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That’s good as long as our faith and belief are placed in the right thing.

I would completely disagree with you. Apparently, you come from a church that stresses the written word above all else. I don't know what you do with all the scriptures that say the Holy Spirit is to be your guide in life. That's the point of the Holy Spirit.

If you could get all your guidance from scripture, there would be no need for the Holy Spirit to dwell in you. Scripture is definitely useful, but if you are only led by scripture, you will always base your life on what God told someone else to do.

Kent, I am sure that I have missed some of the lead-up to your post, so I apologize if I have missed something along the way.

I know you know that there is only one path to God and that is though Jesus. Organized religion may or may not facilitate that. But let's not forget that "organized religion", i.e. The Church, has done a lot to advance the cause of Christ and to improve the human condition overall. People organized around a galvanizing principle can accomplish much more than any individual can on his own. This applies to much more than just religion.


Again, true to some extent. There are many preachers who in their sermons have a point they want to make and find snippets of scripture to support their premise. That's not good in my view either. But it cannot be denied that people reading on their own will never gain the degree of understanding of the Bible that they will if guided by someone who has intensively studied it and who can convey the observations of others that have been discovered over the years. I am an advocate of homeschooling, but a child still needs a teacher and a curriculum to go by; and to have demands placed on them to encourage them to learn. People thinking on their own can learn a lot, yes. But they can have wrong thoughts, too (as threads like this one make very clear). It's not an either/or situation. One can participate in church plus read and think for oneself. Most people will find more to read and think about if they are part of a church.

The other thing about organized religion/church is that it gives us the discipline to do the reading and studying that you espouse. Most, not all, people won't pursue the study of the Bible without the push that being in church provides. Eventually they will gravitate away from matters of faith and towards secular pursuits. That has certainly been my own personal experience.

People being people, no church is perfect and it might take some unwanted effort to find one that is a fit. But overall, I think it is worthwhile and I do think that it is what God wants us to do. Just my opinion.

ETA, again I apologize if I missed something contextual in your post.

I respectfully disagree. We are told the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit is given to the believer to seal him into the promise of God given to us and faith.

I’ve asked this question before and I think it’s a serious question that needs to be considered. Most people on this thread believe that the Holy Spirit gives them direct instruction. Then, they go to scripture to find a verse in support of their beliefs. The argument is always. I use scripture to confirm what the Holy Spirit has told me. The bottom line is we see extremely diversion ideas that are incompatible with each other, which was my point in my first post this morning. If we adopt that view then we are forced to adopt the idea that God gives conflicting instruction. When that happens are we left with the idea that there are multiple truths that God gives to different people?

KRP.

Beyond personal experience and your personal beliefs upon what authority do you defend what you believe?

Tell them

That Holy Spirit guidance is to only be personal in nature. There absolutely are different truths for different people. For instance, the HS may lead me to quit drinking, but you may not have a drinking problem. You may be addicted to gambling but not have a drinking problem. The issues arise when I tell you God said to quit drinking as if my instruction applies to you.

You are not forced to adopt the idea that God gives conflicting views in your view of scripture only for guidance any more than in my view of HS guidance. You can find just as many who would disagree about what the written word said as you could who disagree about what the HS said.


I think the main issue is that "We are told" you started the post with. There are multiple scriptures that specifically say the Holy Spirit is to be your personal guide. Again, I ask, what do you do with those scriptures? Do your leaders just skip them and never talk about them?

I don't care what Paul said or for that matter what anyone else says about slavery. Jesus never endorsed slavery in any of his recorded teachings.

When you start quoting Paul you could just as well quote Benny Hinn, Jimmy Swaggart, Kenneth Copeland, or Joel Osteen.

So you disregard any personal experience reading about Jesus and his remarkable life, resurrection. Rely completely on the authority of a suit and tie at the pulpit to tell you what to believe.

Kent

No. I rely on the authority of scripture.

Anything else is so subjective that it cannot be trusted. Trisha clearly teaches. Our hearts are deceptive. When we rely on the unctuous nature of our own thoughts and experiencese we are quickly flirting with idolatry.

