@TheCobbler,
Quote:And only you know the "true" salvation?
Please do tell. lol
We shall see won't we... I will wager that you have no idea what or how salvation is received.
(...)
You are saved but can't really explain how? That is a sure sign you have been evangelized, without true knowledge.
What will you wager? Those are dangerous words.
And only me? Hardly!
I mainly know of false salvation. And largely from my own stories.
It works like this. I decide, "Nahhh, I can do it on my own." Pretty soon, I have a wrecked car because I took an ill-advised trip instead of just being patient and calm. Or I try to avoid paying for that car repair, and then I don't want to inform my friends and family that I really need help, so I wind up in a terrible situation where all my money gets wiped out. I know of many many times where I'm like "I'm an adult now! I should be able to do this myself." Then something went horribly wrong because overreached. Or think of all the people who want to be "independent" (no such thing, only lonely) and spend thousands a money of some studio apartment. I bet I have more house than their apartment, I get company, and it's free! Your mistake is literally costing you dearly.
Does this mean we should be codependent? Not that either. Nor be one of these people who votes for tyrants because they need strong authority in their life. In fact, the latter reason is why our so-called governors are now behaving like dictators. "You can't go outside because of COVID." What COVID? There is nobody sick. "Look, bulma is spreading COVID misinformation. He/she should be arrested." Do you see? You want... to take away my freedom for exercising my right to speech. Would you like your freedom taken away for watching porn? Or going to a football game? Or playing with your nephew or niece? "Gasp! He/she isn't vaccinated! Or maybe they aren't standing 6 feet away from their own family!" So what?
We humans think we know best, but this is only half the equation. We think "important" people or "powerful" people know best. We elect these assholes again and again and again, thinking they'll make a change. No, dammit, the last one was just like him, and the one before. Just stop. Stop abdicating your life, and stop trying to run it yourself.
There's a middle path. Take that one. Remember who created you, remember how to treat people decently. And remember who is actually important to you. Not these ogres with money, but your own family. Get back to those roots.
Yes, I know what true salvation is.
1. Stop ******* embracing a system that doesn't offer you any forgiveness.
2. Stop loving things that won't love you back.
3. Stop confusing morality for Christianity. They are not the same thing. God does not want or need our perfectionism.
4. We are allowed to do anything, but we shouldn't make choices that ruin our lives or those of others.
5. Will God punish us if we do anyway? That's not the point! We will punish ourselves through our own crappy choices. That's punishment enough!
There is a theory called the
Five Basic Laws of Human Stupidity. It goes like this. (1)
We grossly underestimate just how many stupid people there are out there. (2)
The probability that someone is stupid is independent of other factors. That's right, what the writer of this theory considers stupidity doesn't matter about education, economics, race, sex, nothing. (3)
A stupid person is one who causes losses to other people while gaining nothing or causing loss to themselves. That is, idealistic assholes that do crap that ruins other people's lives from free. He defines intelligent people as those
who help themselves and others, bandits as those who help themselves at the expense of others, and calls the last category of people who hurt themselves at the benefit of others as the helpless. (4)
Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that in any time and place and circumstance dealing and/or hanging out with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake. (5)
Stupid people are the most dangerous type of people.
(5b)
A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit. This is because stupid people act irrationally and their actions screw over others. A bandit will always act in self-interest, so as long as you act toward that, you should be fine. Basically the difference between an obnoxious rules stickler, and someone who can be bribed to look the other way. If you're desperate, you want the person who can be bribed, as the other one will simply refuse and create a nuisance.
I saw this in action. This lady at a hotel had no manager there, and this group of about 4 or 5 that were from like Indonesia, had poor English but wanted a discount (stupid vs bandits). The lady spent like 45 minutes quibbling with them, we couldn't check in, and we were tired after having been on the road the entire day. Look lady, either flatly refuse them service if they won't pay, tell them to wait while you deal with other customers, offer the discount, or offer the discount under the table and cover the difference out of pocket. If the boss faults you for that, they are stupid person (money is money, that's money they aren't losing by paying you).
Look, it's simple. The whole of the Bible can be summed up as "don't be a stupid person." Or "love your neighbor as yourself." Have enough damned self-respect that you don't let bullies run your life, and don't torture other people with them either.
Quote:What is wrong with the verse?
I'm not seeing what you're seeing. I didn't connect with that verse at all, so I made no comment. There was nothing wrong with the verse. The grammar was right, the sentence made sense. I suspect what was wrong is your perception. The problem is you.
Quote:Romans 1:1
(King James Bible)
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,
What do you think is wrong with it? That he calls himself a servant? Better that he should call himself a servant than that you call yourself "independent." In the latter case, you'd be deluding yourself.
Quote:The rulers of the Gentiles, he says “lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”
Quote:Thomas Cranmer provided one of the most densely compact an insightful turns of phrase in the Christian tradition, when he wrote what was essentially a flourish at the beginning of his Collect for Peace from Morning Prayer, and he addressed God as “the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom.”
If Paul says he is a servant, and you say that you're free, both of you are lying.
And it can't be "separated unto God" part. You and I both know that Christians are often very set apart from secular culture.