> On Jun 18, 2008, at 10:17 AM, Stephen Russell wrote: > > > For a long time I have said that God must be frustrated that man is > > dumb as > > a rock. > > ??? > > How could he be frustrated? Man is *exactly* the way he wants him > to > be. After all, he is all-powerful, and could have made man any way he > wanted.
Indeed. And he chose to make man free, in his own image, having spirit (God), soul (Holy Ghost) and body (Christ). It's like our modern values--we give people liberty. We love freedom, or so we say. Some of us believe this is a Good Thing on balance, and we're willing to live with the possibility of someone using that freedom for evil. We deal with the evil choices rather than try to perfect people by forcing them to have "right" motives. Others think this is a Bad Idea, and they want to use the power of government to force people to behave the "right way". If only we can remove greed, or stupidity, or lack of ecological consciousness, for example, they think we can have a just order of things. Not coincidentally the former group tends to believe in a loving God, and prefer free societies. The latter tends to believe in all-knowing men of great virtue, and prefers societies run by "the best and the brightest"...which usually end up third-rate despots but that's a different argument. > > > You suggest that God should do as we are doing today? Dumb it down > > for the > > masses? I think that he gave his Son to us and Jesus took a small > > group to > > educate. They were set to pass it on. Seems like the plan worked. > > Are you serious? It worked? You think that the world has > understood > and embraced the message that Jesus was preaching? I'm not defending Stephen's conclusion since I don't quite understand what he means by it, but I do think God's purpose has been fulfilled. What we make of it is quite another matter. > > Not only don't most people belong to one of the many factious > groups > that call themselves 'Christian', many of the people who call > themselves 'Christians' don't even come close to actually living the > way he described. Nearly every person on this list who is vocal about > being Christian has no problem with invading another country and > killing thousands of innocent people. > > WWJB? (Who Would Jesus Bomb?) You know Ed, this is exactly the kind of responses you twitted me out for. Technically, Stephen wasn't talking about Iraq war politics... and you use this to make a point slandering others on the list (gee, I wonder who?). To be consistent with your own moral standards, you really ought to twit yourself out for this. :) That having been said, if you take Scripture at face value, it should be no shock that even Christians live sinful lives, or hold views that, compared with Christ's, are imperfect, even on some level contradictory. Christ taught a lot of hard teachings---love one's neighbor, even thinking about adultery == adultery, etc. The Bible is a long record of people imperfectly struggling to reach that ideal. Becoming more Christ-like is the purpose of discipleship (the subject of the parable of the sower that you so badly botched yesterday), and all of us have a long walk to get to that level of perfection. None of this proves Christ a liar. Nor does it prove, as you seem humorously to imply, that being Christian must necessarily mean being against all war, or specifically the Iraq war. There is, as Ecclesiastes says in that famous line borrowed by the Beatles, a time for war and a time for peace. There are just wars, whether we like them or not, so long as we live in the flesh. Being Christian doesn't mean having to be a naïve fool on matters of collective life and death. But certainly--if someone loves war and seeks it, it's valid cause to wonder whether they are really Christian. So your point is taken, even if it is out of order. - Bob > > -- Ed Leafe > > > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
