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Not too long ago someone here called you a gift
If there is one thing I admire , its intelligence , which you are obviously in an abundant supply of.

What you posted helped me understand something I had been struggling to define for a very long time. My "pea brain" finally "gets it".

That said, and you are probably the right person to ask due to not having a dog in this fight.
Given what John wrote (14:12) is the "agency" that you attribute to Jesus in what you posted, Do you see that as "available" or perhaps even "requisite" of those that follow/believe in Christ and a Supreme Deity?
and how would you go about acquiring it if it were?

Again, No Gotcha, all bullshit aside.
I think there's IQ to spare between your ears and I'm attempting to tap it for my own benefit.

Thank you for your post. Take Care

You seem to see Christianity as an “it is written” faith. I don’t. Christianity is a ‘something happened’ faith.

Christianity didn't begin in Genesis. It began on that one Easter morning when sad and disillusioned and broken-hearted followers of Jesus stared into an empty tomb, and later met the resurrected Jesus, who they would declare as their Savior. Christianity doesn’t hang in the balance of whether 66 ancient documents are all accurate at every level, and can all be proven true. Christianity hangs on a single event.

And I’m not discounting the importance of scripture. Apostle Paul brought us about half of the New Testament, and he said it best. Paul, who in the course of a single day, went from being a Law abiding Pharisee…who was so committed to scripture and the Jewish Law and the Jewish Temple, that he was rounding up Christians and having them tortured and executed…to a Jesus follower himself. And when the scales fell from his eyes, he not only could see physically, but he had extraordinary clarity about the contrast between the old covenant and Jesus’ New Covenant. And he said there’s only one thing that serves as the foundation of Christianity, and if this goes away then Christianity goes away, and it was not something written. These are his words; and it’s big…“if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” He’s saying the whole thing teeters on a single event. It’s clearly not the “it is written” faith. Christianity is the “something happened” faith. God did something in the world, for the world. Christianity rests on a single event, and Paul didn’t say this about anything else. Peter made it crystal clear that this single event was his “living hope.”

If you think I’m anti-Bible then you’ve misunderstood me.

Antlers, with all due respect Christianity was taught from the beginning of Genesis throughout the whole of the old testament. Are used to not understand that until I was challenged you look deeply at it. It’s quite amazing than how we are you find Christ throughout the Old Testament. Outside the direct prophecies concerning him. Everything in the Old Testament is a shadow in a type of the promise, of Christ.

I do think that your anti-scripture in many ways. That’s not meant as an insult, but as a simple observation. There are many times that you quote scriptures for yourself and other times that you deny scripture in support of what you believe. It’s really hard to believe otherwise about you.

What are your thoughts on what Paul teaches Timothy in second Timothy 3:16-17?

I didn’t say that they did not fulfill my faith. As I noted, I was raised up in horribly restrictive legalism. Through no wisdom on my own I realized that something was all wrong. I fully anticipate that the holy spirit lead me down the path that I followed, as a means of exposing me to the true doctrines and practice of Christianity.

Not that I give him any credit but the scripture he was referring to would have had to have been the Old Testament since the New had not yet been cobbled together.

Notice in that same letter Paul bemoans that "all those who are in Asia have turned away from me" (2nd Timothy 1:15).

Reckon they were "all" wrong?

Jesus seemingly commends the church at Ephesus for that, and no where does he come out and condemn an Asian (Turkey) church for dismissing Paul.

You left out Timothy 3:15

Kent

That’s reading a lot end of the text and the history.

Well. That doesn’t change the intent of what Paul is teaching Timothy. In fairness verses 10-17 are a greater reinforce the statement in 16-17.

I don’t recall any teachings that chastise believers for not listening to the Holy Spirit. Yet, there are metric tons of scripture such as this passage throughout the OT and NT addressing the abandonment of the word, sound teaching and knowledge.

The word is Christ, Christ is scripture, knowledge of God is scripture, the Holy Spirit is scripture. An infant can't read words but can know scripture.

Scripture is not narrowed down to just written man words.

Kent

I assume you mean reading a lot into the text? I was stating what was the situation at the time Paul wrote that letter and commenting that Jesus did not rebuke the Asian churches for ousting Paul. At least he didn't in any recorded writings.

Judaism disagrees. It is Christian theology that interprets the OT in terms of Jesus as the Word of God and the prophesied Messiah.

The Holy Spirit doesn't just confirm written scripture, that would be confinement, the written word confirms the Holy Spirit.

Kent

The assumption of “as the Bible goes, so goes Christianity” is a false assumption.

And God can clearly and certainly communicate with people ‘outside of’ the Bible. He can communicate with people through any manner He chooses.

The Resurrection of Jesus birthed Christianity. It is THE reason that Christianity exists.

You seem to confine God to the Bible. I don’t.

The trouble with those who assume that God is communicating with them is that they tend to contradict each other. Which is basically why the Church standardized its teachings and discourages dissent.

Anyway…regarding the original post on this thread…I think the main thing is to see to it that the main thing stays the main thing. I believe that Jesus died for our sin and rose from the dead. I have no doubts whatsoever. And I think that following Jesus has as much or more to do with this life as it does the next.

AKA_Spook,

This morning, after trying to get some names of Jesus translated from other languages, I failed. Never-the-less I will try to answer your question. The Scripture tells us at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess “Jesus is Lord”. I am convinced each language has a translation for the name of Jesus, just as you used Yaweh from another language to identify Jesus. In an earlier post I mentioned a quote from Apostle Paul, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Apostle Paul goes on to tell us “No one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.” Therefore Jesus is the Name that saves. Remember good ol’ Saint Peter teaches there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. I love examples…….