One of the most fascinating of things that I find about these threads is how very little reference there is to the authority of scripture. If there’s nobody authority, then personal experience and differing whims that are in conflict with each other have equal value and validity and truth. That’s totally illogical. yet, that’s where most of the post on these threads take us.

So, other than your personal opinion and personal experience upon quite authority do you base your beliefs?

Your interpretation of scripture... vs mine.

Your version vs a Mormons, Catholics, Baptists... atheists

I long ago shed the shield and sword of chapter and verse to attack my fellow man... God's plan for every man is his.

Kent

I notice you ignore the subjectiveness of Ringman's interpretation of scripture, without even siting the verse it involves.

Kent

I for one do not attend church, although I do have limited experience in attending a Mormon Church.

I find the church, evangelists, etc. are all money grabbers so I prefer to walk a life guided by the Ten Commandments and Prayer without attending any church. I end all of my prayers with "I pray this prayer in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus" because he is.

I have watched what goes on in the Catholic church, all of the rituals, and all of the wealth they have amassed. All of the gold, and glitter, priests being accused of pedophilia, has turned me off of organized religion.

When I first posted on this thread, I had some questions and I still do, but obviously, there are several people here that want to discredit religion and bloviate for reasons I do not understand. I am wondering if I can start a thread about the teaching of Jesus that will not be pounced on by the people that are posting here only to knock down religion in general.

Maybe I should try, because I do really want to learn, without atheists getting involved.

KB

Long before there were any Christian Scriptures, long before there was a ‘the Bible’, long before any and all of that, there were Christians. Thousands of em’, and not just any Christians, but extraordinary Christians, who daily risked their lives for what they believed. And no one ever stood up in their congregation and said “the Bible says”, “the Bible says”, “the Bible says” because it’d be a hundred or two hundred or three hundred years before ‘the Bible’ even came into being.

So these extraordinary early Christians clearly weren’t fueled by ‘the Bible’.

Here is something I'm wondering. Do you folks that are of the mainline denominations that identify as Christian consider LDS, Jehovah Witness, and Messianic Judaism Christianity as Christian? Are they to receive salvation with their present belief system?

So you would hold the position that there are different truths for different people, and that the God who is supposed to be a God of one truth through the Holy Spirit gives different people different truths?

The old testament, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Malachi, is Christian scripture.

Jesus, and his own words, explicitly said that the Old Testament testified about him. The writings of the apostles were considered scripture within their tongue as evidence about what they said about the letters and books that were written.

I’m very curious, you’re the only person that I’ve ever heard champion this idea. Where does that come from?

Following Jesus is more important than what we call ourselves.

I absolutely and unequivocally believe that God loves us and forgives us and saves us...not because of who we are or because of anything we do...but because of what Jesus did on the cross. Our best efforts would never be good enough to ‘earn’ salvation. We are not saved by obeying a list of do’s and don’t’s, rules and regulations, or by being good people...but by God’s grace alone...through confidence and trust in Jesus...and not at all by our own efforts or works.

Truth

However, it’s quite obvious that what you just said, has very very meaning, based on the variety of post on this thread, and the others like it. That being the case, it’s impossible to have a meaningful conversation went white one person says about a particular word or topic has totally different meeting to three other people that are engaged in the same conversation.

The Old Testament didn’t become the first part of the Christian Bible, first. Early Gentile Jesus followers, ‘not’ the Jews themselves, saw that the Hebrew scriptures pointed to the Messiah, who ‘they’ recognized and believed to be Jesus.

They were enamored with Jesus, so they adopted what we call the Old Testament as Christian Scripture…not because they cared about Judaism or the Mosaic Law (they didn’t)…but because they cared about Jesus and were interested in the back story to ‘the’ story.

Jesus and His Apostle’s appropriately leveraged the Law and the Prophets when they were trying to sway their Jewish brethren, but when the they were preaching to the Gentiles, they clearly weren’t slingin’ Old Testament verses at em’. They leveraged a much more recent event, the foundational event of Christianity.

Christianity does not need to be propped up by the Hebrew scriptures; it can stand on its own two first century, resurrection, nail scarred feet.