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Christianity Explained Information Find Christian Unity in Biblical Explanations of the Doctrines That Count! |
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You have a choice to
make: You can either believe the opinions of theologians, atheists, or
agnostics, or you can determine for yourself what the Bible says by
studying it. |
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What Is Religion and Where Did It Originate? What Is the Bible, and How Relative Is It to My Life? What Are Messianic Prophecies? Who Was Jesus of Nazareth, Really? Why Are There So Many World Religions? Why Are There So Many Christian Denominations? What Is the Law and How Does It Apply to Me? What's All This About the End of the World and End-time Prophecies? Isn't the Book of Daniel a Closed Book? Revelation: How can anyone understand all that symbolism? Who or What Was Jesus' Mother, Mary? Didn't Darwin Disprove Creation? What's the Truth About Faith and Works? Christian E-mails: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Complete Directory of Articles/Studies
Title Abbreviations for Books of the Bible Genesis - Ge |
God Holds You Accountable Not Just for What You Know, but for What You Had the Opportunity to Know!
Here is my logic: First premise: Jesus, the Christ, the one whom all Christians claim to follow, taught out of the Old Testament Scriptures--there were no New Testament Scriptures during his lifetime. Proof: 1. The first male born to every Jewish mother is dedicated to the Lord. These young males are taught the religion and the significance of being firstborn male. Mary, aware of the special circumstances of her son's birth, would have made sure Jesus was well-schooled in the scriptures, even moreso than are all Jewish boys. 2. If you have a good study Bible, it will contain references to Old Testament scriptures that Jesus quoted in some of his teachings. 3. But Jesus also made direct reference to the Scriptures:
(He was referring to himself as the cornerstone.) Then he admonished the pharisees and scribes, who were the men most familiar with the scriptures that they didn't know them at all.
4. After he was resurrected, Jesus explained how the scriptures had to be fulfilled in his life, death, and resurrection.
We have these same scriptures available to us today so that our understanding can be opened just as was that of the disciples. 5. Paul taught from the Old Testament.
Conclusion: It stands to reason Jesus would teach from what he had been taught. It also stands to reason that the New Testament scriptures of Paul would teach the same way as the one he claims to follow. But the proof for Christians should be in Jesus' own words that scripture is important in the lives of those who claim to be God's people.
Second premise: If Jesus is one with God, his teachings will not disagree with those of the father, who had previously instructed Moses and told him to write down what God had taught him and whose Holy Spirit spoke to the prophets and inspired all scripture. Proof:
And, according to the beloved disciple, John,
God's instructions to Moses concerning books are recorded in Exodus and mentioned here.
And his appearances to (in varying forms), conversations with, and influence on the patriarchs and prophets are referred to in Exodus and in many other places.
Third premise: The Old Testament sets forth promises involving a Messiah and descriptions of what he would do and who he would be, and even pinpoints when he would appear. Jesus claimed these scriptures applied to himself. Proof:
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| "For I am the Lord, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. |
It's a simple statement by God about himself. The reason there will always be Jews whom God will continue to try to save is because he made a promise to Jacob. He will always offer salvation to Jacob's descendants: however, they need to obey him to benefit from God's promise. The problem is, this statement was made (about Jacob's descendants) before the Messiah came. We'll have to study farther to see how things might change if the Messiah has appeared but Jacob's descendants rejected him.
This simple statement that God does not change should help us recognize false teachings as anything that indicates that God has somehow changed.
As confirmation that the Bible is the Word of God, the unchangeable nature of God is stated in reference to the scriptures as well:
| To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. |
According to one of the major prophets, if those who say they are from God teach against his law and the testimony of the prophets, they are deluded and truth is not in them.
But the responsibility does not stop with being able to spot the truth or a lie when it's being preached or taught to you. You have a personal responsibility in how you respond to it.
And to make matters worse, you have a responsibility to desire the truth.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from
being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.
"The more they increased, The more they sinned
against Me; I will change their glory into shame.
They eat up the sin of My people; They set their
heart on their iniquity.
And it shall be: like people, like priest. So I
will punish them for their ways, And reward them for their
deeds.
