Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Christ at the Campfire Who Shall Enter the Kingdom of God?

My friend Jack Hamilton was a doughboy in France, 1917-1918. His first day at the front line, the field kitchen had nothing but mashed potatoes. Jack told the cook "I don't eat mashed potatoes." Without a word, the cook took Jack's mess kit, dumped the mashed potatoes that he'd just plopped into it, and gave Jack his empty mess kit back. Then he scooped another dollop of mashed potatoes and plopped 'em into the next doughboy's mess kit.



That cook didn't argue or make any attempt to force or persuade Jack to eat mashed potatoes. In the same vein, I offer the attached study outline for your free consideration. Whether you question or reject it is of less interest to me than you can possibly imagine, so any argument with it will go unanswered. I hope that you'll find it not only interesting but also deeply edifying, of course. I want you to be a true Christian -- one whom Jesus would consider His disciple, one who'll enter the Kingdom of God and live there forever -- not for my sake or even for yours but for only one soundly biblical reason (because God wants you).

I like the way you prefaced that. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> How do I get that to show so I dont have to scroll right and left so much?

My deepest apologies -- I haven't viewed the "Campfire download" version, and the file doesn't require right-left scrolling in my word-processor, so I didn't foresee the problem.

I also don't know what solution to suggest, except maybe "print it out, then read it." Or save it to a file that you can read with your word-processor. Meanwhile, I'll see whether I can mangle it into a narrower display and reattach it.

Thanks for letting me know. I hate having to scroll right-and-left to read text. So again, my apologies.

Well, I've just learned a couple of things -- (a) converting the original obey.doc file to the obey.txt file stripped-away all the line breaks, making every paragraph a single line, and (b) I missed some typos in this section of Nita's typing of my old hard copy of Who Shall Enter ... ? I don't doubt that other typos remain, so I'll go over it again and again. One that I found cited Matthew 4:19 -- the correct reference is Matthew 5:19.

I hope that the line breaks that I've just entered make the attachment easier to read. I'll do better next time!

Whatever you did helped. Thanks.

Thanks Ken--

Reading the first installment was a very good way to start my day, a blessing, as I seek to please my heavenly Father through the new week should He give it to me.

GDV

ken:
interesting start. seems in the vein of andrew murray.

FOUNDATION PREMISES



THIS STUDY RESTS upon those basic assumptions or foundation premises:



The Holy Bible is God�s written instruction and direction.



It is not my right, duty, license, or privilege as an exegete to revise any of God�s instructions � nor to supersede them with logic, tolerance, politics, superstition, philosophy, feminism, wishful thinking, psychology, personal desire, creative imagination, sociology, private opinion, personal preference, or any other form of human thought.



It is not my right, your right, or anyone else�s right to put God�s word aside in favor of something else and then to call that other thing �Christian.�



The New Testament is the section of the Bible more relevant and pertinent to the Christian and the present age.



The many early manuscripts of the New Testament, written in the common language spoke in the Middle East while Jesus was here among men (koin� Greek), give us the purest and most accurate record of what the Holy Spirit wrote by the hands of Jesus�s disciples � including the words that Jesus spoke. Any portion of any English translation that falls short of the full meaning of the original language � or carries a different denotation or connotation � is to that degree misleading or false. Revision based on doctrine, tradition, or opinion is outside the purview and authority of the translator and the exegete.



It is the exegete�s duty to hold steadfastly to the crystalline purity of the meanings of the words in the original manuscripts, and their contexts, giving no regard to contrary teachings from whatever source or however many sources, whatever they may claim as their �authority.�



Jesus knew what He was saying, and He meant every word of it. Jesus and the Holy Spirit knew � and intended � that these writings would be pored over by scholars both faithful and hostile. This edifice of holy words was meant and built to stand as-built, to edify disciples of all ages and eras with the self-same spiritual truths, not to be revised to accommodate men�s changing ways, morals, tastes, and tendencies.



