Very well said WonderfulLordJesus, and my feelings exactly. Simplicity is the best way to go. Eloquent words get lost and mean nothing to those who are searching for the truth. Let the Spirit lead us to find the truth without trashing each other. We should be building each other up and encouraging one another.
Thank you, Blr61853. The Christian faith is so very simple: it is knowing the Person, Jesus Christ, knowing in that epignosis sense that you have spiritual awareness by the Holy Spirit of His Person, which is also the Spirit of Christ. As mentioned, and so ironic to me, just so much the way God's ways are mysterious, I came to realize all the doctrinal nuances weren't the goal, weren't the essence of the faith, this in recent years, and largely from feeling I didn't have much in doctrinal questions left, at least that anybody has answered, beyond only their plausible, but incredulous takes. As if chasing my tail, all those years, to find the answer was when I ceased to chase! It was what I first came to see and love in Jesus Christ, as a new believer. It can even be a curse, to be so immersed in doctrine that theological philosophizing and splitting of hairs becomes an end in itself, like the dead letter of the law of the Scribes and Pharisees. The "big debates" here are, actually, very small, involving affirmation of basic truths, or not, not seeing threads, at all, that touch on some real depths of scholarship. (I was never a debater of any fundamental truths, before the web, though, saw the folly of trying to argue the things of God with people of the flesh. It was always, if they don't believe scripture truths, have a nice day, then, in my mind maybe later, if they ever get truly saved, first, and cease to rely on their own, creature understandings. And can any of us improve on God's wording of what He wishes to impart?)
It's senseless. Even the deceiver can only deceive those who can be deceived, are beating their heads against the wall thinking they'll get recruits, at least of any person of maturity in the Spirit, who has been led to truth, who has spiritual eyes, lives and knows all the truths they refute. The baby Christians, as well, will be led out of deception. From cults to the subtle Satanists on these message boards, they will get not one, true Christian convert. A rather empty game, isn't it, a wasted life, if deceiving only somebody already Satan's? I sort of find it amusing, all these people who are, in essence, saying, "Don't believe your lying eyes!" of scripture. It's not intellectually serious, not adult. The tare or unbeliever is deceived, himself, Luke 6:39, and there is no theological discussion even called for, but that they get saved, repent and believe in the Lord Jesus, receive the Holy Spirit, then it may be worth discussing deeper things with them. Only then can they even turn from their errors and understand the things of God.
As Paul mentioned in the verses in Hebrews 6, there comes a time where, in the individual Christian's life, the things people are raging over, on these message boards, should become the babies' milk of the past: been there, done that, Sunday school truths that have never changed. There is a moving on where the faith becomes a living awareness of Christ, a time when you realize some things you know are even hard to always put into words, sometimes even expansive of topics introduced in scripture. But there is a sizeable such expansion in 1 Corinthians 13 very few are prepared to receive and realize, where it's clear Paul arrived.
Heavens, just realized. Sorry, folks, for daring another serious post. I'll try to get back into the frame of mind, prepare for a "What does salvation mean?" thread, or "Did Jesus retire to Southern France?"
The Lord bless and keep you, Blr61853!
Say, how about just posting 1 Corinthians 13, in closing, would add scripture I bet you also much like?
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
