Posted                         

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
...A plain reading of the text is that anyone in trouble is brethren of the Lord - and that is supported by the breadth of teaching in the NT.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So mr cheesy's theological lens needs adjusting whilst you have 20/20 lenses in your frames, Jamat?

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Yeah, but he loves it, he bloody loves it, the prima donna. This man is Oscar Fingle O'Flaherty Wilde reincarnate. Take a bow JAMAT! I'll deal with you after the Côtes-du-Rhône-Village's worn off my little pack of cards.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Once again Jamat shows that he doesn't realize his interpretation of Scripture is an interpretation.

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It is entirely reasonable to conclude Jesus was referring to the Jewish nation here. If one's theological lens doesn't like that then maybe that lens needs adjusting.

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as you say, the 'gentile' nations, all separated into their various people groups who answer for the way they have treated the Lord's original people group..the Jews.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
No. In this quote you show that you think your interpretation is so perfect, that people who disagree with you are definitively wrong.

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It is entirely reasonable to conclude Jesus was referring to the Jewish nation here. If one's theological lens doesn't like that then maybe that lens needs adjusting.

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You accuse us of eisegesis, then read THIS into Matthew 25:

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as you say, the 'gentile' nations, all separated into their various people groups who answer for the way they have treated the Lord's original people group..the Jews.

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There is NOTHING in the text about being separated into various people groups. Nothing at all. You made that up out of whole cloth to suit your desired interpretation.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
When [fundamentalism] snaps it leaves a vacuum. It can lead to atheism.

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mr cheesy...A plain reading of the text is that anyone in trouble is brethren of the Lord - and that is supported by the breadth of teaching in the NT.

Aginjib: Indeed, and does anyone seriously suppose otherwise?

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Originally posted by Kwesi:
The trick is not to suppose anything, but to try and tease out the meaning of a text in as detached a way as possible.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
When [fundamentalism] snaps it leaves a vacuum. It can lead to atheism.

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Andrew Squiggle.

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Gamaliel: fundamentalist faith is brittle. It snaps. There is insufficient stretch and elasticity in it.

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Originally posted by Kwesi:
The trick is not to suppose anything, but to try and tease out the meaning of a text in as detached a way as possible. Furthermore, mr cheesy's defence based on “the breadth of teaching in the NT”, I would suggest, is problematic because it elides any distinction between differing strands, especially the eschatological and the rest. Often meanings that seem obvious become less so on second or more readings. IMO this is one of those texts where the meaning is at least ambiguous. Mr cheesy seems to think my suggestion that “the brethren” is a reference to the disciples is somewhat eccentric, but it is one held by not a few New Testament scholars.

The argument is that the context of this text begins at the start of Matthew 24 and ends at the conclusion of Matthew 25. The discussion is not about ethical living, who is my neighbour and so on, which might be associated with the Sermon on the Mount or the Good Samaritan, and addressed to a disparate group of listeners, but comes in a more eschatological discourse at the crisis of Jesus’ last week, where there is a sense of impending doom. Critically, it is addressed to a small inner circle: the disciples. It is an audience where a threatened “brethren” are clearly and narrowly defined.

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The passage begins with Jesus predicting to the disciples the fall of Jerusalem, and they ask him ‘privately’ when it will take place and whether there will be a sign of the latter things. Jesus replies there will be false Messiahs, wars, famines, and earthquakes as early birth pains, “Then they will hand you over to be tortured and will put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name.  Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another.” Jesus then invokes Daniel and continues in similar fashion, concluding “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Matthew 24: 1-44)

The text continues in a similar vein with parables about the need to be ready for the sudden reappearance of the master, culminating with the judgement of the nations (Matthew 25). There we have verses 40 : ” And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.;’ and verse 45: “Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ “ (NRSV) It is, therefore, not unreasonable to link the anticipated persecution of the disciples in the latter times with the judgement of the nations. I don’t assert that dogmatically, but it is a far from odd interpretations, and one I presently find the more convincing.

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I suppose that (say) Luke was written by a Christian in the first century for a mainly Gentile Christian audience.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Gamaliel: fundamentalist faith is brittle. It snaps. There is insufficient stretch and elasticity in it.

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Gee thanks for that insight. Guess I'm not a fundamentalist then.

