Ask a Christian

[rysingsun]

Is there any limits to what can be forgiven?

No, but the person has to sincerely want to forsake the sin.

How can mere mortal priests judge and forgive in God's place ?

They can't.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Actually, some Christian groups believe that some sins can't be forgiven.

 

[Katheryn]

The thing that always baffles me most in Christianity (or at least some branches of it) is the concept of confession. Is there any limits to what can be forgiven (Imagine religious serial-killers who regularly confess) ? How can mere mortal priests judge and forgive in God's place ?

The concept is one of community. If we 'confess our sins to one another', then it creates a support system.

I think Confession is one of the things that would help me in my Christian walk. I definitely would not do many things I do if I knew I had to confess them to someone!

But , these things should be considered tools to assist the believer to be where he wants to be. It shouldn't be considered necessary and should be avoided if it doesn't help someone.

The concept of 'continual sin' is that it would be impossible for someone to do so if a Christian. They cannot live a life of sin, and if they did, they would/could not be Christians.

5 This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

6 If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and don't tell the truth.

"Walking in darkness" would be a continual way of life. Either we "walk with God" or we don't. A serial murderer is obviously "walking in darkness".

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

We should 'walk in the light' and "let your light shine", etc.

8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

10 If we say that we haven't sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

To say we NEVER sin, is of course, a lie. We are living in a fallen world, in a fallen body and we are only learning. We pick ourselves back up and press on.

10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

But we don't wallow in it.

 

[rysingsun]

Actually, some Christian groups believe that some sins can't be forgiven.

You mean the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? We had a whole thread on that some time ago and I didn't figure we needed to go back there.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I was not aware of that thread. At any rate, some Christians feel it is unforgivable, so whether it is or isn't doesn't matter for the purposes of the thread.

 

[puglover]

Christ says you have to believe in Him; it's even the same word for the level of belief needed to work other miracles.

Well of course you have to believe in him. How can you accept his sacrifice if you don't believe he exists?

 

[Salah-Al-Din]

Katheryne and others--thank you for such interesting posts! Keep it up.

 

[Quasar1011]

Anyone have any input on the 'God works in mysterious ways'? It certainly seems to be a powerful meme. So much so that I thought it had a biblical origin.

If it's not biblical, then it's extra-scriptural and thus could be seen as a non-scriptural concept.

Not necessarily. The Bible is said to have 7 great mysteries within its pages. For instance, the incarnation is presented as a mystery; so is the church. So the concept is there.

 

[Nick Garai]

And your point? Of course I want my child to be a Christian, I don't care about it being an "unbiased" decision, whatever that means, like any decision we make is completely without influence. A hippy will want her child to be a left-winger like herself, we all want to shape our children in our image, its just the way it is, why should religion be any different? The important thing is to not force the child or young adult to make a false profession of faith, that benefits no one. And yes, in Norway at least, most confirmations are false professions of faith, not because they are force to do it, but because they get lots of money and gifts upon confirmation. It has become a tradition, and a bad one, it has gone way too far and confirmation has lost its original meaning.

In support of this, raising a child up to know about Christ is as important as raising a child to not steal, hurt, lie, etc...

If a child is not raised so that they have knowledge of Christ then they run the risk of accepting other knowledge that may take precendence.

Persons who grow up with Christian knowledge still can reject Christianity.

It is a Christian parent's duty to raise their child so that they are informed and can make a decision to accept or reject Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour.

 

[Chieftess]

This here is a Catholic and Eastern Orthodox practice. Protestants dont have nor believe in the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Or commonly known as Confession).

Yes and no. Lutherans actually have a place for it in their hymnals (There is a section for private confessions), but Lutherans don't consider it a sacrament, and it's very, very rarely ever done, atleast in our church.

 

[El_Machinae]

Knigh+, keep in mind that some Christians are Catholic and some are not; so your answers regarding the priests will differ based on who answers the question.

Catholics believe that a personal confession is required before you can consider yourself to be repentant; when a priest decides upon a penance, he's mostly acting in a scholarly fashion and applying precedent for the penance. (since he's studied the history of confession and the recommended penance). In the same vein, a doctor doesn't 'make' aspirin work, but he knows enough about the history of medicine to know when to recommend it.

Many protestants don't believe in the concept of a priest, and that a soulful repentance can be made directly to Jesus. They also don't really believe in the idea of penance, but suspect that God will move them towards any penance that is recommended.

As well, each denomination has different doctrine on how to treat the victim of your sins (if there is a human victim). On the protestant side, though, this is so individualised that you can't really make a rule-of-thumb. On the Catholic side, the priest might assign some service to the victim as penance.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Actually, El_Mac, you described it pretty well.

As far as confession within Mormonism, it is a fairly different thing.

 

[knigh+]

Thanx for the answers

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Bump! Some of the stuff in El_Machinae's Satan thread might belong here.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Bump again, because someone was wondering about this thread, and I felt like including an anecdotal essay about prayer. Perhaps it might answer something that someone was wondering about which hadn't yet coalesced into a question.

The other day a friend of mine said that he might be getting a job, and asked me to pray for him. I asked for specifics, and he asked me to pray that he got that job or that a better one would come along.
Then I prayed: "God, let [name] come across and accept a job you find suitable for him."

The reason: God is not a wish-dispenser. God says "No." to many prayers. Growing as a Christian and learning to pray better does result in more prayers being answered with "Yes.", but only, as far as I know, (I am open to correction) because one learns to pray the right prayers, which tend towards "Your will be done".