But our God is gracious and just! Those who are ignorant through no fault of their own will be judged by how they live up to what they know, not by what they don't know.
In explaining how God's promises apply to Gentiles as well as Jews, Paul had this to say:
| For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. | |
| For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, | |
| because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. |
In other words, Abraham was not held responsible for transgressing "the law" because he didn't have "the law" delivered to him in the way that Moses did . . . and neither are the non-Jewish nations who claim Abraham as father. The responsibility of all is to "have faith".
| Therefore it [our heritage] is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all | |
| (as it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations") in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; | |
| who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, "So shall your descendants be." |
According to Jesus, sin is accounted to us when we have the opportunity to see how we should behave but don't obey the laws.
| Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains. |
| "If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. |
So it is not how much knowledge you have that will kill you. It is whether you have rejected what you have been taught and whether you reject opportunities to learn more about the Lord. In the judgment, you will not only be shown all the things you did to sin against what you knew. You will also be shown all the opportunities you had to get to know the Lord that you rejected.
I have given you the short and sweet of it, but by all means please read the verses in context.
No matter how you cut it, you are responsible for turning down opportunities to learn about God.
| For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. |
You see, every human ever born is given "a measure of faith". There's something in each of us that tells us there is a Supreme God, and we each have to make choices in our lives between those things that will build that faith and those things that will chip away at it.
In the most barbarous cultures, there have always been those who have the guts to say, "That's just wrong!" and refuse to participate in rites and rituals that go against the heart of God—even though they don't know God.
| for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, | |
| who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) | |
| in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel. |
While Paul's words can trigger as many questions as they answer, this explanation of how God views the hearts of men, rather than their actions, can be very encouraging—for those who sin but hate it—or discouraging—for those who love sin but act "properly". If you live by your conscience, there will be no secrets for God to judge. But if you love sin more than the truth, you will be unfit for heaven.
The only excuse any of us can give regarding our refusal to "obey God" is that we loved our lives more than we love God. And that's why God gives us repeated opportunities to grow in knowledge of him, so we can grow in faith and understand what it means to accept his grace. You cannot love someone you don't even know!
But it's a personal decision. It cannot be made by anyone but you.
Agree to do some easy Bible studies that will help you absorb what Jesus taught without having to read any more of the Bible than what's necessary to see that you're not being lied to.
You won't have to memorize chapter and verse—unless you want to. I personally find that nearly impossible to do. I only can tell you with certainty where 1 of the verses I know is found, but I have learned many words, phrases, and concepts that I can locate in scripture with a good Bible CD.
You can understand with both your mind and your heart what Jesus taught, remember the gist of it if not many of the actual words, and see how his teachings apply to your own life.
Jesus said, in John 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you."
People like to dwell on the Holy Spirit teaching them all things, but they completely forget the rest of it. Remembrance indicates the recall of memory. The key here is that you cannot remember what you haven't placed in your memory. When someone, including a spirit disguised as an angel of light, tries to deceive you with important-sounding theories that actually go against the Bible, God can bring the words up to the top of your mind if you've read them or heard them or watched their outworking.
Is it time to make up for your previous rejection or to arm yourself against deception?
Jesus said that "This gospel of the kingdom will be preached to all nations, and then the end will come." (Matthew 24:14)
There have been many movements and cults born of urgency over Jesus' return that were premature. Many different churches have been raised up, each with a different "spin" on scripture and each with a recently re-discovered Bible truth to add to the Christian fund of knowledge. With each church focusing on only it's own "doctrine", it has been hard for Christians to find unity in the truths of scripture. However, with the advance of satellite TV and the Internet, places are being reached with all these truths that never could have been just 10 years ago. I believe the end will come quickly now.
It is my sincere belief that every person on the planet will soon have to make a decision for Christ or for the anti-Christ that Jesus warned against.
Most people think the anti-Christ will be easy to identify and therefore they won't give him their loyalty, but my studies don't bear this out.
Jesus warned of a great deception in the end times that would fool "even the very elect" if He did not shorten the time of this deception by His return (Matthew 24:24).
