10A

it’s going to need to move itself to prove it.

If you were raised Christian, you should know how much God loves human faith. He would never do anything to deprive us of the challenge of faith, because He knows how healthy it is for us to live on faith. Everything He directs us to do is for our own good. Revealing himself would deny us that opportunity.

Let it go and leave us alone.

You know where to find us when you’re ready. Wishing you all the best.

Thank you for staying respectful! I’ve opened that video, but at 2.5 hours, even at high speed that’s a challenge. If I love it, then I’ll watch it all. I’m writing this reply before having watched any of it, though.

Are you familiar with the Karaite Jews? They reject the Midrash and the Talmud, standing in stark contrast to Rabbinic Judaism, and taking an approach close to Jesus’s values (though they’d probably never admit that). They actually read scripture, and strive to interpret it intelligently.

I do agree with you in principle that it’s good to do that, and I know Jesus does too. That doesn’t mean established beliefs are wrong, necessarily, but it’s always good to consider that they might be. You can certainly find historical and contemporary examples where self-professed Christians didn’t / don’t follow the Bible.

With all of that said, while I am somewhat open-minded, I do accept the holy Bible as the word of God, and I believe all extra-biblical historical documents, like the Apocrypha, only serve to reinforce its truth. What precisely that truth means, in detail, we may argue about, and Lord knows many do.

And in any case, this is all about SBC more than myself. Their interpretation of scripture is fairly literal and straight-forward. So while obviously some disagree with them, they can hardly be blamed for being a Christian group who follows the Bible.

Just report and let the admin sort him out.

Is that your version of “kill 'em all and let God sort it out”? No, I don’t “prohibit” anything. My point was just that this is a Christian organization following the Bible, which is to be expected of them.

We’re still trying to learn our lesson from the Tower of Babel. It’s a work in progress. All of the disagreements, though, are over relatively minor details. If you read statements of faith from various churches, you see they’re basically all the same in the essentials.

Yes, and some of them are pretty wacky translations. But the underlying word of God is unchanging.

I was raised an atheist and didn’t find Christ until adulthood, so I do grasp that it’s all voluntary. I also recognize that you can’t force anyone to be Christian against their will.

So on those points we agree. Where we differ is that I firmly believe my God is your God, and neither of us could ever change that, no matter how much we may want to. Christ came to save all people, with a focus on those who need it most. So yes, Christianity does apply to you, even though you don’t want it to.

I fully understand your “get off my back” perspective, honestly. Telling someone else how to think or what to do is a remarkably terrible way to make friends. I’m not here to be a jerk. Promise. I know you’re going to do what you’re going to do, irrespective of me. I only want to take every chance I can get to give testimony of my own experiences with God, and to follow the Great Commission for anyone who actually cares to let a seed get planted.

So does that mean we can coexist? I certainly hope so, but I recognize you may think I’m overbearing.

What a well-written, intelligent, and respectful rebuttal. Thank you.

I really wish the message of Jesus, exactly as you described it, was better understood by all of the anti-Christians. It’s a seriously good message, yet so many people want to hate on it without giving it a chance.

As for the Old Testament, I’m continually blown away by how much of it foreshadows Jesus, His ministry, and His apostles. The number of times this happens is far too great for me to count, though I’m sure some biblical scholars have attempted to do so. Having grown up in the church, and clearly having read the good book, you may well be more familiar than I am with all of the foreshadowing, as I’m a convert who was raised atheist and didn’t find God until my 30s. I still have a lot of catching up to do, and I’m sure I always will. But suffice it to say, there’s foreshadowing through and through.

Before Christ, we made God’s work more difficult. Humanity wasn’t wholly ready to follow Him. Abraham and his descendants were, at least they were enough to form a series of binding covenants. But until we were ready to receive Christ, God did what needed to be done to lead His first non-begotten son to the point when Christ could successfully arrive. And that, I believe, explains why the OT played out the way it did.

As for twin roe deer, I have no doubt God appreciates the form of a woman. Otherwise He’d not have made her look as He did, and He’d not have predicated our entire civilization upon marital intimacy.

As for the scripture that we now consider canonical, do you really think God had no hand in the Church’s selection? I find it implausible that He’d take the effort to inspire various works of scripture, but then leave their canonicalization unguided.

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Thank you for being respectful! I can’t claim my interpretation of scripture is any better than yours or anyone else’s. I get your point, truly. But my point is just that the SBC’s decision is firmly rooted in scripture, and that makes it a pretty normal decision for a Christian organization to make. If you wish to interpret that passage differently, nobody’s going to stop you, and I’m sure you’re not alone. But at the same time, you can understand the SBC’s perspective.

Actual Christian here. This decision is not extreme, whatsoever, though I get that it appears extreme to non-believers and feminists. The thing to understand here is that Christians follow the Bible. And conversely, those who do not follow the Bible are not Christian. So let’s take a look at a relevant Bible passage (1 Timothy 2:11-12):

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

Now that’s the word of God. It’s eternal, unchanging, and dictates how He wills us to live.

It’s definitely out-of-step with modern secular culture, and that’s a very good thing from the Christian perspective. We are God’s peculiar people (Titus 2:11-15).