jaybird18c

I agree.

There was a reason for the Protestant Reformation. Sola Scriptura, sola fide. The church in Rome wasn't always apostate...but they are now...and they certainly do not represent the Church as a whole. The Priesthood is not the head of the Church. Jesus Christ is. What evil men do in the face of what is right does not discredit the standard. Everyone will be judged by God for what they have done...in the end. As for the rest, let's be sure to mention that the Crusades (not defending the atrocities but I'm sure they occurred on both sides) began because of Muslim aggression.

I don't think you watched MacArthur's video because you completely missed the point. It's a shame because it's a very informative video. One should understand where the other is coming from in a discussion. Even if you don't agree with it. At least you can discuss intelligently on the subject.

He didn't commit adultery with Hagar (Gen 16:3). But Abram had certainly been guilty of breaking the 2nd Commandment and worshiping false gods (Joshua 24:2,3). That's not the point, though. The point is that God established the covenant and God always keeps His promises. It wasn't like a contract that God made with Abram. A covenant is deeper than that. A contract can be broken if one party fails to meet his end of the bargain. Man continually fails to meet up with his side of the bargain. God, on the other hand, will follow through with His promise even if we fail to do so. God "chose" to work through Abram. Not the other way around. The covenant is intact.

I wish you'd watch it. I just did. It's very good. I learned some things about it that goes all the way back to Genesis. There's a lot to the Sabbath and the meaning behind it. Ever wonder why all of the Laws of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the NT except for the 4th? Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. The OT Sabbath was a type/shadow of Christ in the NT. The Sabbath most definitely stands on its (His) own regardless of how we observe it and it applies to us all. You have two options. You either have to earn your righteousness on your own merit or you can rest in the Sabbath (Jesus). ...and that does not mean that now you have to postpone cutting the grass till Monday.

That is kind of a loaded question. If you're interested, this is a sermon by Dr. John MacArthur on the subject of the Sabbath. It is an excellent expository teaching on the subject. I think it will show you that it does apply to us. Just maybe not in the way you think. With the new covenant in Jesus Christ, we are no longer under law but under grace. MacArthur really digs into the history of it, who it was addressed to in the OT, who it was not addressed to in the OT, how it most definitely applies to Christians now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8GEMWSdkNQ

The Bible is a progressive revelation of God's plan of salvation for His people. It tells the story of the successes and failures of His people throughout history. It's not "just" a book of rules. It contains history, parables, poetry, prayers, and yes, laws. But there has to be an understanding of the laws we're talking about. There were laws which pertained only to the Nation of Israel, there were ceremonial laws (which were replaced with the attonement of Jesus Christ, and there is the Moral Law of God (e.g. The Ten Commandments) which apply to us all.)

In a way, you're right. An atheist (or someone of another religion) can and many times do (from a self-righteous standpoint) live very moral lives. My Brother-in-law and Sister-in-law are both humanist/atheists. They appear, in their actions, to live moral lives much better than many friends I have who claim to be Christian. Personally (I know you don't buy this) I believe this is possible due to what is known as the "common grace" of God (e.g. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. - Matthew 5:45) This depends entirely on your definition of good. Good in your own eyes or good in the eyes of God? Again, that depends. If all the so-called Christian has is their religion (man's attempt to make himself right with his god), their Christianity is no better than any other religion (work righteous) on the planet. However, if that person has a relationship with Jesus Christ and his religious activity is in response to that relationship, he is most definitely in a superior position. Don't misundersand me. Not in a self-righteous way but in a positional way. That person who has repented and placed their faith in Jesus Christ and his work on the cross, from a legal standpoint (and THAT is the issue), is in a right standing before God. No other religion on the planet can deal with the issue of sin. They have no answer. I completely respect your beliefs! Really.

I listened to exactly 7min 30sec of this guy's video. I’ve got to take it in piecemeal because I've got other stuff going on. Firstly, I agree with what he said "If we don't know what makes something morally wrong, how do we know it's wrong in the first place?" Whatever conversations he's had in the past, with Christians or otherwise, should all start with defining the positions. Otherwise, there is no starting point. He begins with the question, what makes something morally right and what makes something morally wrong? (Interesting side note: It takes him exactly 3min to utter his first insult concerning a former conversation he had with a Christian on the subject which included vulgarity. Just don't understand how adding that gives credibility to his argument.) That aside, since he apparently didn't get an acceptable definition from that particular Christian, he goes into his own personal subjective definition of right and wrong. He defines something morally right if it promotes happiness and wellbeing, minimizes undue suffering, or both. He defines something morally wrong if it diminishes happiness and wellbeing, causes undue suffering, or both. He then explains why rape would be wrong because it "objectively" causes undue suffering and diminishes happiness and wellbeing. I would then ask, as long as he's being subjective in his definition of the terms and we're not just talking about the objective (observable) harm and suffering of the person being raped, how does his definition then apply to the rapist? I'm sure that the rapist derives much pleasure and wellbeing from the act and it doesn't necessarily cause him undue suffering (personally)...he derives pleasure from it in one way or another or else he wouldn't do it. By his subjective definition, it would be morally right for the rapist to rape (personally) and, at the same time, morally wrong for him to rape (with regard to the person being raped). How then would you judge between the two? If you only look at the person being raped, then you are depriving the rapist of his maximum pleasure which doesn’t cause him harm. I would say that, instead of submitting to the rapist's instinct to rape, what he "aught" to do is not to rape even if he desires to. But that "aught", as with C.S. Lewis's logic, comes from an objective source and cannot come from my own (or his) personal subjective ideas. But, nevertheless, the rapist rapes because he is governed by his own selfish (subjective) desires and version of right and wrong and not the Moral Law of God (objective). He then goes on to say that it doesn’t make sense to follow the objective commands from God because that, again, is what you personally and subjectively are defining as to what God says is right or wrong based on your individual understanding. He then says that he doesn’t believe in God (really?) and, because of that, he isn’t interested in doing what God says. What he is interested in is maximizing his happiness and wellbeing and minimizing suffering. (If he were so inclined, he could make a good (by his definition) rapist.) To that I would say that it doesn’t matter what he or I believes with regard to what we understand God’s moral precepts to be in order for them to be true. That’s what makes the Moral Law of God objective (and absolute). It stands on its own. If I stand in the middle of the street and there’s an oncoming logging truck about to run me over, it doesn’t matter at all if I believe the logging truck doesn’t really exist or that it’s really just a bicycle. The truck is going to squash me like a bug. The reality of the truck has nothing to do with my or someone else’s differing beliefs in it. The result will be the same. Or if you jump out of a plane with no parachute because you really just don't believe in gravity. Splat!

I don't plan to argue this one to death (I hope), no pun intended, because I am at peace with this, am a veteran, and have seen war. However, this is interesting by Dr. John MacArthur which articulates the justification of war from a Christian perspective: http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/80-241_A-Biblical-Perspective-on-War?q=justification+for+war

I would derive laws from logic and reasoning. But where does that ability for logic and reasoning come from? C.S. Lewis would describe those as "merely" keys on the piano keyboard and not the sheet of music which tells you how to play the notes in harmony.

With regard to the notion that the "basis" for our sense of morality is simply derived from a social construct or from an evolutionary progression scenario, I like what C.S. Lewis had to say: "For example, some people wrote to me saying, 'Isn't what you call the Moral Law simply our herd instinct and hasn't it been developed just like all our other instincts?' Now I do not deny that we may have a herd instinct: but that is not what I mean by the Moral Law. We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct - by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way. And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct. But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. Suppose you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires - one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys." - Mere Christianity