I believe it is very important for every human being to find out why scripture repeatedly warns that we can be deceived. It even shows us how and by whom! (Luke 21:8; 2 Timothy 3:13; James 1:16; Revelation 18:23; Rev 19:20; Rev 20:10)
I also believe there must be a reason Jesus promised rewards "To him that overcomes". (Revelation 2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:26; 3:5; 3:12; 3:21; 21:7)
I don't consider myself "the very elect", and I don't know many "real people" who do.
I want my friends and family to be armed with enough scripture to identify anti-Christ. I want them to WANT TO KNOW the truth. Whether we agree on "truth" is secondary to whether our hearts want to know it and are willing to accept it when we encounter it.
2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 says that the coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
This is only one of the passages that have prodded me, a person who a few years ago would never even have considered writing this type of article for anyone else to read, into action.
According to the apostle Paul in the above passage, people perish not because they haven't heard the truth, but because they rejected it. They didn't feel it was important in their lives or they loved their sinfulness more than God or Jesus.
I want all of my friends to fall into the category of those who love the truth. I want them to be among those who don't believe false miracles and signs.
That's why I have never approached them before now with an opportunity to study the Bible. I figured if I never gave them the choice, they couldn't reject it.
But now I offer to study with them because I don't want them to accuse me when Jesus comes. I don't want them to say, "If you knew I was placing my faith in the wrong people, why didn't you care enough about me to tell me? I didn't accept what the others said because I didn't trust them, but I would have listened to you!"
I want to see all my friends and family in heaven. Don't you want to meet me at Jesus' feet so we can learn from the master the fine points of scripture that are too hard for us to understand here?
The Bible reveals certain things plainly enough. The fulfillment of prophecy in history will build your faith if you want to believe that God wants us to succeed and will do everything in his power to save us. All we have to do is love him enough to follow him.
Here's an analogy for you. Substitute your own nationality and what it's based on if you're happy with it.
A Christian probably should feel at least as strongly about Jesus "Christ" and his teachings as an American feels about his country and its founding documents.
That is, these separate "cultures" (Christianity and America) were each built on written principles (the Bible for Christianity and the Constitution and Bill of Rights for America) that their "citizens" should know—not necessarily memorize, but be familiar with.
They should believe strongly in the founding principles, and everyone who claims to be a Christian should abide by the Bible and everyone who claims to be an American should abide by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Anything contrary to those foundational "doctrines" should not be accepted. Anyone who doesn't believe in them should just "move away". Don't call yourself a Christian; find (or found) a religion that you can follow. Or don't call yourself an American; move to a country by whose laws you're willing to abide!
In America young people are educated in History, Government, and the laws of the land, so they can understand how it all works and see why things should be done a certain way.
In Christianity souls are seldom taught the scriptures. Rather they are taught the theories of others who have studied the scriptures.
Because we study history, we know when theories about the future won't work, sound fishy, or are just plain hairbrained; but do we study scripture so we know if those who claim to have studied it are teaching truth or their own agenda?
Shouldn't we?
Scripture is the history of God's dealings with man, a demonstration of the trustworthiness of his prophecies, and a roadmap for surviving the future. That would explain why God holds us responsible for the knowledge we had the opportunity to gain but passed up.
The good news is that God doesn't hold us responsible for what we didn't have the opportunity to know. In Acts 17:30 Paul tells us God "winked" at man's ignorance in times past.
Now, however, the example of righteousness in the life of Christ--a man who lived a perfect life by the power of his connection with the Holy Spirit--is history, for all the world to examine. God demands that we humans recognize our sinfulness, repent, and follow Christ's example as one dependent on the Holy Spirit.
All I'm really asking is for you to read a little every so often to learn about what Jesus actually taught. Then you can decide whether you want to be a real Christian. You decide whether others really are smarter than you.
Remember, the disciples were just common folk, just like you and me, but what they learned from Jesus made them strong enough to "overcome the world".
What if they were right?
What you learn from a few topical Bible studies will help you decide: Do you want to trade 80 +/- years of pain and pleasures on this sin-filled earth for an eternity of true joy and peace in heaven?
Wouldn't you like to see for yourself what Jesus taught?
Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes . . .
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