| Poster | Thread |
| | Re: | | Mark respectfully my post out of scriptures were addressing your comments. I chose not to engage.in a point for point rebuttal.
In essence my understanding of scriptures is followers of Christ are to love their enemies as commanded by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. Also followers of Christ are called to one war. A spiritual war. We are ultimately citizens of a heavenly kingdom. Can't explain it any other way.
Brother if you are looking for a debate I am too old for that. Now I must stand down. Bro you have the last word.
Good night now.
Bear.
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|  2014/9/7 23:21 | |
| | YES!!! I get the last word (first pump)!!!!!! | | I get the last word??? Wish my wife would say that:) My last word is this brother...
...what Phil Robertson, you and me think about these things are in the scheme of things, very inconsequential and...
...I love you very, very much brother Bear!!! |
| | 2014/9/8 1:27 | | Sree
Member
Joined: 2011/8/20
Posts: 1953
| | Our Kingdom is not of this world | | Jesus himself said that his kingdom is not of this world otherwise his servants would have faught for him. A Christian should follow Jesus's footsteps and our kingdom should also not belong to the world. Neither should we expect anyone to fight for us. If ISIS wants to take the all the worldy kingdom then what is it to do with me? I am not of this worldy kingdom.
Now can we apply this to US and say US should do nothing against ISIS? All the teachings of Jesus are applicable to individual believers who are his disciples not to nations. No nation in this world can be a Christian nation. So we cannot say apply this to US army and say what they should do.
Regarding the questions asked here like 'what will you do if ISIS breaks into your house?'. I will not worry about that today nor make any preparation. God will give me grace at that hour. I do not want to panic or be anxious about what I will do. God is still in throne, whithout his approval not even a hair in my head will fall.
Regarding all the discussion about Government taking away my fundamental freedom. As a Christian we should be happy as long as we have freedom to worship our God. Anything beyond that is a bonus for us. Here is my take on this, if I am stopped in airport or did a strip search for being a Christian, it will not bother me even a single bit. As long as they let me carry a Bible and worship my God it is fine. In Acts, Aposlte Paul when he was imprisioned in Roam, he was given very minimal freedom to meet the brothers who visit him. He was not given freedom even to go and meet but rather only to meet those who come to him. Do you guys think Apostle will be worried about this lack of freedom and complain?
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Sreeram
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| | 2014/9/8 5:15 | Profile | KingJimmy
Member
Joined: 2003/5/8
Posts: 4419
Charlotte, NC
| | Re: | | I'm sorry awakened, my participation in this thread has been hit and miss, and mostly from my iPad. I've not been deliberately overlooking anything. I will try to respond more fully soon.
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Jimmy H
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| | 2014/9/8 5:42 | Profile | KingJimmy
Member
Joined: 2003/5/8
Posts: 4419
Charlotte, NC
| | Re: | | Awakened,
Quote:
I think when we have walked through a situation like those in Iraq and Syria are facing, then we would be more qualified to know when and how and what scriptures we should use in a situation like this.
Perhaps. But I would like to think that we know what the Scriptures say because we have made careful inquiry of them, and know what they say before terrible things happen to us. We should be careful to guard ourselves against reading our experience into the Scriptures.
Then again, looking at the recorded experience of the early Christians who endured greater persecution than those in Iraq do today, I don't recall anything from history recording how they took up the sword and defended themselves against the Romans. And why should they have? Their Master didn't fight back against the Romans, and He taught none of His disciples to do so either.
Quote:
I am pretty sure no one here would have the courage to say these things face to face with people who have lost everything and are fighting to survive
I'm pretty sure I would. But if you wish to call into question the integrity of my teaching ministry, you can feel free to do so. I won't defend myself.
Quote:
Those of you who take a pacifist position from the comfort of your computer chairs
One could argue you are calling upon the United States of America to do your killing for you from the comfort of your computer chair. How easy it must be to bask in the freedom individuals like my brother provided you when he fought in Afghanistatn and Iraq. You slept in comfort while he slept in terror, with the Muslim call to prayer often being his evening lullaby and morning alarm. It must be nice. Thanks for voting for President Bush to send him into harms way on your behalf. My family appreciates your bravery.
Quote:
Twisting the scriptures to say more than it says is exactly what false teachers do.
I'm sorry, but the notion that the Scriptures ever teaches "just war theory" is actually twisted. You will never find such a theology taught anywhere in the entirety of God's word. The Bible never supports the idea of waging war on some sort of imagined ethical grounds. It does, however, say a lot about doing everything you can to avoid fighting somebody else, and lovingly, peacefully, and prayerfully resisting them when they do harm and threaten you.
