I hear your POV, and the "sentence" is..."We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not." (1 John 5:18)
No, that isn't the sentence at all.
I thought the next verse was also pertinent..."Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come." (John 16:13)
I don't follow. How is either sentence pertinent to allowing one to read and understand the bible such that the answers to questions that Christians have argued and fought over for centuries become intuitively clear and leaves you with no problem texts to explain away?
I am truly interested in your choice of sentences.
Jesus, the Creator of everything in the flesh, spent three years teaching both his disciples in general and the Twelve Apostles in particular. He sent them out to preach to the whole world and in addition to Christ's one on one teaching, the twelve (including Matthias) were also given the Holy Spirit to boot.
Have you ever asked yourself why there was any need for a thirteenth Apostle? Why Paul? Where is the need for Paul?
Jesus and the Twelve preached to Israel a gospel of repentance. "Repent for the Kingdom of God is near." was their message in a nutshell, and that message didn't change hardly at all after Jesus went to the Father, either....
Acts 2:14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words.
Then after giving the premise for his message, Peter gives the punch line....
36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”
38 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”
The change here is only concerning three things, Calvary (i.e. the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus), the fact that Jesus is the Christ (i.e.
Israel's Messiah - King) and the giving of the Holy Spirit. Significant additions to be sure but not a radical departure from the main thrust of the message.
Now, fast forward a bit and we find that while many were added every day, Israel as a nation, officially rejected Jesus and their Messiah when they refused to accept Stephen's "irresistible wisdom" (Acts 6:10) and murdered him. Present at this murder, we find two people. One is a man named Saul who threw in his lot with those who murdered Stephen and approved of their actions. The other was Jesus Himself, "Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!". Standing, in this context, implies judgement is fixing to be dispensed and this was certainly the case in Acts 7.
Then, skipping ahead just a bit, we find Saul being converted on the his way to Damascus and he then becomes Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles and preached a gospel that he was not taught by men but that he received by direct divine revelation (Galatians 1:12). He was then sent, again by revelation, to Jerusalem in order to explain this gospel to the Twelve (Galatians 2:2).
Think about that! Why would one apostle need to explain the gospel to another apostle?
Well, at the risk of being overly simplistic, Paul had to explain it to them because it was different! Paul explains "his gospel", which he called "the gospel of the uncircumcision" to the leaders in Jerusalem (i.e. Peter, James, John, et al ) to whom had been given the "gospel of the circumcision" and in response to having heard Paul's testimony, they made the following agreement with Paul...
Galatians 2:9 and when James, Peter, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
Thus, Paul's gospel is not only different but so is his audience. The Twelve were apostles to Israel (which is why there were twelve, by the way. Twelve being the number biblically associated with Israel.) and Paul was THE apostle to the Gentiles and if all you do is keep this single biblical fact in mind while reading the New Testament, then pretty nearly all the major doctrinal conflicts that have plagued the church for centuries all become really really easy to resolve. Passages that seem to conflict now don't! Romans 4:5 and James 2:24 both mean precisely what they seem to mean and there is no conflict between them because what they are saying fits with the gospel that was being preached to their respective audiences. Paul was preaching a gospel of faith only with no works required while James was under the law and his followers were all "zealous for the law" (Acts 21:20) and so, naturally, faith mixed with works would be required.
There is obvious much more to say but that should get the ball rolling and I'm out of time for this morning!
God bless!
Clete
