Posted on 02/17/2005 3:06:35 PM PST by LurkedLongEnough
"Praying to Buddha, Jesus, Spongebob--there's no time to be picky!"
Isn't there a time factor here. The Christian scripture was written in the first few centuries after Christ's time. Mormon scripture is much newer. It's not beyond logical possibility that both could be correct. At least as far as his single factor is concerned.
Your "take" on it is very PC/New Age, but not necessarily the Holy Spirit's intended meaning. Jesus said in John 14:6 "... I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me."
Their are other passages in the Bible that state who will get into the mansions and who will not get in.
For example:
Rev 21:8 But as for the cowards and the ignoble and the contemptible and the cravenly lacking in courage and the cowardly submissive, and as for the unbelieving and faithless, and as for the depraved and defiled with abominations, and as for murderers and the lewd and adulterous and the practicers of magic arts and the idolaters (those who give supreme devotion to anyone or anything other than God) and all liars (those who knowingly convey untruth by word or deed)--[all of these shall have] their part in the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone. This is the second death. [Isa. 30:33.](AMP)
How tolerant this is? According to Jesus, it is a very exclusive place:
Mat 7:13 Enter through the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and spacious and broad is the way that leads away to destruction, and many are those who are entering through it. Mat 7:14 But the gate is narrow (contracted by pressure) and the way is straitened and compressed that leads away to life, and few are those who find it. [Deut. 30:19; Jer. 21:8.] (AMP)
Everyone on earth has the opportunity to go to be with Jesus, but few find Christ in order to get there.
When you use scripture to interpret scripture and are led by the Holy Spirit who authored the Bible, you will have God's intent. God's Word doesn't contradict Him. But some people take any portion of the Bible out of context and use it to support his or her own preconceived ideas.
We all can believe anything we want, but that does not make it God's truth. We can believe gravity does not exist, but that will not eliminate gravity's working. Before I became a Christian, I thought I understood the Bible too. But my understanding was colored by my own beliefs. Once I became a Christian I learned that:
2Pe 1:20 [Yet] first [you must] understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is [a matter] of any personal or private or special interpretation (loosening, solving). 2Pe 1:20 (AMP)
The Holy Spirit wrote it with God's intent and only with His guidance can we possibly understand it.
Ouch!
This description is most accurate because it identifies the root of the problem as psychological, rather than philosophical.
This begs the question of what constitutes Scripture.
The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history.
Hi, how do I get on the BU ping list? Thanks.
Why, IT is a nagap spelled backwards of course.
That is a$$ backwards in every respect.
Please go back to lurking, and come back when you've learned at least something about the religion you're commenting on.
It doesn't have to be a fatwa, as it's in the Quran. "People of the Book" are supposed to be protected in Islam, as Muslims believe they worship the same god, just that the Christians and Jews haven't accepted the latest message yet. Wiccans are pagans, infidels, who have no such protection and can be killed.
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