Romans 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”
Ops! Doesn't it say here, that you just have to have faith? No.
This is quoted from
Habakkuk 2: 4 “Look at the proud person. He is not right in himself. But the righteous person will live because of his faithfulness.” (God's Word)
Most Christian bibles "correct" the reading of Habakkuk to match the one in Romans, so they place the same wording into it.
NASB: "Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.
However, Habakkuk simply refers back to the Torah:
Leviticus 18: 5 ‘So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.
The thought is also reflected in Ezekiel:
Ezekiel 18:9 if he walks in My statutes and My ordinances so as to deal faithfully— he is righteous and will surely live,” declares the Lord GOD.
Paul simply quotes from the LXX where the Hebrew term for "faithfulness" was rendered into Greek as "pisteuo" ("faith") because that is exactly what "faith" meant in those days.
Today faith means nothing more than mental ascent - or perhaps some religious feelings.
I call "old dirty tactics" when rather than addressing the message attempt is made to discredit the messenger. It happens a lot in politics.
You did not try to address the original post, rather, you sought to attack me.
Neither do I. I don't think I am better or smarted than anyone here. But I think I did a lot more studies in this field.
Yet, this doesn't mean I am right.
I did not make statements I cannot prove either. Which statement did you mean? I can point you to the relevant information.
Martia, it doesn't matter who I am. I am a nobody. I simply posted an idea for consideration. Take it or leave it.
I am not the pope, I do not claim to be unmistakeable.
I simply presented the result of my personal studies. Whether they are facts or not, is up to you to decide. If you want to check them out I am happy to help. But if not, on what ground are you accusing me?
No, there is no lie here. There is no information that I presented here that cannot be verified - though it might require some serious studies.
If you want to check them out, let me know. I am more than happy to help.
That might be the modern definition, but not the ancient biblical definition. Faith doesn't only mean mental ascent. It rather means faithfulness.
So if you disobey, you have no faith even if you believe the right stuff. "Faith" is, therefore, a doing word.
Faith is based on knowledge. It is said that "Abraham believed God and it was accounted for him for righteousness". The term "believe" literally means "being firm" - the imagery is putting the poles down when setting up a tent (excuse me if I don't use the right terms here, my mother tongue is not English). Something was said to Abraham by God. He acknowledge His character and because of this he was firm in God.
Whether the story is true and if there is a God doesn't matter. What matters is what the story describes.
When you sit on a chair you have faith in it, because the character of the chair that it is able to hold your weight. So your faith is based on knowledge.
Therefore, the biblical definition of "faith" is not the same as the modern definition.
The events of the first century are far removed from our time. If we want to make sense of those ancient Jewish writings in the bible we need to "become" a first century Jew, that is, we need to understand their culture, their customs and try to read those passages not through the rosy glasses of our modern Western culture, but through their eyes.
That takes a lot of work.
Of course, you can still make some sense of those writings, but you will not get the real meaning.
I have four uni papers. One of them is in theology, the last one I did was in IT.
But for the sake of the debate I do not consider any of my degrees to lend authority to what I say. I simply do not want anybody to accept my ideas because they are mine and I have degrees. No!!! I am against all this authoritarian stuff. I absolutely have no intention to go down the path of sects.
What I prefer - and I continually stated this to my friends to whom I used to write regularly in the past - is to expose people to various ideas, which can be either right or wrong, but they serve the purpose of stimulating thinking, and then everybody work out their own answers.
You don't get this in Christian churches where people are conditioned to accept what is preached from the pulpit.
So, here you go, I am a nobody, no authority about anything. I simply have ideas. Think about them and do what you want with them. If you adopt them it will be your choice because you did the thinking, and not because I told you so.
??? Are you suggesting that "faith" means blindly accepting some doctrines the church worked out hundreds of years after Christ?
That is blind "faith" indeed.
It works perfectly because I don't need to parrot back what someone preaches from the pulpit. I am free to consider ideas and test them, and I am free to discard them. Are you?
How do you define "real faith"? Is that definition derived from the TaNaKh or is it something you made up? And can you please explain, that not knowing my life, how you cam to the conclusion that my faith is not "real"?
I never implied that any number of degrees or any level of biblical knowledge helps anyone. Contrary to that, I stated that there is no partiality with God and everyone will be judged on their own merit - contrary to Christian doctrine that state that God will favour the Christians.
