The thing about personal interpretation, that is, reading the scripture oneself and interpret it oneself, is that one can never know if one interpret it correctly. Sure, I believe in what I believe is right (if that make sense), so of course I will believe MY PERSONAL interpretation of a given scripture is true and accurate, but then it simply doesn't help the whole "Your interpretation is not true to God" argument. Relating this back to my much loved Missionaries discussion, how can anyone know for sure the Missionaries are spreading the correct interpretation of the scripture? And how about the illiterate population who is prone to errant interpretation? Does God punish them for "they did not comprehend the scripture the way it was meant to be comprehended" because the Missionary who spread the belief/religion/lessons in their area is wrong?
about the missionaries, i don't know hiake, maybe later on in time when i hopefully become one will i be able to answer most questions concerning them. i think the missionaries provide the means for the illiterate to learn their language to an appropriate level rather than telling them something that they cant read or fully understand themselves. im not 100% sure. there are possible corrupt people spreading another gospel, but we can only leave it to God,. as for interpretation, some Christians have different ideas (that are within reason, if the bible says up and you say down then your plain wrong), for me the core teaching is about accepting Jesus Christ, through Jesus your saved. from what ive seen, people that are reached through missionaries usualy put us to shame in terms of how they serve God and live their Christian lives, some of the stuff happening in China and Brazil for example, shows God' mighty work. in heaven i believe all our wrong interpretation's will be corrected, but what is necessary is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, wrongly interpreting that could prove fatal for a Christian. p.s nice hearing from you hiake, its been a day but it feels like a year
@ BR Im back and read up on posts 383, 586, 587. What exactly are the questions that you want to discuss about? @ CNB, let the discussions begin, shall we?-^_^ @ Tax, Satan chose his own destiny trying to be "superior" and rebelled against God (his Creator) , hence cannot blame God for being cruel when Satan chose this path himself.
LOL, I think it feels like a year each time I miss PA for a day or two too Welcome back to wind too Back on topic. I've seen/hear from personal friend about some missionary work in less advanced countries where the audience are illiterate. The missionaries will tell "stories" which embeds lessons from the Bible (via THEIR personal interpretation of course) to the audience. But then how can one differentiate between how wrong is wrong enough to warrant hell as their destination after death? Of course I understand the whole "if you say Christ is not your savior you shall not be saved" thing, but besides that? Or does God overlook MOST things besides the core teaching? And what are the core teachings? It's like passing an exam, we have to know what question to answer correctly to ensure our passing
hi hiake, i believe what's important is your position with Jesus, i dot think a person can go to hell for misinterpreting something here and there. if a person was grossly misinterpreting the bible (like i said, when the bible says up and you interpret it as down) then that will be an issue between that person and God, only he knows the heart of men. i totally believe that a Christian can be saved knowing about Jesus alone, without any other biblical knowledge. but we have the privilege of having the entire bible so we can learn it all. back in the day, the 66 books of the bible were not compiled together and many people had only one book of the bible. core teaching is, God came down in the form of Jesus and saved us from our sins, he lived a perfect and sinless life and paid the price of our sins. If anybody accepts the gift of salvation from Jesus, repents for their sins (and continually does this) and does the will of the Father will be saved. its also necessary to pray for the Fathers will concerning your life . its Jesus that saves, not church, the amount of the bible you know, baptism, deeds, etc etc i may have missed something but that is the core teaching, maybe some other Christians can add onto this. cya
So if doing good deeds are part of the will of the Father, then wouldn't doing good deed part of the core teachings (not in the form of teachings, I know, but in the sense of it being essential to salvation).
when you follow the 10 commandments fully you have no choice but to do good deeds, the bible says that good deeds are the fruit of the spirit (after being saved and regenerated and doing all deeds to glorify the Lord) but deeds by our own effort are considered to be dirty rags before God. imo deeds can be very dangerous cus as soon as a person considers themselves to deserve heaven because of their deeds, they have already lost. but in a way they should be in the core teaching, as long as precaution is given
LOL, anyone care to enlighten me with the 10 commandments? Both in original text (or whatever the Bible has recorded down) and in plain English...
1. You shall have no other Gods before me. 2. You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. 4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. 5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. 6. You shall not murder. 7. You shall not commit adultery. 8. You shall not steal. 9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s."
Some interesting observations: Does "no God" fit the requirement to "no other gods before me"? Otherwise, Checked. Checked. Checked. Checked. Checked. Checked. I think I tend to hire professionals for professional works. JKS. Checked. Just so you know, premarital sex is not part of adultery because according to Wiki and a few other dictionaries: Adultery is voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and one who is not his or her spouse. Some legal jurisdictions have defined it as a "crime against marriage". So if a marriage is not in the equation, sex is not adultery. So there. Checked. Checked, if it means what I think it means... Checked. Oddly enough, none of the 10 commandments entails "believe in me, your God"? Or am I the only person who find that odd? @dann: Probably those customers are stupid because they don't believe in God -tongue2
No, I guess the ultimate sin I've commited which may admit me to the hypothetical hell is "do not believe in God" Is all. If in the end, the admittance of the hypothetical hell is based on following the commandments, I think I would end up in heaven -shock And I merely wanted to point out that not only followers of the Christian faith can (or will) follow the commandments. Which is disappointing, in the sense where I may end up bored out of my wits in the hypothetical heaven :(
the 1st commandment tells you to have no god but God (of the bible). The thing about the commandments is, if you break one in your lifetime (your mom told you to go to bed as child and you disobeyed(5)) , you've broken them all, and according to the bible you deserve hell. thats why us Christians follow the commandments but cant base our salvation on them because we all fall short. though you may not, you should read the books of Exodus and Leviticus to fully understand the commandments. im off to bed now, cya
LOL, but I got the impression that it's not exactly a choice, that hypothetical judgement of Christianity... If I am given half a choice, I would CHOOSE to head down and visit Crowley. But alas, it's a choice, not being condemned (as I don't quite care what others, lest my hypothetical creator, think of me)
To have no god but God, so how about having no god at all, period? That didn't exactly break that particular commandment now did it? It is interesting that you brought up the parents issue, how about in the case where my mom tells me "to finish my homework before heading to bed" then tell me to "go to bed and to hell with the homework"? One way or another I would end up dishonouring ONE of her commands... so there's no winning? But besides aforementioned cases, I don't think I broke any commandment yet... @dann: BR wanted to be in hell to dismember all those angry customers... -whistle
Well, I thought you could CHOOSE sth bad for u if u decide to head to Hell instead of Heaven, but not the other way around... But I am not sure. I guess you gotta ask the hypothetical God's permission for it :(