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Originally posted by Gamaliel:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Gamaliel: fundamentalist faith is brittle. It snaps. There is insufficient stretch and elasticity in it.

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Gee thanks for that insight. Guess I'm not a fundamentalist then.

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Well, Squiggly Andrew was and look what happened to him ...

I'm not saying you're going to lose your faith the text time there's a gust of wind or an earth tremor.

But you could get back ache ...

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Originally posted by Aijalon:
I admit to being prone to looking at modern history through a lens that sits in the distant past, basically Sinai forward.


I did from the age of 14 to 41, from '68 to '95 and then some, under the influence of the cult I joined at 23: Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God.


I feel most are looking at it the other way.


Which is infinitely more natural.


I grew up very conservative, Martin, no bones about it,


I grew up chaotic, an English, lower middle class, caught in class cross-currents, grammar school boy existentially terrified of the bomb and all I could read of our dark side starting with Auschwitz from age 11. Hormones ruled in guilt and shame and fear until I crashed and burned at 22 and embraced the highly conservative cult.


but I'm not following what you're saying there on account of the vast amounts of wrathful language in the Scriptures.


I revelled in that language, in God as infallibly writ. God the Killer who paradoxically would save the vast majority of whom He slaughtered.


Okay, so I said "language". Does the wrath talk equate to a wrathful god? I suppose you are saying no. I presume we agree God hasn't changed himself over the eons, but he has changed his dealings with man via revelation and progress.


You're following me , working it out just fine. I no longer even feel that God has changed his dealings with man via revelation at all, except in Christ. We have progressed, yes. Climbed higher up the mountain. He's always waiting higher up.


How do you reconcile the wrathful events and language of scriptures with God having no wrath? I'm interested because I think I would fail in that attempt. Want to see what's up your sleeve there.


You Sir, have an engaging style. I love Americana and one would be MOST unwise to underestimate a cowboy. Or Wilfred Brimley playing a small town lawyer. I've been failing successfully for 62 years. All I got up my sleeve is postmodernism. Is that we're telling stories. We make stuff up. About God and everything. Even Jesus did. And He was … God. THAT story I believe. Utterly. Only. The story from the first circle or two of His acquaintance. And even then, I don't 'believe' the any of the other stuff they made up, their interpretations. Or second hand stuff about the circles. Like Peter being the agent of the Holy Spirit's assassination of Ananias and Sapphira. Inspired and full of goodwill in ignorance as it is. They made it ALL up. I used to believe ALL of it. That it was inspired 'in the Spirit'. I was a fundamentalist. All of that's gone. Thanks be to God in Christ, He's left, He remains.


… I grew up conservative and have since moved toward libertarian, far away from the wrathful guilt my parents and church put on me, but not off the grid.


Hmmmm. I curb my wild instinct for libertarian socialism – off the grid - for social democracy – of the grid. I find your sig intriguing. You can't possibly mean it.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Yeah, but he loves it, he bloody loves it, the prima donna. This man is Oscar Fingle O'Flaherty Wilde reincarnate. Take a bow JAMAT! I'll deal with you after the Côtes-du-Rhône-Village's worn off my little pack of cards.

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What I love Martin, is not my interpretation, and it is not about what I love but what I hate and that is the lies people believe that I know are lies. By the way I loved the importance of being Earnest. I think my favourite character was lady Bracknell..all about Victorian control.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Originally posted by Martin60:

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Originally posted by Kwesi:
Gamaliel

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God in his very nature isn't angry and wrathful - but that doesn't mean he is incapable of ire or righteous anger - as it were - against sin, injustice and things that cause harm ...

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So, God is wrathful towards abstractions, but what about his attitude towards the perpetrators of these 'sins', 'injustices' and 'people who cause harm'? I can see his wrath towards 'terrorism' but what is his attitude towards the 'terrorist'?

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I can't see His wrath at all. Ever. This side of death or the other. Only ours projected. I don't understand what purpose divine wrath could possibly serve and how it would be implemented. If God is wrathful He must follow the money. It ends up on Him.

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Martin 60 You seem to be arguing from a moral compass entirely within your own head.


A bit further north than yours then.


If we do not have the Bible as a reference, we have only subjective speculation. Surely you can see that.


What's the Bible?


