I play chess with a fellow who pastors a rural church south of Birmingham. When I was getting to know him, he got onto me about cussin' when I made a stupid move at chess and when I talked about American politicians. I told him I speak the language of the people I run with, and most of them do not attend church, and I don’t know when I’m ever not in church.
That conversation repeated a few times.
The other day during a chess game, he made a dumb move and cussed, and he paused, and he said his wife had gotten onto him about cussin’ and he had told her that men do that sometimes. He told me he bet Jesus’s disciples sometimes cussed.
I laughed, reminded him that he had gotten onto me many times about cussin’ and I was glad to see he is doing better. I told him that when I was homeless in Key West, a young church pastor asked me how I was doing and I said God is beating the shit out of me, and the young church pastor said it is a sin to cuss, and I said if cousin’ is the worst thing I ever did, then I would be a saint.
My pastor friend laughed. I did not tell him lots of women I have run with cussed.
The mostly godly man I ever knew used to drink moonshine, cussed and did not attend church. You can read about US District Judge Clarence W. Allgood in the “He used to drink moonshine” chapter of A Few Remarkable Alabama People I Have Known by clicking on this link: https://archive.org/details/a-few-remarkable-alabama-people-i-have-known_202210.
The other day, I stumbled across something at religousforums.com and commented, and the fellow who posted it and I had a lengthy discussion about Jesus and the Bible. I thought the fellow was sincere, but when he insisted God dictated the Bible to men...
Is it only that Jesus died or is it that we celebrate The Resurrection?Thread starter KennyStart date Apr 4, 2024
Redneck MysticI grew up in a church family and eventually I came to wonder when I ever was not in church? And, I came to view salvation through Jesus is relative to living as he lived and taught in the Gospels.
Kenny
Certainly living as he lives should be our goal!!
Redneck Mystic
From what I’ve read and been told by people from various spiritual traditions, what’s important is how we live, not so much what we believe about this or that, but how we relate to this world and people and what life serves up to us each day. In the Gospels, Jesus modeled and taught people an entirely new way to live, and in that way move closer to God. He thought that was really important. I came to the view that to the extent Christians live as Jesus lived and taught in the Gospels, they are saved by him.
Kenny
I think those are conjoined twins with one heart. However the one heart residing in what we believe.
I liken it unto the relationship between a father and child. First and foremost it is the blood relationship that has the preeminence. In that relationship, it isn’t based on works but on blood.
That being said, now that there is a relationship that overshadows any and all works, there is a process to grow in knowledge and capacity to live out what one believes. If one messes up in the living of the belief, fellowship may be hindered but relationship (faith) is still maintained.
Of course, I speak through the eyes of one who holds a worldview of the Christian faith; I'm sure that other religions have different viewpoints.
Redneck Mystic
Maybe fellowship with God is affected by how one behaves? I was raised in Christendom, and I do not think just believing Jesus was the son of God translates to salvation through Jesus. Actions speak much louder. And, I think anyone who lives as Jesus lived and taught in the Gospels, even a Buddhist, or a Jew, or a Mulsim, or even an Atheist, is in good standing with God. I do not speak from belief, but from daily direct experiences with angels known in the Bible since early 1987. They changed my perspective of everything, including me, and they went about it many ways, but the main way was standing me before endless mirrors looking at me, and they still do that, and they do not claim to represent Christianity, nor any religion, but to God they are allegiant.
Kenney
Yes… Hoping that is what you understood in what i posted. Relationship abides but our actions, like unforgiveness, will hinder our capacity of intimate fellowship
Redneck Mystic
I was raised in Christendom, and I do not think just believing Jesus was the son of God translates to salvation through Jesus.
Kenny
I think it does. Every person who comes to Jesus has absolutely nothing good to offer in works or deeds to merit salvation. God so loved the world even when the world did not love Him nor deserved salvation.
Redneck Mystic
Actions speak much louder
Kenny
Can’t argue that reality. But when I look at the book of Acts or Corinthians we can see that salvation was effective even when their actions needed great correction.
Like a baby that dirties his/her diapers, messes are expected but you don’t throw the baby out with the dirty diapers.
I leave the judging of hearts to God. I also don’t accept what an angel says unless it is congruent with God’s word. Satan comes as an angel of light but he is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Redneck Mystic
If you mean by God's word, the Bible, it was written by men, and it was men who decided which parts of handed down manuscripts would be in the Bible, and they decided nothing written by women would be in the Bible. If you lived in my skin a little while, you would know the angels on my case work for God and sometimes you might even wish there was no God .
I leave salvation to God, too, and when I read the Gospels, I see Jesus was very big on people learning to live differently from how they were living, and he began that approach with his disciples, and they really struggled with it, and when he left them they were still behaving like little boys and only after the Holy Spirit entered them at Pentecost and sprouted the seeds he planted in them did they start to grow up and become useful to God. The same happened to Paul after his commeuppance as Saul on the road to Damascus. He went through a really rough patch before he emerged as something God could use.