The only "justified" wars ever recorded in the Bible are the one's that God called the Hebrews to wage in order to take the promised land. It involved wholesale genocide at that. They involved killing women, children, and even animals.
And when they waged war, they were to do so only do so at the direction of prophetic revelation. They weren't just to do it because the situation seemed right or because somebody was in danger, or because they had a moral philosophy about war. Indeed, God regularly scolded the kings for fighting wars He didn't authorize.
It is my contention that the "holy wars" of the Old Testament were authorized by God for a brief dispensation of time. As Solomon said, there is a time for war. But I believe that time has passed because of the New Covenant, and the work of Christ on the cross. Death has been defeated. And we are no longer ministers of the covenant of death given under Moses, but we are ministers of a new covenant, a ministry of life, wherein we are made ambassadors of Christ to act as agents of reconcilation. We are to make ourselves busy spreading the reign of peace that His kingdom knows.
I believe we live in the time spoken of by Isaiah and Micah, wherein we teach the nations to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hoooks, so that they will no longer learn war. Jesus Christ sits on His throne. Death has been defeated by means of the resurrection. And because of the resurrection, we have lost all reasons to go to war, for death is no longer the final answer. For we know now that if we die, yet shall we live again, all because Jesus Christ has overcome the grave.
People only fight in war because they fear death.
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Jimmy H
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| | 2014/9/8 8:07 | Profile | rookie
Member
Joined: 2003/6/3
Posts: 4821
Savannah TN
| | Re: Our Kingdom is not of this world | | Sree wrote:
" Anything beyond that is a bonus for us. Here is my take on this, if I am stopped in airport or did a strip search for being a Christian, it will not bother me even a single bit."
I was stopped by airport security when they check my carry on. He said to me something to the effect, " Sorry we are going to have to arrest you. I found a weapon in this bag. He pulled out my bible and said it's against regulations carrying swords around.
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Jeff Marshalek
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| | 2014/9/8 13:02 | Profile | proudpapa
Member
Joined: 2012/5/13
Posts: 2936
| | | | " Take Our Lord Himself, we read that He went into the Temple and cast out them that sold and bought, overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and in a voice of thunder ordered the whole crowd out. Is He the “meek and mild and gentle Jesus” there? Up to the time of the war we had a Christianity that had lost the element of fight, the element of grit and judgment; the war has brought back these elements. There is something appalling about human life, and if we make our own private conscience the standard and remain in the offing on the conscientious line, we shall come under the curse of Meroz who “came not to the help of the Lord . . . against the mighty.” "
Oswald Chambers |
| | 2014/9/8 14:18 | Profile |
| | Re: | | But then Jesus said on the cross. Father forgive them for they know not what they do.
Bear |
| | 2014/9/8 14:25 | | proudpapa
Member
Joined: 2012/5/13
Posts: 2936
| | oswald chambers continued | | "My aim is not to be the saving of my own soul, getting myself put right for heaven, but battling to the death for what the Cross of Christ stands for. The great thing is not the teaching of Jesus, but what He came to do for the human race, viz., to make the way back to God. It cost Him His life to do it, and the writer to the Hebrews says, “ Consider Him . . . lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” Have I got the iron of the Cross of Christ into my conscience, or am I a weak sentimentalist, kind and generous, but with nothing of the nature of the Cross in me? Is there anything in me that would go to the death for Jesus Christ’s sake, or do I easily knuckle under because I base all on the teachings of Jesus instead of on His Cross? Conscientiousness is an ingredient in human nature, but the first and foremost relationship in Christianity is the sovereign preference for Jesus Christ.
Oswald Chambers
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| | 2014/9/8 14:34 | Profile |
| | Re: | | KingJimmy,
For the record I am not a war monger and I disagree with the American invasion of Iraq. I am not an American and I have no dog in this fight, especially not one that puts any hope in voting or in an American president. Ha...thats quite funny actually:)
I would love to see you or some other American christian standing in front of an Iraqi christian defending their family with a weapon and you quoting scriptures and telling them to turn the other cheek. What a sight that would be. In fact why not make that happen??? You could record yourself making an "open letter" video statement to all Iraqi Christians - telling them to turn the other cheek. Be sure to quote chapter and verse and make sure it is King James only to drive home your point:) But whatever you do, don't smile or look too comfortable when you record this...in fact wear shabby, untidy clothes and film yourself in the middle of a violent protest with a frightened look on your face. That way your message will be taken much more seriously:)
Though I am being satirical, this was basically the point of my original post, which I am sorry you seem to have missed. I do thank you for taking the time to respond though, but this discussion has now become pointless:(
Signing off (on this one). Maybe:) |
| | 2014/9/8 15:47 | |
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