Martia, why does it matter how qualified one is on these forums? This is not a scientific forum where you need to present your qualifications. And not a clergy discussion either so one needs to bring his theology degrees along.
I only mentioned that I have a theology degree because Kizzy stated "obviously I dont quite understand your views nor you mine" (spelling error corrected). Kizzy has "Christian/Other" in her profile. Of course, it can mean anything, and I do not know what stream she follows, but I am familiar with the various theological streams of Christianity even though I used to belong to the Baptist kind.
But why do you think anyone on these forums need to present their credentials? If I asked you to adopt my views it would have been appropriate for you to ask me on what ground. Sure, then I need to present you my credentials and show you the various institutions where I studied.
However, I did not ask anyone to adopt them. Simply to consider them. What you do with the info is none of my business.
But if you want to seriously study the issue, I can point you to various authors whose work are available on Amazon.
So here you go, I did not claim authority, why the accusation?
Oh, and you resort to name calling also. Unintelligent. Old dirty tactics. If you don't like the message, attack the messenger.
LOL. No, I am not. But as I noted here or on the JW thread I start with ancient Judaism and interpret the NT in the light of it because Yeshua and the first disciples were practising Jews.
Those two commandments sum up the whole Torah. They are the very proof that the Torah was not destroyed.
These two laws tell you the *what*. The other 611 laws tell you the *how*.
How was the Torah nailed to the cross when Paul says:
Romans 2: 12 For all who have sinned without the Torah will also perish without the Torah, and all who have sinned under the Torah will be judged by the Torah; 13 for it is not the hearers of the Torah who are just before God, but the doers of the Torah will be justified.
And
Romans 3: 19 Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; 20 because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
That is a misunderstanding. How could he do away with the Torah when right through his ministry he explained the Torah?
He could not fulfil the Torah by destroying it. Fulfilling it means strengthening it through his life.
Matthew 5: 19 Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
The thought is that you annul a small commandment, but keep all others. It shows how important Torah observance was in his eye.
Why not? Do I need to reinvent the wheel if I want to drive a car?
My position about theological ideas is that they are dynamic. Sects create static teachings that people follow for generations. I don't want that. I want people to think and test ideas, for they should be debatable and testable. There should be no taboos.
The idea that the Sabbath was given to man, not man to the Sabbath is from Judaism. Yeshua didn't invent it. He simply taught pure Judaism.
Kizzy, I fully understand Christian theology since I have a theology degree. I loved it and believed it was perfect, but later on I came to realise it was built on wrong assumptions.
One day I decided to test the trinity - not disprove it, nor prove it, but test it like in a court situation. I used trinitarian commentaries and dictionaries. I never did this before. I repeat, I loved the doctrine and knew it well. The last thing I wanted was to disprove it.
The doctrine of the deity of the Holy Spirit collapsed in about ten minutes. The doctrine of the deity of Christ collapsed in about a week or two. Then I moved on to test other doctrines and found that I had to throw away all of them and start afresh.
You can understand, this was a very hard time for me... I was an elder in a small group, I resigned and didn't attend any meetings. About a month later they called me back and wanted to hear what I had discovered. So I told them, and soon they all adopted my views.
Did I indoctrinate them? No. It was them who wanted to hear what I had to say.
Well, you are going down the path of insult... Sorry it is too low for me, I will not get involve in it.
Why do you accuse me of bigotry? Is it because I stated my opinion on these matters? That is not bigotry. My opinions are based on over 15 years of research. Yet, I do not claim I am unmistakable. I do not claim everybody else is wrong. I simply stated what my approach is and why I don't follow historical Christian doctrine.
There are numerous books written on the subject. You can buy them on Amazon. Are those authors also bigot because they present their research to the reader? I ask you not to believe me, but go and do your own studies. Read those books. Read about Zoroastrianism, read about Platonism and all the other Greek religions. Most Christians don't do it and don't want to do it. They rather accuse others of bigotry.
Messianic Jews are trinitarian Christians who use Hebrew terms and observe some Jewish stuff. But their theology is far from being Jewish. Sure, they use the name Yeshua, but they refer to the second member of the trinity.
We start with ancient Judaism and interpret the Renewed Covenant scriptures in the light of it. We believe this is the right way. Why else would we do it? Christians believe theirs is the right way. No bigotry either way. Or would you also call them bigots?
