Originally posted by vistesdThanks for that long post. I cannot answer respond to all of it and would not even try to. Neverthless I appreciate your well thought out points and some certainly worth further contemplation on my part.
NRS John 17:12 While I was with them, I kept those you had given me true to your name. I have watched over them and not one is lost [b]except one who was destined to be lost, and this was to fulfil the scriptures.
YLT John 17:12 when I was with them in the world, I was keeping them in Thy name; those whom Thou hast given to me I did guard, [ ...[text shortened]... s” to love. Not in my own mind, anyway. I either need to get back there, or I need to shut up.
I can see that there are some similarities in what we believe even though we have arrived there from different directions. Most important of which is how critical love and charity is in the whole scheme of things. Its basically all that Jesus preached about. If I had to guess, your focus on love/charity and all that goes with it .. that alone makes you closer to God and to the teachings of Christ than all the rantings of some of the Christians around here that preach this OSAS doctrine.
Let me try to respond to this you said :
Well, “those like him” I guess would be anyone who committed a wrong that hurt someone else, actively repented and tried to undo the wrong, relinquished all profit from the wrong, and was filled with grief/remorse for the wrong. That would certainly include me. So, if none of that allows for healing/forgiveness (being set free), then there would be no sense me worrying about it—or trying to do any better. What’s done is done. Okay.
Christ is the judge and he will decide who deserves forgiveness. Not all that beg for forgiveness will receive it. Here is an example of Esau:
Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.(Heb 12:16-17)
He found no place of repentance. There are times when God turns his back on someone and after that there is no hope. I certainly would not apply that to you or anyone I know for that matter. Hope is not lost as long as there is life. We cannot know the whole story behind Esau or Judas, but for Christ to call Judas the son of perdition is really am irrevocable condemnation for me. The son of perdition is the highest pinnacle of evil ..
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. (2Th 2:3-4)
There some other interesting points you made which I will have to ponder before I respond .. 🙂
Originally posted by vistesdI am in the third camp.
I have no problem with figures of speech in the Bible—or metaphor or myth, for that matter. As you note (and I think I mentioned somewhere) we use similar figures of speech today.
The question is really twofold: Biblical literalism, per se (stopping the sun in the sky); and the nature of Biblical inspiration. If the Biblical texts represent the “word ...[text shortened]... th all due respect and acknowledgement of Rajk’s critique of OSAS Christianity—is where I stand.
Your tent is on fire.
Do I mean that in a lyrical sense: am I speaking of a stirring in my loins inspired by the fabric of your, um, inner beauty?
The mind blossoms in the considerations of endless iterations.
Or do I mean it in a quasi-poetical, semi-allegorical sense: your protection is at risk?
Either way, I mean it.
But HOW do I mean it?
When we relegate Scripture to that third camp, every door we find opening is accompanied with the sound of just as many more closing behind us.
For instance, you used the example of the "stopping of the sun in the sky" as though something other--- something more informed minds 'now know' as being impossible.
Yet the person who accepts the sun stopping in the sky accepts this as a possibility on the basis of his confidence in someone smarter than him, someone with more knowledge than he possesses.
According to the third camp, the connection between the fact of the sun stopping in the sky is severed, lost.
What happens to those in the camp when they find out the sun actually stopped in the sky, the earth being the center of the universe around which the whole spectacle revolves?
Sometimes poetry leads us astray.
3 edits
Originally posted by FreakyKBHYou miss the point. If the sun actually stopped, how would that make the day (daylight) last any longer? As far as I know, the length of an earth day is determined by the rotation of the earth. Do you dispute that was the case in the time of Joshua?
[b]I am in the third camp.
Your tent is on fire.
Do I mean that in a lyrical sense: am I speaking of a stirring in my loins inspired by the fabric of your, um, inner beauty?
The mind blossoms in the considerations of endless iterations.
Or do I mean it in a quasi-poetical, semi-allegorical sense: your protection is at risk?
Either way, I mea ...[text shortened]... of the universe around which the whole spectacle revolves?
Sometimes poetry leads us astray.[/b]
EDIT:
What happens to those in the camp when they find out the sun actually stopped in the sky, the earth being the center of the universe around which the whole spectacle revolves?
You do realize that this is precisely a poetic (metaphorical) statement, yes? That the earth may be the metaphorical center, re the “spectacle”—but is not the actual, literal center? And that the sun then only “metaphorically” orbits the earth?
1 edit
Originally posted by vistesdperhaps it was an optical illusion. Surely God could create the illusion that the sun stood still?
You miss the point. If the sun actually stopped, how would that make the day (daylight) last any longer? As far as I know, the length of an earth day is determined by the rotation of the earth. Do you dispute that was the case in the time of Joshua?