Romans1 [sic] mentions that God has wrath against sin and against evil caused by sin. Obviously, his wrath is not like yours or mine but if as you say you don't see it then it is because you simply refuse to. It will not go away though and one day your fingers will be forced out of your ears.


I don't see it because there's no manifestation of it, like of Him, whatsoever like any other feeling we project on Him.


Of course I do not think the victims of terrorist acts are necessarily under that wrath.


That's mighty big of you.


All that stuff is again your assumption.


Pot black.


When Jesus specifically called little children to himself, surely, he was affirming their lack of guile as well as his concern for them.


Indeed. But their older friends and relations? They're warming up quite nicely after their first five days in eternal hellfire.

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And as I said before, I just don't think it fits with the calling of Christ. Read the way you suggest it sounds like Christ is saying:

* Persecution is coming
* You've got to be ready and persevere
* Those who hold it together until the end will be saved
* Those who help you in your distress will be rewarded, those who don't help you will be cast out

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Mudfrog: I do believe that this passage initially speaks about the nations treating the disciples - by extension the Church? But I do think also that in the context of being 'grafted in' it could mean Israel herself.

Though we are to 'love our neighbour' I don't think this passage initially teaches this, though it does clearly and powerfully encourage that attitude to others and the relief of their needs in the name of Jesus.

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Originally posted by Kwesi:
I don’t expect the various gospel strands to be consistent, and am comfortable to admit there are some passages I agree with more than others. To my mind the teaching and ministry of Christ do not fit easily into the more eschatological language and assumptions that characterise times of tension and crisis. Generosity to non-believers tends to be in short supply in times of persecution, as Revelation, in particular, attests.

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Given that this is a thread on atonement, might we not be troubled by the Judgement of the Nations in Matthew 25? Even if we are to interpret the judgment as relating to social justice and enthusiastically accept it as binding on Christian social behaviour, do we not have a problem? How many of us can be confident that our behaviour (works) will enable us to join the sheep rather than the goats? “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life” (Matthew 25: 45-46). What sort of soteriology is this?

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Originally posted by Kwesi:
mousethief

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I suppose that (say) Luke was written by a Christian in the first century for a mainly Gentile Christian audience.

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The problem is how we come to 'suppose': what do we know, and how do we know it? How secure are the foundations of our knowledge? Progress is usually made by the questioning of 'supposition'. We suppose Luke wrote the gospel when and for whom as a result of careful scholarship. There is, however, much to be said for testing those conclusions in a scientific and logical manner.

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Why would the manner of one's death atone for one's sins?

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I'm sorry? 'Traditional evangelical belief'?

I think the Catholic church got there before any 16th century-onwards evangelical!

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True, but in a lot of ways the Evangelicals kept a lot of the worst bits of the Catholic practice without also taking the bits which were a lot more generous.

Which made a very lopsided belief system.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
God forgives unconditionally those who are sorry and who forgive others.

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Originally posted by Aijalon:

Which is infinitely more natural.

- I'd say we have a duty to look at it from all angles, not just do what is natural. What is natural is another way of just taking the easy way out. In terms of precedence, the past is what we built all THIS on. I don't think it is a good thing to "zero" the scale so to speak. throwing the baby out with the bath water is what is going on. I've thrown out A LOT. But I don't think Jesus stripped down what we know of law to just about zero. No, the unrepentant are not forgiven (Note I did not say pennance. Repentance means walking a path, it is not counting transgressions and doing penance)

- - I've no idea how to look forward from Sinai from 3,500 years ago.


Hormones ruled in guilt and shame and fear until I crashed and burned at 2[2]3

- I never totally crashed, so to speak. But I did get start looking into a cult like group. They were always out there trying to absorb people like me. I didn't see the fruit, and later found, there wasn't any. I reluctantly set out on a life raft. Thanks be to God for my wife, she decided to join me on my raft two years later.

- - Cultic thinking abounds, expands in to the vacuum, the white space around words in the absence the rational.


I no longer even feel that God has changed his dealings with man via revelation at all, except in Christ. We have progressed, yes. Climbed higher up the mountain. He's always waiting higher up.