We not only use the name Yeshua, but make it clear that we mean Yeshua, the biological son of Yoseph and Miriam, the Galilean Jewish Rabbi. This clearly differentiates him from the "Yeshua" of the MJs and the Jesus of Christians, who was supposedly born of a virgin.
Since you haven't read my thread about JW theology, you cannot judge me. Read it and try to understand it. There are many of them that died because of this erroneous doctrine.
Hmmm... Can you please justify your statement? There are many posts where religion is discussed. It seems you are fine with people who state that there is no God or God is a woman or some other really foolish things they thing funny.
What is common, they all state their beliefs about some kind of religious subjects.
They even discussed JWs, and they did it in a sometimes very negative way. Did you object?
If you have read my other post (Sin sacrifice?) you would know that I am not interested in proselytising. I couldn't care less what religion you belong to and whether you accept my views or not. Honestly, I don't care.
I simply bring up ideas for people who are interested in them. They are not meant for Catholics, not for Protestants, not for any other Christians. In my experience it is the non-religious people who are interested and want to learn something new. Not the Christians. Very few Christians consider anything else but the official doctrine of their church.
So no. I am not criticising JWs, only some of their doctrines that may cause their death. And that is the very reason I criticise these doctrines - if you haven't noticed.
The Mormons are not a worry to me. Though I don't agree with them, their teachings will not cause the death of anyone. I also don't care about the Catholic doctrine.
But the JW doctrines I mentioned above did lead to the deaths of people. This is why I thought mentioning this is important.
As I said, I don't intend to convert people to my views. And I am not against JWs. Unlike others, who chase them away I do talk to them respectfully and find them very friendly.
I actually attended their meeting last week and found them to be one of the warmest people I have ever met.
And I have to tell they seem to be a lot more open to discussions than Christians.
None of the established ones. We seek to interpret the renewed covenant scriptures from the point of the TaNaKh, that is, with the understanding that both Yeshua and the first century disciples were practising Jews.
We are one of the fastest growing movement, but not organised into groups in Australia, at least I am not aware of any. There are many such synagogues in the US.
We reject the ideas developed by the early Greek Christians who did not understand Jewish thought, and seek to employ the definitions of the TaNaKh rather than deploying definitions borrowed from Platonism, Zoroastrianism and other Pagan religions.
I am sure most of you have met these people and even have workmates or family members who belong to them. Some people chase them away when they show up at their door, others talk to them politely.
So how do you help your friends who were "sucked into" this sect?
Here is a little help regarding their doctrine on blood, which is very harmful, but to them only.
The JWs will point out a number of bible verses to prove their ideas and it is hard to argue with them because you can develop many doctrines from the bible depending on your approach.
So you can take those verses that say "the life (soul) of the animal is in its blood" and develop a doctrine that forbids blood transfusion (hey, you don't want to have someone else' soul in you), or take other biblical verses and justify the idea that JWs should refuse ID cards (as they did in Africa and lots of them were killed for it), and all these ideas can very well be justified from the bible. As I said the result you get depends on your approach.
However, there is a single concept that throws them all out the window.
Mark 2:27 ..."The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath".
The concept is that the Torah doesn't exist for its own sake. It was given for the benefit of mankind, not for its destruction - to bring order, to protect, to produce love. It was not meant to destroy the lives of innocents.
So no matter how we interpret the blood laws, if our interpretation leads to the death of our loved ones, it is plain wrong!!!
In addition to this, when life is in danger, all laws shall be and must be abrogated.
revealer24 Forum Posts (985)
Sin sacrifice?
One simple proof is the following:Romans 1:17
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”
Ops! Doesn't it say here, that you just have to have faith? No.
This is quoted from
Habakkuk 2:
4 “Look at the proud person. He is not right in himself.
But the righteous person will live because of his faithfulness.” (God's Word)
Most Christian bibles "correct" the reading of Habakkuk to match the one in Romans, so they place the same wording into it.
NASB:
"Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.
However, Habakkuk simply refers back to the Torah:
Leviticus 18:
5 ‘So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.
The thought is also reflected in Ezekiel:
Ezekiel 18:9
if he walks in My statutes and My ordinances so as to deal faithfully— he is righteous and will surely live,” declares the Lord GOD.
Paul simply quotes from the LXX where the Hebrew term for "faithfulness" was rendered into Greek as "pisteuo" ("faith") because that is exactly what "faith" meant in those days.
Today faith means nothing more than mental ascent - or perhaps some religious feelings.