The beginning of the end for me

[KLP]

klp, you just know those buzzwords and arguments so WELL! That is indeed exactly how the discussion goes, leaving listeners - eventually - in a tangle of knots without easy resolution or clear understanding (except of course, whatever the question was, the answer is probably 'no you can't').

Trust me when I tell you I heard this very discussion in the car and from the pulpit many times and it was thought to be so clever. To snicker at people who claim to be having a revival because they are saying that they are dead now. And those that are planning for a revival next year are planning to be dead by next year. Therefore why join a denomination that is claiming to be dead now and planning to be dead next year???? Therefore they are not Christians...obviously.

[agricola]

Why are we even as sane as we are? Sometimes I think it is a marvel and a wonder we aren't talking to streetlamps and wearing shoes on our heads, or something.

[katisha]

Why are we even as sane as we are? Sometimes I think it is a marvel and a wonder we aren't talking to streetlamps and wearing shoes on our heads, or something.

OK, Agri, have you been watching me? Or are the streetlamp I was talking to?

[onward]

So Is it literally true that if you have faith of a mustard seed then you can tell mountains to relocate? And remember, when you come to Jesus and are not already hating your own family then you are wasting your time and His. Should you pluck out your eye or cut off you hand? It seems in at least some of these there is an exaggeration along with hyperbole.

Relocating mountains, faith of a mustard seed, hating your own family, plucking out your own eye, or cutting off one's hand can certainly be considered as hyperboles, because their not to be taken literally, but It doesn't seem plausible that, "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he" would fall into the hyperbole/exaggeration category.

A person committing an overt sinful act is guilty, God wants the whole person including their thoughts, so one would be accountable for what one thinks as well as their overt actions. I would agree the overt action certainly seems a whole lot worse, at least in my finite mind.

[agricola]

The overt action is clearly 'worse' than thinking about it. And it is difficult - if not impossible - to control every passing thought. All that teaching does is make people feel inadequate/sinful/evil/wicked....because the idea crosses their mind. I can understand a teaching that says 'these thoughts may come, but you must turn your thoughts away immediately and not dwell on evil....'. Accepting that we will sometimes HAVE bad thoughts is a big step toward knowing we have the power to turn our thoughts away and refrain from acting on them.

[KLP]

Yes, killing someone or screwing them is worse than just thinking about it. Still, there is power to control thoughts and the ability to not dwell on some fantasy...with time and effort it is able to be controlled. It is a choice to watch porn just as it is a choice to not fill your mind with garbage. IMO, Jesus is calling those who want to be spiritual and to be like God to be careful with the mind just as they should be careful with any other organ of the body.

IMO, Jesus' statements like cutting off a hand or that thinking about something is the same as doing it are hyperbole and done to stress a point. However, IMO, people misuse these statements be claiming them as literal statements and so they use them like a club just as they misuse Heb 10:24ff.

[agricola]

Did you hear about that Pakistani kid about a week ago - he was at services and the preacher had the congregation all riled up - then the preacher said for people who hated God (Allah) should raise their hand - but the kid misheard and thought he asked for people who LOVED Allah to raise their hand so he did - he realized almost immediately and pulled it down but...

He ran home, and cut off his hand, and brought to the preacher and his parents.


The thing is, this is EXACTLY what Jesus advises people to do when he says 'if your right hand offend you, cut it off'. Given the right mindset and enough adrenaline, why NOT expect people to take that statement literally? Want to guess that sometime back in the first millenium or so, some people DID take it seriously?

And if you are part of a group which maintains every word is fact and 'literally true', and it's all 'word of God' and what Jesus says is 'true' and 'binding', why even be surprised?

[B.H.]

The problem with the whole 'as a man thinking in his heart' business combined with the teaching that even THINKING about adultery (any sin) is 'the same as' actually doing it - That is just SO PERNICIOUS an idea!

I was reading a book about Lenin in exile called Conspirator: Lenin in Exileby Helen Rappaport. It was about Lenin and what all he did to plan revolution between the time he was sent to Siberia as an internal exile till when he was kicked out of Russia and had to live in Western Europe up until the Germans sent him back home in 1917. Anyway, I knew his wife lived to be seventy before she died and boy, she was fat and ugly in those late in life pictures I had seen. But in Conspirator there were pictures of her as a very young woman. A very pretty, large bosomed and large hipped woman. And I thought to myself "Hell, with a pretty woman like that I'm surprised Lenin didnt spend all his time having sex with her. I mean, shit, with a body like hers my mind would have been on other things rather than writing State and Revolution or Mondays With the Marxster or whatever. Then I imagined her coming out of the bathroom after a bath butt naked and coming up to Lenin jiggling herself to arouse him, all covering in oil. And then I imagined I was married to her myself and having sex with her. A few minutes later one part of my body gave back to my brain the blood it took. When I was actually able to think again I said "OMG, I just lusted after Lenin's wife!" but a few seconds later that other part of my body demanded blood and so my concience being seered with a hot communist iron went right back to lusting after her again. And I enjoyed it too.

So, if lusting in my heart for Lenin's wife equals actually commiting adultery with Lenin's wife according to Jesus, then does that mean if I just think about going to church it equals actually going to church? If I think about putting money in the donation plate is it the same as actually putting money in the plate?

[zeek]

.

[B.H.]

So, if lusting in my heart for Lenin's wife equals actually commiting adultery with Lenin's wife according to Jesus, then does that mean if I just think about going to church it equals actually going to church? If I think about putting money in the donation plate is it the same as actually putting money in the plate?

Of course not! Everyone knows that "law" only works with bad stuff like lustin' and killin' and such. With th' good stuff just thinkin' about it an' not doin' it is worser than not even thinkin' about it at all. You know "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not it is sin." B.H. you disappoint me...I had begun to think you were fairly sharp and then you go and ask such a question and demonstrate clearly just what a dullard you really must be.

I am sorry brother zeek and thank you for pulling out bible a verse to a rebuke my error. It must have been because of the blood loss to my brain I did not think of that verse. Men have two organs they think with we all know, and one just isn't as good as the other, especially remembrin' bible verses. Please forgive me.