Muslim & Christian Discussion ForumPlease try and convince me otherwise.Truth Seeker-Joshua wrote:Peace all
SubmitTo1God: Why Christianity is not for Me: Please try to convince me otherwise:
Here is whay SubmitTo1God and Aburaees are totally clueless.
Every verse quoted by SubmitTo1God, is pre-Christianity; hence Jewish Law or Law of Moses.
Christianity is a faith and movement which was started after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The cornerstone scripture to Christianity is that of the Gospels ( Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), and the books written by the apostles; Paul, Timothy, Titus, James, Peter, and Jude.
The fact that you would equate today's Christianity to the acient Laws & Rituals of Moses, is really just a sad attemp to hide the atrocities of 1slam.
The fact of the matter is, both Christianity and Judaism have been corrupted, and made bad decisions over time.
Yet, we have grown from our mistakes into moral loving religions.
Can you say the same for 1slam? NOPE.
The same perverted word that was followed since 700AD, is still followed today.
Nice try you two.
He Is Lord
Peace and Godspeed
Pray for Israel
I'm not sure where to start, so I'll start here...
Wait, before I do, I think some folks could use a more respectful tone when addressing 'SubmitTo1God.' Some things got a little harsh at times, here and there.
OK, back to the person I just quoted...
Way off base, buddy... but your post speaks to something everyone here seems a unsure of...
What TSJoshua here is saying is gnosticism, pure and simple (and certainly, from my viewpoint, heretical). There is only one God, and He's the same in the OT and NT. He is just and good.
Origen (not me, the 2000 year old theologian) has quite a few things to say about this topic here, in 'Chapter IV and V' if you scroll way down about 1/4 of the way. But I'll cut right to the chase of the whole mixup of "why does God seem so brutal back then, etc" by quoting Origen here, when he's talking about the flood (he calls it The Deluge), the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah, and the wandering of the Isrealites in the desert for 40 years (where they all died and only the next gen got into the promised land):
...if virtue is a blessing, and justice is a virtue, then without doubt justice is goodness. But if they say that justice is not a blessing, it must either be an evil or an indifferent thing. Now I think it folly to return any answer to those who say that justice is an evil, for I shall have the appearance of replying either to senseless words, or to men out of their minds. How can that appear an evil which is able to reward the good with blessings, as they themselves also admit?
But if they say that it is a thing of indifference, it follows that since justice is so, sobriety also, and prudence, and all the other virtues, are things of indifference. And what answer shall we make to Paul, when he says, "If there be any virtue, and, if there be any praise, think on these things, which ye have learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me?"
Let them learn, therefore, by searching the holy Scriptures, what are the individual virtues, and not deceive themselves by saying that that God who rewards every one according to his merits, does, through hatred of evil, recompense the wicked with evil, and not because those who have sinned need to be treated with severer remedies, and because He applies to them those measures which, with the prospect of improvement, seem nevertheless, for the present, to produce a feeling of pain.
They do not read what is written respecting the hope of those who were destroyed in the deluge; of which hope Peter himself thus speaks in his first Epistle:
"That Christ, indeed, was put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which He went and preached to the spirits who were kept in prison, who once were unbelievers, when they awaited the long-suffering of God in the days of Noah, when the ark was preparing, in which a few, i.e., eight souls, were saved by water. Whereunto also baptism by a like figure now saves you."
And with regard to Sodom and Gomorrah, let them tell us whether they believe the prophetic words to be those of the Creator God--of Him, viz., who is related to have rained upon them a shower of fire and brimstone. What does Ezekiel the prophet say of them?
"Sodom," he says, "shall be restored to her former condition."
But why, in afflicting those who are deserving of punishment, does He not afflict them for their good? (who also says to Chaldea, "Thou hast coals of fire, sit upon them; they will be a help to thee.")
And of those also who fell in the desert, let them hear what is related in the seventy-eighth Psalm, which bears the superscription of Asaph; for he says,
"When He slew them, then they sought Him."
He does not say that some sought Him after others had been slain, but he says that the destruction of those who were killed was of such a nature that, when put to death, they sought God.
By all which it is established, that the God of the law [OT] and the Gospels [NT] is one and the same, a just and good God, and that He confers benefits justly, and punishes with kindness; since neither goodness without justice, nor justice without goodness, can display the real dignity of the divine nature.
It always bothered me that God seemed to be at the root of so much death - until I realised He was calling these people to Himself. That their death was of such a nature that it brought them to Him, that they "sought God" in such a death. It completely turned my uncertainty on its head, and became a great source of strength and assurance for my faith instead.
I'm not sure where, in the stories of battling armies, God's will stops and human mischief starts. But I have unshakable faith that God always has and always will act in accordance with His just and good nature.
I think a Muslim could take comfort and find peace in this notion, as well, though I personally believe Christianity is the only place I can really find this peace.
As for everyone else, careful not to slip into Gnosticism by too flippantly dismissing the OT. It doesnt quite work like that.
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