If we could assume that anything in the original Bible were for us to judge and modify, then none of it would be immune or should remain unchangeable. Christianity would then be only modeling clay, which anyone could mould into whatever shape he liked, at any time � and reshape later when he changed his mind. But we are the clay, and the shaping hands are His. His word endures.

____________________________



(There may be a few typos in this attachment, guys!)

Ken, thanks for posting that attached file. Excellent, so far.

Thanks Ken. I'm curious to see where this goes. At the present, I'm struggling with my denomination of choice (Methodist) upon learning of some of their doctrinal views on abortion and homosexuality. I've been going to this church for 15+ years, was married in this church and have many good friends there but I'm struggling to reconcile the word of God and mainstream Methodist views. Thanks for the effort and look forward to reading more.

If my father hadn't gone hunting that day, leaving my mother at his folks' home, I would've been born in a Methodist parsonage. My father was a Methodist circuit-rider and pastor from 1926 until the 1970s, so I was obviously reared in a succession of Methodist parsonages, by Methodist parents. I also pastored a small Methodist church briefly before God led me into a much wider, transdenominational teaching ministry. So I know only too well "where you're coming from."



Things had come to such a sorry state in the Methodist church by 1971 that I'd begun to consider "UMC" to stand for "United Methodist Corporation." I left the pulpit and dropped my membership when it became impossible to continue my studies for full ordination without caving-in to the program's requirement that I (methodologically, at least) deny the deity of Jesus. It wasn't as heart-wrenching a decision as it might have been, because I'd already -- for several decades -- become quite aware of how far from Jesus the Methodist Church had drifted, by design and intent.



What I've only briefly mentioned here was good for me, as it all drove me further into the Bible. At first, I studied comparative theology -- the writings of those stalwarts in each prominent denomination -- but had to drop that when it became obvious that

(a) they often held diametrically opposite views on the same Biblical teachings,

(b) with so many opposing doctrines, they couldn't all be right,

(c) each one has at least one prominent doctrine that clearly opposes something that's unarguably Biblical,

(d) each one completely ignores at least one clear and basic Biblical principle,

(e) each one denounces something that the Bible teaches,

etc.



So I spent several years (over two doing nothing else, day and night) studying the Bible (especially the New Testament), using the original Hebrew and Greek to determine first what the key terms meant when Jesus used them and by studying them in their full context, what the key statements in the Bible actually say. Nobody can tell what they mean until you learn what they say.



After several years of this intense private study, several of my brothers in Christ asked me to teach them. After several years of teaching, a now-defunct Bible seminary let me skip straight to a program that led to an earned Doctor of Theology degree. But my real education had basically already occurred -- with the Holy Spirit shedding light on the Scriptures, in all cases confirmed by peripheral studies in ancient Hebrew and Greek and the history of Christianity. All in all -- although I've taken a bit of flak from certain "Christians" -- it's been a very enriching experience. So if you were I, you'd leave that church far behind and follow Jesus as close behind Him as you can get.

The dictionary defines "believe" in the modern sense (below). It has become a very poor substitute for the word that Jesus used.



intransitive senses



1 a : to have a firm religious faith b : to accept as true, genuine, or real <ideals we believe in> <believes in ghosts>



2 : to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something <believe in exercise>



3 : to hold an opinion : THINK <I believe so>



transitive senses



1 a : to consider to be true or honest <believe the reports> <you wouldn't believe how long it took> b : to accept the word or evidence of <I believe you> <couldn't believe my ears>



2 : to hold as an opinion : SUPPOSE <I believe it will rain soon>



None of these is what Jesus said!

Ken, would you say that the word "trust" is a better English translation of the Greek which has been translated as "believe?" Take Mark 16:16 for example.

Trust is indeed part of pisteuo -- but only part.



Entrust is a better interpretation of this element of pisteuo. Trust is inherent in the sense of commit that we use all the time when we think of or refer to committing someone to the care and judgement of another -- to a hospital or nursing home, for example. Pisteuo is a verb of action and firm decision, not a verb of relatively passive acceptance.



