Well, all my evidence for Jesus’ love for me is experiential and will be unconvincing for anyone else. But saying I only know he loves me because I was taught that is like saying I only know my parents love be because they said so. In fact, my experience would convince me it was true even if they never said it.
I can’t tell if you are accusing me of hypocrisy or not. For sure, there are plenty of Christians out there who give Christ a bad name, and occasionally I am one of them. But most are not like what you describe - the bad ones are just a lot more noticeable.
I agree with this, which is why I try to expose myself as much as I can to differing opinions and arguments.
I’m not sure what you mean - that the Transfiguration and Pentecost are not proven facts? Of course not! I’m just showing you that in the context of the Gospel narrative, the prediction that there were people standing there who would see the coming of the Kingdom was probably not a reference to the final judgement, but a reference to the Kingdom of God that Jesus elsewhere said was already at hand, specifically demonstrated by these two events and others described in the story. I’m not making any historical claim.
This is true, the Messiah was supposed to be a political leader/savior who would restore David’s throne to Isreal. Jesus’ followers, who were Jews, came to understand that the traditional expectation of the Messiah was incorrect and that Jesus, in fact, fulfilled the Messianic prophesies in the OT.
Your parents were with you from the time you were born, you experienced the love physically and mentally, a big difference, you never met Jesus as you didn’t live 2000+ years ago. So you do go just by faith in what you were taught read or thought, and faith is not fact!
Jesus is quoted as saying he would come in his father’s Glory with all his angels during the life time of some of the people standing there, he also told his followers that the Kingdom of God was with in them! It was the belief, that in those days the world was going to end, just as people have thought through almost every generation.
Jesus was also quoted as saying, the end of the world would be in that generation,(the sun would’t give it’s light the stars would fall and the moon would turn to blood) some religions teach that the word generation had a different meaning, but Matthew who was said to have written it, also used the word generation as we do today when he said the generations between David and Jesus were 14. Most religious scholars that I have heard, or read, said that a generation was considerd to be 100 years!
It was the sect that left the Jewish faith that then decided that Jesus filled all the promises of the Messiah , but the Jewsish people disagree with this concept. It is a matter of belief in one side or the other.
I don’t know how you live your life and so I would not say you were one of the Christians who talk the talk but not walk the walk, they pick and choose what they do. I could not say any one in particular is a hypocrit, I do not know how you live, or how you act, that is for you to decide. To me a person’s belief is a personal thing, and as long as it isn;t harming others and helps them to be a better person I would say,“Go For It”.
I see no difference in saying one loved George Washington.Ben Franklin, or any other person from centuries ago. One can love the things told about them, but I can’t see how one can love someone that can not be proven to have really existed,( like Moses or even Jesus for that matter). One loves what they were told about the person , not the person.The person’s actions may have been good, but if it is only through stories I can’t understand how one can say they knew or know a person they never met. I couldn’t say I loved my great- great- great grandparents, I know they existed, but I know nothing about them, only that they did live.
To me the word Love Means wishing and doing others well.After a person dies one can then just love the memory of that person.
One can believe they live on in an other life but it cannot be proven.
I love Jesus Christ because He has given me life eternal and loves me unconditionally. He restored every facet of my life and continues to provide for my needs as I grow in Him.
The bible is crystal clear that Jesus is the Son of God and God, the Son. I could post many many passages which prove it beyond all doubt but I like this one best:
Heb 1:8 (Jehovah speaking) But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
God, the Father, calls His Son, “God”.
Your argument is with God, Himself. Good luck with that.
If you read Psalm 82 in KJV(81in RC versions) you will see that the psalmist says all are gods and sons of god. Then Jesus uses this same referance to himself when accused of blasphemy!
Yes, this was first brought to my attention in an Alan Watts article on the dangers of a fundamentalist approach to reading the Bible. I was 22 at the time and it was the first popular-writing criticism of the Bible I had encountered. Two years earlier, almost immediately after I had “gotten religion” I had studied Bultmann’s criticism, though.
I would say that He did, but we’d both agree that if Jesus didn’t claim Godhood, He did claim Lordship, Authority over all Creation, and that His Resurrection confirmed that.
The Ressurection is not proven, just a belief. There still is no proof that Jesus really lived as was written about Him. There are quotes that were not true attributed to Jesus. It is probable that a man named jesus lived and that is about as far as proof goes. All is based on the writing of another human!
