@Leadfoot,
:shrug:
Oh yeah, extremely capricious. But it wasn't so much about censoring, as it was (1) making the sort of Bible thar Martin Luther would like, and (2) making the sort of Bible I would like.
I don't believe in falling away. Not after Christ came and died for our sins. As a state of life, all of us have fallen away, all of us have failed. Should Jesus say, well I'm gonna die for your sins once, and you'll get a clean slate... once? But he didn't! We can become distant from God in our minds, but this distance is part of the great delusion, along with not believing in God, believing he can't forgive us, or can't forgive us anymore, because we used our last chance.
Quote:21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22Jesus answered, “I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!
23Because of this, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlements, a debtor was brought to him owing ten thousand talents. 25Since the man was unable to pay, the master ordered that he be sold to pay his debt, along with his wife and children and everything he owned.
26Then the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Have patience with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’
27His master had compassion on him, forgave his debt, and released him.
28But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay back what you owe me!’
29So his fellow servant fell down and begged him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you back.’
30But he refused. Instead, he went and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay his debt.
31When his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and recounted all of this to their master.
32Then the master summoned him and declared, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave all your debt because you begged me. 33Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had on you?’
34In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should repay all that he owed.
35That is how My heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
In my typical Bible edit, I would expunge 34 & 35. My approach would be to leave it to the reader to determine how harsh or forgiving this master is. Because it is up to the reader. The reader decides how to live their life, and whether to consider God a Savior or a Condemner.
But notice the 70 x 7 times. That's not the literal mathematical answer, but that you shouldn't keep count. And indeed, usually Sunday comes and the preacher talks about loving your enemies, or treating family better, or having patience. And before Sunday even passes, I've probably tried and failed to apply the lesson. I've snapped at my parents, I've lost patience, or definitely failed to love my enemy.
If you shouldn't keep count the number of times you should forgive sins, then neither should God keep count. Odds are, if you're paying attention, none of us got through the week without sinning. It's gonna happen. Not a big deal. What is a big deal is Hebrews telling people, "You've got one shot, and if you screw up again, it's all over."
I heavily favor 1 Corinthians, Romans, and Galatians. The gospel should show Jesus making alot more speeches about grace (both Peter with the unclean foods thing, and Paul after his conversion tell us about). You'd think that it most of his speeches would be like the beattitudes or telling people to forgive the sins of others, but there seemed to be a disgusting amount of "forgive sins or God's gonna throw you in HELLFIRE!!! Be mindful of the time to come, because God's gonna JUUUUDGE YOUUUU!!!" Uhhhh, the thing was they already got that sort of thing from the Pharisees. So I made the call that some of these were actually addressed to the Pharisees, and that Jesus was actually telling sinners something different. I wound up keeping maybe 5-10% of Jesus's judgement sayimgs, but there were alot of carrot and stick statements, that I was like "can't we just talk about the carrot?"
And it seemed like that was the case with having a better message for sinners, but KJV downplayed this alot. When it wasn't using bad English to make what it was saying incomprehensible. But then, I chose a copy of the Bible that contains an excess of references to hell and damnation anyway (KJV was public domain), even mentioning "hell fire". The Jews he was speaking to believed in Sheol, which didn't have fires.
I'm not really sure what it means to have partaken in the Holy Spirit. But then, that's an odd image, almost like it's something you can drink.
I studied Shintoism, and to me, visualizing the Holy Spirit, is sorta like a
hitodama
that rests inside the body of every human, and burns dimly when we are sad or confused, and brightly when our faith is strong or we are passionate. The idea that you kinda gulp down the Holy Spirit, and add it to yourself...
Nuh. The most wretched unbaptised person who was born away from Christian missionaries even knowing about them still is born with a Holy Spirit, it just burns dimly if they believe in something that doesn't give joy and meaning to their life. Btw, the Holy Spirit is immortal, it cannot burn out. It can only dim.
