Again, does it really matter, if it was a flash of lightning, or a flash of inpsiration? As much as I dump on Paul, what he did was amazing. Consider. Every city had a god. Every people had their gods. These gods were tied to a time or a place. The Greek/Roman gods lived on Olympus. The Aesir lived on Asgard. And so on. The gods also were connected, or dependent on time - Ra rose and fell with the sun. The “barbarian” gods were tied to the seasons. All the gods were tied to a certain people, place, and time. The Jewish God existed free of time and free of place, but he was still “the God of the Jews”.
Paul said no. Paul said he was the God of everyone, and everyone had a right to hear His words… And then he went on to teach the gentiles. From there it spread to the “barbarians”. That was an incredible leap in thought. For all his “pettiness” as I see some of his words, this one idea came out of nowhere, and was pure genius.
Or must it; the point is that the tolerance of slavery by Christians in the past is incomprehensible to many modern Christians.
That the massive injustice of forced human slavery was not glaringly obvious is just impossible to grasp. Sure, there are quite a few Bible verses that appear to condone it, but by ‘it’, we’re talking about the ultimate objectification of fellow human beings, and besides, being more enlightened, we can make all sorts of arguments about how the Bible was describing something more like contractual enlistment or something.
And I believe history will judge us the same way; it will be self-evident to people of the future that forcibly imposing an alien framework of sexuality and arbitrary restrictions upon non-consenting parties is just absurdly unjust; they’ll have their own set of interpretations of the Bible (if they’re still interested in it), and they’ll believe their own interpretations to be a ‘plain reading’, just as we do and just as everybody else did in the past, but all with different results. There is no such thing as a ‘plain reading’ of the Bible, or if there is, nobody has ever managed to do it.
Really? I believe you are wrong. I don’t know of anyone who says these verses are *proof *of gay relationships in the BIble but I think when you look at them honestly without preconcieved notions, then a reasonable person might believe that they are refering to people of the same sex who loved each other emotionally and physically. Reading them without preconcieved notions any reasonable person would say it is certainly possible that their relationships were physical as well. In fact it consdering the language it might realistically be more likely than not.
Other than the fact they also had hetero relationships, why would you as a reasonable person assume they did not also engage in physical love for each other? Is there any evidence other than your own prejudice and your inappropriate use of Occums Razor to suggest they did not?
When people object to these examples it is because they start from a place of assuming that sex between people of the same gender is immoral so naturally it can’t be accepted in any way in the scriptures. When you start from a different moral view, like lets say, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with same gender love emotional or physical, then it is completely reasonable to read these verses and see that they at least strongly imply that these realtionships were physical as well as emotional.
There are more detailed arguements in the link I provided as well as another relationship in the Bible. I assume you didn’t check out the link before you dismissed the notion.
Actually I think the rock Jesus refers to in that scripture is not Peter, but the fact that God had revealed who Jesus was to Peter rather than man. The rock is personal communion with God and having that source for the truth of things.
SteveG1, I’m sorry, but Paul doesn’t even deserve your praise there. IIRC from reading about Early Christianity, Paul never succeeded in making Early Christianity anything more then a small-time sect, popular with the oppressed, like there were dozens and dozens at the time. And Christianity remained a small-time sect for over 200 years after Pauls’death, untill the Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, saw the potential for Christanity as a state religion and made it one.
PS Check out the link and find out where our own Polycarp has got his name from.
I’ve heard that argument, but it doesn’t really make sense; Jesus says:
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
‘Peter’ literally means ‘rock’ (it’s where we get the term ‘petrified’); this statement is all about Peter.
To me, the debate is not what God, said but what some human said God said,If (in My beliefs) if God would inspire a book to be a guide there would not be so many interpretations,( many conflicting).
Interesting. Do you suppose there was something special about Christianity that made him choose it {He supposedly had a vision} or do you think he just decided to use religion as a tool for power and simply chose Christianity?
It depends on how you read the words of Jesus. I think here Jesus is saying I will give* you*, in the sense that anyone who communes with God in this manner will have those keys. That seems to be his message throughout the new testament. When he says “He who believes in me” he is refering to those who understand that he was a living example of mankinds potential. He is saying anyone who wakes up and realizes this can do what I do, and will find their freedom. At one point he says, “the things I do you will do and greater things”
So, IMHO, he is not giving Peter any special authority, but saying that the essence of his teaching is that we all have access to the same source of truth, love, and all that other good stuff and he recognizes that Peter has made that connection rather than simply believe in the traditions of men.
That seems to be a line of seperation in people. The scribes and pharisees of Jesus day talked of God but hadn’t made that connection and served themselves. You see that same trait in a lot of religion today. A lot of God lingo but no loving spiirit.