John the Baptist said one would come whose sandals he was not worthy to latch and that one would baptize in fire and in spirit, and Jesus came and John recognized him and baptized him water, which Jesus never did to anyone after that, but he said his baptism was in fire and he was anxious to get on with it. He said such things as many are called, but few are chosen; the road to life is difficult and the gate narrow and few enter, the work is great and the laborers are few. I cannot reconcile that will the quick and painless salvation by Jesus the early church came up with.
Consider what the unknown author of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote to Jews who had accepted Christ but the going was so rough that they fell back into their old ways. The author told them they should be teachers, they should be eating meat, but they were still drinking milk, and then the author told them:
Hebrews 12:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children.For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.13 “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
14 Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy;without holiness no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. 16 See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. 17 Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done.
18 You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; 19 to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, 20 because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” 21 The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”
22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
25 See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”[e] 27 The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”
I never heard that passage discussed in a Christian church, and I was in a lot of church services before I realized I’m in church wherever I am and the Devil of which you spoke correctly likes to hide, because no one in a church would think to look for the Devil there.
Kenny
Well… this is the nature of man—differences. But I believe God’s ways and thought are highers than ours.
Man may have penned the words, but the God was the one who dictated what to right.
Yes… angels work for God. But there are principalities, rulers, powers etc. that don’t.
Yes… the words sprout in hearts and they change us. Agree completely.
Yes! After I was filled with the Holy Spirit and fire of God, it has been a wonderful journey.
Yes… so true, they were still drinking milk.
interesting… not sure what churches you have been in. I have heard them preach on those passages often.
Redneck Mystic
How do we know God dictated the Bible to men? How do we know Satan did not also do some dictating to those men?
In the Gospels, Jesus said the way is difficult and the gate is narrow and few enter therein, and the church says all who believe Jesus was the son of God who died for their sins die and go to heaven. I cannot reconcile that very wide chasm, but the church seems to reconcile it by fiat, and I think Satan really likes that.
The soul is eternal, and living on this world in a human body is an experience, but it is not anywhere close to the whole experience. Yet, the church says there is one shot at it, and after physical death it’s heaven or hell, unless you are Catholic and there is purgatory as well.
The eastern spiritual traditions and the aborigine spiritual traditions viewed life on this world as a piece of something much greater and there was no all or nothing, heaven or hell.
In the Gospels, Jesus gave sight to a man born blind, and afterward his disciples asked him who had sinned, the man or his parents, so that he was born blind? How could a man have sinned before he was born, but in a prior life somewhere?Jesus did not rebuke the disciples for the question, but he said the man was born blind so that on that day the glory of God could be made manifest.
In another passage, the disciples asked Jesus if Elijah had returned and he said yes, but he was not recognized, and they understood he spoke to them of John the Baptist.
I tell Christians, to the extent they live as Jesus lived and taught in the Gospels, they are saved by him. I also tell them Jesus told his disciples that he had flocks of which they did not know, and where were those flocks?
There are indeed angels who are not in service to God, and demons, and I deal with them all the time, and I have dealt with them in churches. Every human being has a demonic twin, and coming to terms with that is part of the journey. Jesus dealt with his demonic twin in the wilderness and later.
The angels who dragooned me in early 1987 stood me. before many mirrors looking at what was inside of me, and they still do it,, and it’s no fun, but it is necessary.
It is not finished until we stop breathing and pass to the afterlife where we see things very differently, and we have a life review, to the extent we did not have it before we stopped breathing, and then we move on to the next thing God has in store for us.
The church does not care for that perspective, because it does not put people in fear of eternal damnation if they do not attend church and give it their money. The pastor of the Episcipal church in which I grew up, after my mother yanked me out of the Southern Baptist Church, which was the church of her and my father’s parents, hated preaching tithing to the church, and he only did it once a year, when the Diocese made him do it.
Not long after he told his vestrymen, if they used local off duty cops to stop blacks from attending their church, he would close the church, he left that church, which he had built from scratch into a huge church, and he took a small rural Episcopal parish, where he remained until he left this life.Over time, the church he built from scratch started having financial difficulties, and the woman I was with was a devout member and she felt like she would die and burn forever in hell if she did not attend Sunday services there, and I was there with her when the priests and lay members in that church reminded the congregation that Jesus had said to be a generous giver, good measure pressed down, and to give more money to the church, and my lady was as if stung by a wasp and she blanched and seemed to have trouble breathing.
You can read more about Lee Graham, who started St Luke’s, in the “He was a parish priest" chapter of A Few Remarkable Alabama People I Have Known, by clicking on this link: https://archive.org/details/a-few-remarkable-alabama-people-i-have-known_202210.
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
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