Paths - Which Are You On?

[nPeace]

The first thing God pointed out to me is that mankind carries such a narrow view. I work on mine every day.

God gave everyone a different view to guaranty mankind a larger view than any one person could see. Interaction creates so much learning.

If one chooses to limit their view, how much of reality will one miss?

Clearly, narrow has never ever been the most intelligent choice. God has never ever limited the view. Look around you. God hides nothing. If God isn't limiting anyone's view, why should anyone choose to limit their own view?

If you limit your view, you are not copying God. Open your eyes. See and Discover God around you. All the secrets of God and the universe stare us all in the face.

If you do not keep a wide view, how much will you be missing? How much are you already missing? Much more than you realize.

That's what I see. It's very clear!!

Should I believe you, or the son of God?
Guess which I pick.

 

[nPeace]

My claim is that Jesus was defeated by the ancient Romans.

No I specifically did not refer to the Bible which is an unreliable source.

Now you're in the ball park.

In my opinion.

I think you lost your bat. Maybe it's in the park.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Are you claiming that the Biblical account says Jesus was defeated by the ancient Romans?
If so perhaps you should be taking that up with @InChrist

You're dealing with yet more Christians who are convinced that they know what the Bible really teaches. It's the same ole song and dance with Christians, and the rampant dissension among them hasn't changed during the history of the Christian Church. That's why there are Catholics, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestants galore. And Christians want unbelievers to believe that Christianity is the only true religion in the world, and all other religions are false? That's truly laughable because Christians are so divided. There's an old saying that Christians eat their own, and it's true. It's also true that Christians are their own worst enemy.

 

[danieldemol]

You're dealing with yet more Christians who are convinced that they know what the Bible really teaches. It's the same ole song and dance with Christians, and the rampant dissension among them hasn't changed during the history of the Christian Church. That's why there are Catholics, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestants galore. And Christians want unbelievers to believe that Christianity is the only true religion in the world, and all other religions are false? That's truly laughable because Christians are so divided. There's an old saying that Christians eat their own, and it's true. It's also true that Christians are their own worst enemy.

I had to look up the saying, "Christians eat their own" because I haven't heard the saying before, and for a moment i thought you might have been accusing Christians of literal cannibalism lol.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Possibly? No. Definitely.
I wouldn't even pay you a cent for what you think. Obvious? LOL
I think it's obvious you sounded a false alarm. Maybe you are too eager. Try again.

Your reaction is understandable. I get that it can be uncomfortable for you when I point out that you're behaving unethically.

 

[The Hammer]

I had this bear in mind, but I didn't want you Oops. Mistook you for Hammer. to give up your his path without a fight.
I wanted to see some clothing get ripped off first. @The Hammer's, I mean.

If you wanted to see me without clothes you probably just need to ask

 

[Psalm23]

If you wanted to see me without clothes you probably just need to ask

This is the wrong website for that.. lol.

 

[The Hammer]

This is the wrong website for that.. lol.

There's a sub forum

 

[Spirit of Light]

There's a sub forum

The Nude Hammer sub forum

 

[The Hammer]

The Nude Hammer sub forum

Not quite. The "Eros" private sub forum lol.

 

[Psalm23]

The Nude Hammer sub forum

Reminds me of a time I signed up for a certain website at the library not knowing what it really was. Honestly something didn't seem right while signing up but I didn't listen to that feeling and next thing I knew , the screen was flooded with images.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Reminds me of a time I signed up for a certain website at the library not knowing what it really was. Honestly something didn't seem right while signing up but I didn't listen to that feeling and next thing I knew , the screen was flooded with images.

Back before Google, my go-to search engine was metacrawler.

If I was typing carelessly, sometimes I'd enter it as "meatcrawler." They were... not the same.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Not quite. The "Eros" private sub forum lol.

You know, that's not an image I'd like to have in my mind. No offense intended, just saying.

 

[VoidCat]

You know, that's not an image I'd like to have in my mind. No offense intended, just saying.

I dont think that an image anyone wants in their life... But here it is... @The Hammer naked:

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

I dont think that an image anyone wants in there life... But here it is... @The Hammer naked:
View attachment 61791

My eyes! My eyes!

Good lord, man! You shouldn't post something like that on a public forum! A naked hammer.

What's wrong with people these days?

 

[The Hammer]

You know, that's not an image I'd like to have in my mind. No offense intended, just saying.

Then don't look, hmph.

 

[InChrist]

You're dealing with yet more Christians who are convinced that they know what the Bible really teaches. It's the same ole song and dance with Christians, and the rampant dissension among them hasn't changed during the history of the Christian Church. That's why there are Catholics, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestants galore. And Christians want unbelievers to believe that Christianity is the only true religion in the world, and all other religions are false? That's truly laughable because Christians are so divided. There's an old saying that Christians eat their own, and it's true. It's also true that Christians are their own worst enemy.

