What is: The Gospel According To You?

The only thing hotter than this thread at the moment is my job. I understand once it hits 300 it closes. I would like the opportunity to publish before I perish (or was it put up or shut up?, something like that), in Iano' misquoted words, but at the moment I don't have the time to provide him/her with an appropriately lengthy and respectful response he/she deserves. I am new here, what happens?This message has been edited by anglagard, 04-12-2006 01:57 AMThis message has been edited by anglagard, 04-12-2006 02:02 AM

anglagardWell, when we get hot topics like this where the 300 limit is burned through the topic is often reopened on a part 2 basis though as usual someone must take the initiative to open the second part. If you feel it worth your while based on interest among posters then this might be worth looking into.

Pain as in nerve sensation?Or more what is commonly translated from Buddhism as "suffering", the feeling of we don't get what we want, or are afraid we will lose what we have, that somehow life is out of joint?lfen

How about god did it to keep stupid people from hurting themselves?
you could say the same thing about evolution, pain is there to tell life to stop doing something, its feedbacknow as for sufforing which is the real question, i like buddhas answer suffering is caused by wanting things, stop looking at bright shiny things and you won't suffer This message has been edited by ReverendDG, 04-12-2006 03:35 AM

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12For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;
13For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

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14For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:

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15Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another

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16In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

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If only it were as simple as that. We only have to roll forward a chapter to Romans 3 where we find..

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9 What shall we conclude then? Are we any better ? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.

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10As it is written:
"There is no one righteous, not even one;
11there is no one who understands,no one who seeks God.
12All have turned away,they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,not even one."
13"Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit."

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19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, (pay attention to the purpose of the law) through the law we become conscious of sin.

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Jesus did indeed say he came for the unrighteous not the righteous. We know that there are unrighteous. You include yourself in that number so Jesus came for you. If one is inclinded to take Jesus words to mean that there are righteous then Pauls use of the less ambiguous OT scripture should dispel the notion.Also, how does your "its as simple as that Gospel" deal with this apparent conflict? Wheras Romans 3 says... Would you conclude from such quote mining on both our parts Jar that one can be saved in 2 separate ways: either by doing the law (your gospel) or belief in Jesus Christ('my' gospel)? The conflict is there and Paul himself with 'but now' has shown there is dividing line between them.How does your gospel resolve the conflict? It doesn't happen frequently, but I agree with you here.This message has been edited by iano, 12-Apr-2006 11:10 AMThis message has been edited by iano, 12-Apr-2006 11:11 AM

This thread has turned into a bit of a mess ag. I made the mistake at the outset of 'permitting' debate. Thats all it became. However, there are threads from time to time which are set up only to get single statement viewpoints from anyone who has one and in those it is respectfully requested that no debate takes place within the thread.At the end of this one I'll open such a thread and you can post there if you like.

I have no clue how you deduced that from my statement. Let's break it down. I said nothing of the sort.If you are judged based on what you know, and you do not know about Christianity, then what is the problem?How is that sending someone to hell?Let's look at it a little deeper. Pretend John Smith even knows about Christianity, but was molested by a preist or something bad like that, and chooses to deny God the rest of his life. I can't see how God wouldn't pardon him and let him in heaven.If anything, I think the priest would be held accountable for John Smith not getting to know God, and the priest would got o hell for John.

First, you are misquoting what I have always said when it comes to what I believe the Gospel is. This is a fallacy that many of you seem to continue to commit. No where have I ever said that you are saved by "doing the Law". I have said that salvation is freely given by GOD to ALL mankind. I have said that you as an individual will be judged based on your personal behavior not on your beliefs or profession.Second, Paul does not say that one is saved by belief or profession alone. I address the particulars of the quotemining you are doing in this message in Message 152. Paul constantly returns to the subject that it is what you do that will be judged.There is no conflict iano. The Bible is consistant in this area, you will be judged on behavior, not belief or profession.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Any pain--mental or physical.

deleted, hit the send button earlyThis message has been edited by iano, 12-Apr-2006 03:54 PM

I have learned that it is better not to let conversation cover too many areas when it comes to discussing them with you. So forget my last post and perhaps consider this instead.The Romans passage above was given by you presumably by way of biblical demonstration of the comment above it. But there is no mention of righteousness in the passage. Righteousness through behaviour is not mentioned. Justification through behaviour, yes, but not righteousness.Why did you use this passage as support for your comment?

Once again I don't have a clue what it is you're talking about. You seem to be caught up in wanting to play dualing definitions and let's dance with this word now. I don't play those games, sorry.The subject is, "What is: The Gospel According To You?"I have answered that, fully and consistently. I used that passage as one example of what it takes to be righteous, and IMHO righteous will be defined by your behavior. You didn't provide a link to the message that the part you quoted from was taken, so I'm not sure of the context where it was used.I have consistently said that Romans is a long letter, and that to understand what Paul is actually saying, you need to read all of it, the whole 16 Chapters. IMHO many Christains misrepresent what the New Testament says, particulary what John and Paul say. IMHO both of them convincingly say that you will be judged based on your behavior, not on your beliefs.The Gospel is simple.GOD sent Jesus to remind us that She forgives ALL mankind. That everyone starts with a clean slate. That all GOD asks is that we try to follow the Two Great Commandments, Love GOD and love others as you love yourself.It really is as simple as that.Not easy, but simple.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The msg is 224 written 4 or so hours ago so the context should be reasonably fresh in your memory.In the message you were saying that a specific aspect of your gospel, righteousness, comes from right behaviour and you quoted a passage which doesn't mention righteousness at all. I was wondering why? It just seems strange to use a passage to support a specific element of your gospel which doesn't mention the specific element of your gospel. That all.

Pain or suffering can be regarded as a feedback signal to restore homostasis. The problem is that the mechanism is not perfect, it can be ambiguous or give misleading, insufficient, or false information. Sometimes it's something like those error message we get on computers. "Fatal error file does not exist". etc.The fact of suffering is the foundation and first truth of Buddhism. It is a religion that started with an investigation of suffering. But I just looked up and saw the topic and realized that this is far a field.So, I'll just take this opportunity to leap back onto topic with something I haven't come across and that I find striking about Christianity.I thought the Gospel was about the coming end of the world, the old order and the imminent return of Jesus and the establishment of a new order.Not just Christians and Jews in those days but many folks saw signs of the world ending. As far as I can tell the first Christian lived in expectation of the world ending within the lifetimes of some living then and I think that played a determining role in their willingness to die as martyrs. Although as demonstrated by Masada it was just not Christians that chose death rather than yeilding to Roman demands.I also note that many of those who come to Christianity through a literal reading of the Bible look to the world ending soon. And that makes sense as the emphasis is there. The surviving Christian church(es) have had to adapt to hundreds and now thousands of years that have stretched on. I understand why they don't see this as falsifying their bible but I have to say it seems like the whole Gospel is quite dubious as it was based on the imminent end of the world.lfenedit typo churc(es) to church(es)This message has been edited by lfen, 04-12-2006 09:15 AM

Why don't you start a topic on this? Start an argument about why the Buddhistic explanation for suffering is a better explanation than the concept of the Fall.