I have a friend who tried out for Mr. Oregon when he was twenty-eight years old and again when he was thirty-four years old. He won both times. When he graduated college, I attended. There was a yellow rope draped over his shoulders and hanging down on his chest. I asked, “What’s with the yellow rope?” He responded, “That’s not a yellow rope. It’s a gold braid.” “What’s it for?” I continued. “It represents eight years of straight “A’s”.” Later that summer he and I were at an outdoor hamburger joint. Of course, he was wearing a tank top to display his body. Another friend who didn’t know Shannon came up to us and said to me, “I have a friend who looks like that, but his face isn’t as pretty.” He started a business and was quite successful. He wore a wedding band to keep the girls away. Obviously, he didn’t need the Lord.

I began to pray he would encounter difficulty. Things he could not handle. Right away very small, even trivial, things started bothering him. A lot! One day while sitting beside his swimming pool crying, he was so frustrated he cried out to what he called “the generic God”. In desperation he said, “God, I need some help!” He told me instantly he heard a voice, “You need to accept Me. You need to change your ways, and you need to change your friends.” In other words, “Accept the Lord and repent.” He called me to let me know of his experience. I told him, “God likes you more than He does me.” Of course, he asked, “Why do you say that?” “Well, I have never heard the voice of God. I have to read His Book to get His direction.” We talked for a few minutes and maybe it was the Holy Spirit prompting or just my experience, but either way I told him, There was a guy whom Jesus told to walk on the water to Him. He started toward Jesus but was distracted by surrounding circumstances. When he started to go down, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” and Jesus reached out and grabbed him. If you ever feel like that, audibly cry out “Lord, save me!” Immediately, enthusiastically he cried out, “Lord, save me!”

No matter what language a person uses, God knows his heart. When he calls on Jesus in his native language, God knows. After all, Jesus is the One who created language and confused the language at Babel. Like I posted previously, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Jesus is the physical manifestation of God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit.

So when we are told that Abraham is the father our faith what does that mean to you?

When the writer of Hebrews chapter 11 talks about the great cloud of witnesses from the Old Testament, who were saved by faith what does that mean to you?

There is a Bible answer for you. If you want to believe in the God of justice, then you have to realize God is infinite. He knows more than you will ever know. The God Club is very exclusive. Let’s start in Genesis. God told Noah He was going to destroy the world with a flood. Noah was about 480 years old at the time. One hundred and twenty years later the flood came. Of the 25,000,000,000, that is twenty-five billion, people on the earth eight people were saved. Noah, his wife, and their three sons and their wives. Pretty exclusive. I’m pretty sure mathman can help out with the population. The three sons of Noah were born to his wife when he was past 500 years old. So let’s suppose married couples had kids every twenty years for 500 years and they generally lived to be 900 years old, one could see how 1,556 years after creation there could be 25,000,000,000 on the earth at that time.

Later God became annoyed about homosexuality in Sodom and Gomorrah and the towns around them. This is during the time of Abraham so it is only a few centuries after the Flood. Let’s say these towns had no more than 1,000 in each of the cities. Maybe there were five cities, I don’t remember right off. So here we have about 5,000 people that are literally smoked by God. How many were spared? Three. Lot and his two daughters. The God Club is very exclusive.

A couple centuries later God sent General Joshua into the land that is now Israel with instructions to kill every man, woman and child. In some cities God even wanted the pets and livestock destroyed. When one of Joshua’s men kept some booty, God killed thirty-six of Joshua’s soldiers who didn’t take any booty. General Joshua cried out to the Lord God. God told him “You took something that belongs to Me.” After some investigation they discovered the culprit. God had them kill the thief, his wife, kids and their livestock. To be in the God Club one must believe He means business when He gives instructions. God is harsh.

When the time was “right” God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, into the world to save us from God’s eternal judgment. He made a simple rule, “Whoever calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.” Pretty simple. The problem is most people will never hear the name of Jesus. As I mentioned to AKA_SPOOK, I like examples. More than sixty-five years ago I met a guy who was a missionary. He returned from Africa with some great stories. A couple are in the book I wrote about twenty-five years ago, And These Signs Will Follow. Anyway he told me a came to a tribe and preached Jesus to them. In mass they accepted Jesus as the Lord. Afterward he asked the chief why everyone was so receptive to his preaching. The chief told him, “I am the chief. Below me is the witch doctor. Below him is my son who will be chief after me. One day while praying to the moon god, I thought about us here and didn’t want to pray to the moon god. I wanted to pray to the chief god who made the moon. I told everyone we would no longer pray to any god other than the Chief God. When you told us who is the Chief God and how to please Him we were already ready.”

He had a similar experience when he went to the Pigmies. He discovered they were worshiping the God of Noah. When he told them of God’s Son Jesus they also responded to His Name.

God knows the hearts of all men. When they are ready God will send them the Name they need in their language. But God is very exclusive. Remember, “When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the Glory of His power, when He comes to be glorified in His saints.”

The Old Testament believers, including Abraham, looked forward with trust and confidence to the coming of the Messiah…clearly Jesus…for salvation. And believers nowadays look back with trust and confidence to the Messiah…clearly Jesus… for salvation.

Abraham is the father of the faithful because he is at the head of the covenant line, and God clearly began to reveal Himself to others through Abraham.

None of these truths change the fact that the resurrection of Jesus birthed Christianity itself. There were clearly faithful people before Christianity itself began.

So is the faith of Abraham the same faith that we have?