When word that gold had been discovered at Sutter's mill in California reached the east in 1848, many there believed that the news was true. Others trusted the truth of the news enough to support those who committed themselves to the truth of it by going around The Horn, crossing the isthmus of Panama, or traveling overland to dig for gold. Pisteuo, especially as Jesus uses it, refers to total, unrivaled, active, behavioral commitment -- not to any lesser degree of merely mental or intellectual acceptance.



In Mark 16:16, baptism (Greek baptismos -- literally being plunged into water, figuratively being plunged into the Holy Spirit) is a first manifestation of this total, unrivaled, active, behavioral commitment. It strongly implies surrender to the water (literally) and by extension (figuratively) to God though the Holy Spirit. (This is quite a study in itself, which requires at least a chapter, like "Plunged and Soaking" in my book In Step with the Master, to clarify the term and its concept for modern readers. Those who heard Jesus and His disciples use the Greek words baptizo, baptisma, and baptismos didn't need the explanations that we need today. They already knew what these theretofore secular words meant.)

love



The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines this word these ways:



1 a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties <maternal love for a child> (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates> b : an assurance of love <give her my love>



2 : warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion <love of the sea>



3 a : the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration <baseball was his first love> b (1) : a beloved person : DARLING -- often used as a term of endearment (2) British -- used as an informal term of address



4 a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1) : the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2) : brotherly concern for others b : a person's adoration of God



5 : a god or personification of love



6 : an amorous episode : LOVE AFFAIR



7 : the sexual embrace : COPULATION



8 : a score of zero (as in tennis)



What does Jesus say? What does He mean?

Mornin' Ken,
Those of us who are BELIEVERS know that something of immense import has been done to us.You are doing a superb job of explaining what it was and is.
Reckon "GURU"comes fromthe latin root;"Gunwriter"?I bet that ain't the first time you have been askedthat!

Oh, but it IS the first time, Bro' Gene! Which just goes to show that you have a richer, more active, more creative imagination than the rest of us have to limp along with!

For a far better explanation of New Testament love in contrast and contradistinction to other meanings of the word than I can give you, get a copy of C S Lewis's little book The Four Loves and feast on it. You'll get a rompin'-good understanding of NT love, and you'll also see why I envy C S Lewis for his clear prose and flawless logic. Everything that I've read of his treatises on true Christianity (including his Mere Christianity) is richly enjoyable edification.

Ken, reading CS Lewis' book The Screwtape Letters did more for my early growth as a Christian than I can clearly explain. Although some Christians find this type of satire offensive . it helped me to get a better start on resisting the various temptations of sin. Instead of feeling like God didn't want me to have any fun... my paradigm change to, Satan is a roaring lion wanting to devour me and he is simply using this short-term enjoyment as bait.

I have a copy of Mere Christianity , and need to make time to read it soon. 2nd wind

Well, fellows, this is the penultimate installment in this old series of study outlines. IOW, there's just one more to come -- "go and teach," which I'm sure will include some things that you haven't been told already.



This series dates back to about 1971 and has been used (by me and others) in several other countries to offer new believers a sound, nondenominational, nondoctrinal introduction to the Bible, to Jesus, and to truly Biblical Christianity.



In "subversive" underground Bible classes that I taught in Saudi Arabia, there were at one time new Christians from more than fifty countries.



It was the foundation series that a couple of missionary friends used in launching a Christian college in India, and another missionary couple used it as the cornerstone study of a long convention of several dozen churches in the Philippines. (My only regret was that I didn't get to take part in either shindig, in India or in the Islands!)



I hope that you too find both edification and blessing in it.



If you feel moved to share it with others, you have my permission and blessing. Go to it! Just be sure to get it right -- don't introduce any "clarification" or modification of your own. This isn't the forum for my personal testimony of how all this came to be, how the Holy Spirit certified and illustrated its truths to me and others, etc. I hope that as these seeds take root in your soul and spirit -- and grow -- you'll experience your own miraculous Holy Spirit certifications and illustrations.