- The way God dealt with Israel was peculiar, and that is what has changed. With the expiration of the Hebrew nation God reverted back to things as usual, basically no different than the time of Noah's flood. (we can debate who they are later on if you like, or if they exist, or if they matter at all..etc)

As an aside: Israel's history was a microcosm of world history. Mini stories tell the tale of what we're doing through now, just as some of the stories told (foretold) the tale of Christ. Example being Moses freeing the Hebrews from Egypt, and Jesus freeing the world of sin and death. Another being the days of the judges when "every man did what was right in his own eyes". That's like what we are doing today.

- - Our stories changed as civilization evolved, aye. I'm not dependent on any of them being historical any more. I'd love Jonah to be true and it could be as no harm was done, far from it. The prophets make few claims after Samuel, the righteous genocidalist. For me the Old Testament more than any other pre-Christian body of literature as a whole (Hindu, Mesopotamian-Egyptian, Buddhist, Greek) DOES seem to yearn more effectively from the dirt to the light. I love the book of Job and the the astounding story of Abraham negotiating for the Cities of the Plain with God under the Terebinth Trees of Mamre, Nathan confronting David, Hezekiah. Wonderful stuff. I used to drain it all of imputed meaning from an assumption of utter historical accuracy, my cult did. Now it's the culture that spawned Jesus. That He transcended. How much God was pragmatically involved in the actual history of the Jews I have no idea.


All I got up my sleeve is postmodernism. Is that we're telling stories. We make stuff up. About God and everything. Even Jesus did.

- I am not quite following that one. Are you suggesting that the wrath was merely an act, a stimulus to produce a certain response? A disguise? Would that not be God falsely portraying himself? Or are you saying that the Hebrews wrote about those events in such a way that it's now too fuzzy for us to really know anything about God's character from their history?

- - God's character doesn't change, He doesn't reveal an Islamic abrogational approach in the other direction (Allah gets less compromising through His prophet), getting nicer and nicer over time. He disguises nothing. He acts nothing. Our understanding changed over millennia of cultural development ineffably, minimally influenced by the constant Spirit and we project that on God.


And He was … God. THAT story I believe. Utterly. Only. The story from the first circle or two of His acquaintance. And even then, I don't 'believe' [the] any of the other stuff they made up, their interpretations. Or second hand stuff about the circles.

- Are you talking about narrative accounts in the scripture, or later commentary and teaching on said scripture? I am only partly getting you. I see you have a Jesus-centric view, and that is one we can drink fine wine together on, but not sure exactly what you're throwing out, what are "circles"?

- - The circles are the degrees of separation from Him. We never hear from the the first circle, Jesus Himself. He didn't write anything in His own voice. We have those that knew Him and those that knew them. That's it. I gave an example you edited out, of bathwater that was written, third hand: “Like Peter being the agent of the Holy Spirit's assassination of Ananias and Sapphira. Inspired and full of goodwill in ignorance as it is. They made it ALL up. I used to believe ALL of it. That it was inspired 'in the Spirit'. I was a fundamentalist. All of that's gone. Thanks be to God in Christ, He's left, He remains.”, Luke talking about Peter and his attribution of the intervention of the Spirit.


They made it ALL up.

- the group you grew up in.. yes?

- - No, every contributor to the Bible. No matter how accurately they wrote what they saw and heard.


Hmmmm. I curb my wild instinct for libertarian socialism – off the grid - for social democracy – of the grid. I find your sig intriguing. You can't possibly mean it.

- It's not that I'm into anarchy, democracy is nice and safe, for now. Yes yes, some regulations are needed. But I'm more in favor of local community run things, less mob rule. Democracy as we have it is gravitating, predictably, toward mob rule.

Democracy says the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. This actually tramples the rights of the few (or the one). In such a scenario, society is slowly eroding toward the least common denominator.

I do mean the sig. I believe mankind has been demonstrated to be a wild beast, and as such, God is about taming that beast. We are his "field" his "vine", his "wayward woman", and many other metaphors. In his "trans infinite" nature, he's dealing with man in a way to get us to buy-in to his design, his leadership. I do think he's returning as a physical king, and will run the show as such.

That means all democratic leadership chosen by representation and by the consent of the governed, will fall. The great delusion is the RULE OF MAN. That's my eschatological viewpoint. Earth doesn't evaporate, this is all going to remain, and a Great Monarch will rule it - Jesus Christ. It's not going to look like Hebrew Israel, but it's definitely not going to be a democracy. God doesn't want or need our consent to rule, it is much more like submission in Islam than it is like voting in Britain.