Years before my faith was in Jesus Christ alone, I was a member of the Mormon church. I remember we used to talk (brag) about how no matter where you were in the world on any given Sunday; all the Sunday school lessons were exactly the same. The attitude was that this was so much more unified compared to all the denominations and divisions of Christendom, as well as this was another indication the Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the “true” church.
Then one time I was watching a video where this point of so many denominations was brought up as a negative thing, just like you have. I’ll never forget the response of the Christian who answered, because it changed my perspective dramatically. He said the Body of Christ includes a huge variety of people from every nation, culture, all ages and all walks of life. God is the God of all and He is big enough to allow for differences. Not only that but each person in the Body of Christ is at a different place in their understanding and process of maturing in their life with Christ. Oftentimes, the various denominations simply highlight different aspects of the Christian faith. Yet, all biblical churches are united on the essential teachings of the Bible related to Jesus Christ and salvation.
I came to realize that it is the cults and pseudo-Christian groups that require strict uniformity. While God is big enough to allow differences; unity with diversity.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

Years before my faith was in Jesus Christ alone, I was a member of the Mormon church. I remember we used to talk (brag) about how no matter where you were in the world on any given Sunday; all the Sunday school lessons were exactly the same. The attitude was that this was so much more unified compared to all the denominations and divisions of Christendom, as well as this was another indication the Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the “true” church.
Then one time I was watching a video where this point of so many denominations was brought up as a negative thing, just like you have. I’ll never forget the response of the Christian who answered, because it changed my perspective dramatically. He said the Body of Christ includes a huge variety of people from every nation, culture, all ages and all walks of life. God is the God of all and He is big enough to allow for differences. Not only that but each person in the Body of Christ is at a different place in their understanding and process of maturing in their life with Christ. Oftentimes, the various denominations simply highlight different aspects of the Christian faith. Yet, all biblical churches are united on the essential teachings of the Bible related to Jesus Christ and salvation.
I came to realize that it is the cults and pseudo-Christian groups that require strict uniformity. While God is big enough to allow differences; unity with diversity.

Thank you for your kind response, InChrist, but I'd like to address the sentence that I emphasized in your post. On the contrary, all biblical churches are not united on the essential teachings of the Bible related to Jesus Christ and salvation. For instance, there are a few Christians on this site who deny that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. They don't believe in the hypostatic union (What is the hypostatic union?), which describes how Jesus took on a human nature, yet he remained fully God at the same time (Does Christ have two natures?). As you can see in these two articles I cited, other Christians obviously believe that Jesus is fully God and fully man. I've talked to Christians who don't believe a person can be saved if they deny that Jesus is fully God and fully man, thus denying his divine nature as the Second Person of the Trinity. Speaking of God's triune nature, there are non-Trinitarian Christians.

There's always been a dispute and dissension among Christians over which Christians are "true Christians" and which ones aren't (for example: Who are the Jehovah’s Witnesses and what are their beliefs?). Catholics believe that the Catholic Church is the one and only "True Church," and Protestants aren't saved on account of their protestant beliefs, and salvation only comes by Christ and through his Catholic Church (source). On the other hand, there are Protestants who don't believe that Catholics are true Christians.

Christians are not united on the essential teachings of the Bible related to salvation, either. Calvinism vs. Arminianism is an age-old theological debate among Christians. Christians also disagree how whether baptism is required for salvation (Is baptism necessary for salvation?). In fact, the Christian apologetic site I'm citing teaches 'once saved, always saved' (Calvinism), which of course, other Christians don't believe is biblical. As anyone can see, Christians aren't united on the essential teachings related to salvation and Jesus. As I said, Christianity is so divided, and Christians can't even give a single answer to theological questions related to salvation.

 

[Psalm23]

@nPeace , how would you describe your path?

 

[InChrist]

Thank you for your kind response, InChrist, but I'd like to address the sentence that I emphasized in your post. On the contrary, all biblical churches are not united on the essential teachings of the Bible related to Jesus Christ and salvation. For instance, there are a few Christians on this site who deny that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. They don't believe in the hypostatic union (What is the hypostatic union?), which describes how Jesus took on a human nature, yet he remained fully God at the same time (Does Christ have two natures?). As you can see in these two articles I cited, other Christians obviously believe that Jesus was fully God and fully man. I've talked to Christians who don't believe a person can be saved if they deny that Jesus was fully God and fully man.

There's always been a dispute and dissension among Christians over which Christians are "true Christians" and which ones aren't (for example: Who are the Jehovah’s Witnesses and what are their beliefs?). Furthermore, Christians are not united on the essential teachings of the Bible related to salvation, either. Calvinism vs. Arminianism is an age old theological debate among Christians.

Christians also disagree how whether baptism is required for salvation or not (Is baptism necessary for salvation?). As a matter of fact, the Christian apologetic site I'm citing in my post teaches 'once saved, always saved' (Calvinism), which other Christians don't believe is biblical.

I truly appreciate your response and actually have no argument with the differences you highlighted. I guess it would all go back to what the definition of biblical is. I don’t consider groups as JW’s or others who deny the deity of Christ to be biblical at all. I don’t think any orthodox denominations consider such groups to be so, either.
I think the important thing about the differences you brought up is that these can or should be motivation for one to search the scriptures. I know it’s been the case for me. Years ago, we started attending what we thought was a community church, only to eventually learn it was Calvinist and Reformed (neither of which we were familiar with). So this caused our whole family to search the scriptures and do an in-depth study on Calvinism because something just seemed wrong about it. We learned so much and came to the conclusion that neither Calvinism or Arminianism line up with the scriptures. So we left that church. We consider it wrong and artificial to categorize Christians as either. Although, I believe once saved always saved, I am by no means a Calvinist and consider the TULIP system of Calvinism to be a man made theology. Nevertheless, I have good Calvinist friends and can find fellowship with them in Christ, something which is not possible with those who worship an entirely different Jesus.
I certainly don’t discount the differences amongst Christians, but I believe God can and does use these to help believers learn and grow closer to Him when searching the scriptures and seeking Him for further wisdom and understanding.