@Pinochet73,
Pinochet73;12296 wrote:Nope....they KILLED Jesus. They rejected God. They lost their chosen status. They can't have it both ways -- killers of God AND the Chosen of God. Christians are the New Chosen. It's a matter of common sense. You're confused because someone is trying to convince you to worship a book. God is not a book.:no:
Jesus was/is Jewish. Christ Jesus proved His worth and made Himself a perfect sacrifice for our sins by remaining faithful unto the end and by not doing His will, but God the Father's will. As Christians, we choose to serve God. He is not willing that any should fall, Jew or Gentile. When we accept Christ Jesus as our savior, we all become Christians. You are not Christian by birth, even if you were born to parents who called themselves Christian. You have to choose to be Christian. As a Catholic, you were probably baptized near birth and chose to be Christian at confirmation. When confirmed, you pledged to strengthen the Body of Christ, live by, and spread His Word. How do you know His Word if not by reading the Bible?
If we, humans, Christian or otherwise, choose not to serve God, we are not somehow still chosen. If after having heard the Word, we continue in willful sin, we have no sacrifice for our redemption. And therefore, we cannot justify ourselves to God the Father. Only Christ can do that.
Who chooses what sin is? We don't. We aren't qualified. The church doesn't, it isn't qualified, it isn't God. God decides what sin is. How can we know the mind of God? We can't. However, He has given us a guide, the Bible. We can only know dimly what His wishes are now. One day we will all stand before Him and answer for our thoughts, words, and deeds. Christ Jesus will speak for us or against us at that time.
Quite right, God is not a book.
No one is trying to convince Volunteer of anything except not to pursue an idea that makes sense and is in line with the Word of God, the Constitution, and the other founding documents of the United States of America.
While it is not God, the Book/Bible does give us an idea of God's will and the values He wants us to have. My point earlier in asking how you got your ideas and what your standard is, was to show you that your basis is no more valid than anyone elses. Your basis for thought/action is subjective, from within. Everyone's is. While Christ lives in each believer, we need an external measure to help us determine if the thoughts, ideas, and suggestions that "pop into our minds" keep us in line with the idea of WWJD. That standard should be the Bible.
Even the Catholic Church uses an English/American version of the Bible. Why do they do this? The preferred version used to be the Jerusalem Bible. At least it was in the early 70s in Minnesota when I attended the charismatic services at the Catholic Youth Center. The revised version of the Jerusalem Bible does not repeat the mistake of the 1970s version. That version inserted commentary prior to each major chapter and section of the Bible that "shed light" on the historical context. More often than not, the inserted text actually shed doubt on the authenticity of the Word by presenting It from a cold, sceptical, secular point of view. I am sure that version was an issue the Catholic Church recognized because they influenced the publisher to remove those introductions and replaced them with writings from the Catholic Saints.
