and put on the island of Patmos to rot, who had seen more bloodshed personally than most of a whole bunch of us put together, who had lost friends to acts of terror by the Romans and by the Jewish Temple leaders, who had seen the entire Jewish Temple destroyed, said that, “God is love.”
When Jesus was about to be crucified and He gathered with His closest followers that last night together, He said “this will be the distinguishing mark of those who follow me”…not whatcha know, not whatcha read, not whatcha memorize, and not whatcha do on Sunday morning…“the distinguishing mark of those who claim to be my followers is that you love one another.” Why…? Because that love for other people reflected the nature of God.
What passes for Christianity nowadays is very different from the first-generation passion of what it meant to follow Jesus back then. And that’s very likely why the church isn’t connecting with our current culture. The gospel of grace was and is an irresistible message. The first century approach of advancing the gospel of grace modeled by Jesus and His apostles and His other followers is the exception rather than the rule nowadays. It’s no wonder that so many people resist it, reject it, and rebuff its followers. The fault doesn’t lie with Jesus or His teachings or His life’s example. He taught a simple ethic in the great commandment: love God and love others; love others as I have loved you.
You try and reject the Bible all why kind of quoting it. You paraphrase the Bible while rejecting it. If you don't use the Bible where do you get your spiritual knowledge?
You have no idea what original Christianity was like with out the Bible. How can you not see how nonsensical your position is. Your claim about how bad Christianity is today compared to original Christians requires the Bible to make.
You haven't understood a word he's written. Or worse yet, you have understood and are deliberately misrepresenting it.
He never said Christianity itself was bad. Just the man-made edifice put up around it by the likes of you and crampy glamper.
I'm afraid you do not understand.
He rejects the Bible. This is clear from dozens of posts of his including the one I responded to. He then, in the post right there before your eyes, compare current and previous "versions" of Christianity. He does, in fact, claim the current version is bad comparatively.
I then point out that his position falls apart because he is using the very same Bible to gain his information about past Christianity.
A follow on is ... If you reject the Bible then you can't use the Bible to reject the Bible. Obviously.