Thank God Jesus came as a friend, not a judge, and we are invited to be his friend before he acts as Judge. God is Love, but he doesn't just give free love, his objective is righteousness.

- - Aye, I've been there. That narrative doesn't work for me now, I've lost the interpretative framework for it.

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Martin 60: Aye, I've been there. That narrative doesn't work for me now, I've lost the interpretative framework for

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Aijalon--

Welcome to the Ship!

You wrote:

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God is Love, but he doesn't just give free love, his objective is righteousness.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
There's no going back. No rewind. That stream has been seen off to the coast. The eternal multiverse necessitates a bigger minded God.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
There's no going back. No rewind. That stream has been seen off to the coast. The eternal multiverse necessitates a bigger minded God.

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It is almost like you think you know something that shuts him out when you cannot possibly know. You are such a bloody spiritual lemming.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
I also know Him of course from creation. More unbelievable, ungraspable, unknowable, real.

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Originally posted by Golden Key:
Jamat--


Actually, lemmings don't actually do that, per the Alaskan Dept. of Fish and Game.

They do sometimes do a "mass dispersal" to look for resources; and, though they can swim, some do drown. But they definitely do not commit mass suicide. The makers of the Disney film which showed it threw the poor beasties off a cliff.

And, FWIW, sometimes a person comes to a place in their life when they need to change, when their beliefs need to shift, when they need to shed things to survive. I've done it, and I think Martin has, too. It sure ain't easy, and no one does it for fun. Life or death, basically, whether physical or spiritual.

That doesn't mean anything bad about the person. They're just re-shaping.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
I also know Him of course from creation. More unbelievable, ungraspable, unknowable, real.

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But this just makes my point. You cannot hide in paradox. Nothing is unbelievable, ungraspable, unknowable and still REAL. It is nonsense.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Originally posted by Golden Key:
Jamat--


Actually, lemmings don't actually do that, per the Alaskan Dept. of Fish and Game.

They do sometimes do a "mass dispersal" to look for resources; and, though they can swim, some do drown. But they definitely do not commit mass suicide. The makers of the Disney film which showed it threw the poor beasties off a cliff.

And, FWIW, sometimes a person comes to a place in their life when they need to change, when their beliefs need to shift, when they need to shed things to survive. I've done it, and I think Martin has, too. It sure ain't easy, and no one does it for fun. Life or death, basically, whether physical or spiritual.

That doesn't mean anything bad about the person. They're just re-shaping.

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Golden Key I am in awe! You are too charitable!
It is because I am quite deeply concerned about shifts and reshaping in Martin60's case that I won't leave him be. The guy who led me to the Lord and was groomsman at my wedding killed himself. I wish I hadn't left him alone either.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
I also know Him of course from creation. More unbelievable, ungraspable, unknowable, real.

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But this just makes my point. You cannot hide in paradox. Nothing is unbelievable, ungraspable, unknowable and still REAL. It is nonsense.

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Oh, but those things that Martin said are some of the many traditional views of God, even in the Bible. And paradox is very common in religion, faith, and life in general. To borrow from "Pirates Of Penzance", at common sense it gaily mocks.


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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")

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Originally posted by Martin60:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Originally posted by Golden Key:
Jamat--


Actually, lemmings don't actually do that, per the Alaskan Dept. of Fish and Game.

They do sometimes do a "mass dispersal" to look for resources; and, though they can swim, some do drown. But they definitely do not commit mass suicide. The makers of the Disney film which showed it threw the poor beasties off a cliff.

And, FWIW, sometimes a person comes to a place in their life when they need to change, when their beliefs need to shift, when they need to shed things to survive. I've done it, and I think Martin has, too. It sure ain't easy, and no one does it for fun. Life or death, basically, whether physical or spiritual.

That doesn't mean anything bad about the person. They're just re-shaping.

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Golden Key I am in awe! You are too charitable!
It is because I am quite deeply concerned about shifts and reshaping in Martin60's case that I won't leave him be. The guy who led me to the Lord and was groomsman at my wedding killed himself. I wish I hadn't left him alone either.

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Why the concern? For me or the guy who 'led you to the Lord'? He's OK. So am I. So are you. You'd have made it worse with the best of intentions probably. It doesn't matter. All will be well. God is bigger minded than even I can possibly imagine.

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