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
3 Give us day by day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.

The Lord's Prayer, as it is called, asks very little for the petitioner personally: only to be kept righteous and to be given "daily bread", which is usually interpreted as "just what I need to survive until tomorrow, when I will pray again".

As an example of the opposite, all the prayer in the world for God to strike your annoying mother-in-law mute because she nags you so much is unlikely to have the least effect. Or another example: "God, make the people in Hospital A well, but keep the people in Hospital B sick". Do any of you feel that you would grant that prayer if God delegated it to you? I wouldn't.

This does not, I believe, make it illegitimate to pray for personal desires. I am not a Calvinist; I do not believe in predermination. I do not believe that God's plan is immutably fixed; I believe that God's will has enough space or flexibility or whatever term is appropriate that it can and will work with many different things, some of which you can ask for. Even Jesus prayed for something he wanted for himself, but he acknowledged afterwards that it was a subordinate thing:

39 Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. 40 When He came to the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
41 And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”

I have prayed for unnumbered small and generic things in my life, and said the stock prayers without always meaning them more times than I care to count, but I recall two occasions where I made a fervent prayer that felt "righteous" in a way that is difficult to explain. These prayers were not "Your will be done", but close enough, apparently, that they were granted. The first was when I was at a cafe with a friend; it was raining, he expressed regret that it was raining as we would get wet walking home; I said that this was not a problem; he asked what I meant; I ordered the rain to stop in Jesus' name, and it stopped over the course of the following five seconds. The second was when I heard that my grandmother had had a cerebral hemorrhage and been rushed unconscious to hospital; I prayed at once that she would recover and become healthy again; she regained consciousness after a few days, began speaking, began getting out of bed, began walking without aid, and today the only signs are that she walks and talks a bit slowly and her left hand and arm look inflated.
These things I believe were granted by God, and fit with His will.

Those who wish to raise complaints (the most common, in my experience, are hindsight bias and the probability of this happening to at least one person on Earth) may do so, and I will deal with them in a later post.

 

[Defiant47]

This is to any Christian that's willing to answer (and there will be a follow-up):

Do you believe in prayer?

 

[Elrohir]

This is to any Christian that's willing to answer (and there will be a follow-up):

Do you believe in prayer?

Obviously I believe people pray.

Nah, I assume you're asking whether we believe prayer actually "works", and whether we do so ourselves. Myself, I do believe prayer can be effective and is always answered in some way - even though the answer is often not what you might expect, and you might not even get it. And yes, I do pray.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

This is to any Christian that's willing to answer (and there will be a follow-up):

Do you believe in prayer?

I believe that God hears and answers prayer. You're not getting an answer to your literal question for now, as I'm a suspicious b--t--- who expects you're going to creatively quote some scripture at me that I had forgotten about and show how I'm contradicting the Bible or something like that.

 

[Sidhe]

I believe that God hears and answers prayer. You're not getting an answer to your literal question for now, as I'm a suspicious b--t--- who expects you're going to creatively quote some scripture at me that I had forgotten about and show how I'm contradicting the Bible or something like that.

No there isn't any paragraph that says talking to God is a bad thing. Not as far as I'm aware and it would be absurdly contradictory with a dozen others to even suggest it. You're safe.

 

[Holycannoli]

Bump again, because someone was wondering about this thread, and I felt like including an anecdotal essay about prayer. Perhaps it might answer something that someone was wondering about which hadn't yet coalesced into a question.

The other day a friend of mine said that he might be getting a job, and asked me to pray for him. I asked for specifics, and he asked me to pray that he got that job or that a better one would come along.
Then I prayed: "God, let [name] come across and accept a job you find suitable for him."

The reason: God is not a wish-dispenser. God says "No." to many prayers. Growing as a Christian and learning to pray better does result in more prayers being answered with "Yes.", but only, as far as I know, (I am open to correction) because one learns to pray the right prayers, which tend towards "Your will be done".

Those who wish to raise complaints (the most common, in my experience, are hindsight bias and the probability of this happening to at least one person on Earth) may do so, and I will deal with them in a later post.

Obviously I believe people pray.

Nah, I assume you're asking whether we believe prayer actually "works", and whether we do so ourselves. Myself, I do believe prayer can be effective and is always answered in some way - even though the answer is often not what you might expect, and you might not even get it. And yes, I do pray.

Both are correct. Prayers are not "wishes", but prayer can be a powerful tool. God wants to help. But you have to be willing to listen to him and accept whatever is given you, and a lot of times it's not quite what you prayed for.

For me, I simply prayed for employment I would enjoy and feel good doing. I was having a hard time finding work. After a good couple weeks I got a phone call out of the blue offering me potential employment, doing something I'd probably love doing! The next day I went for the interview, and a few days later they decided to hire me. And I love the job (working with an arborist treating and feeding trees).

See, I didn't ask for anything specific. I didn't ask to please win the lottery or anything either. I asked God to help me find a job I would enjoy. And he went above and beyond what I asked for help with He's been there for me at other times too. I should mention the time a few years ago that's responsible for my newfound faith, involving my mother and a big cancer scare and a strange knock on the door from some stranger who noticed I was upset when I answered, and who took my hand and walked up the street with me just praying and telling me everything will be OK. And it was. Who was this stranger? I still don't know, but he was very kind and understanding. Ever see the Little House On The Prairie episode where Laura feels guilty about her brother's death and goes to that mountain with Jonathan?Ernest Borgnine) Yeah it was like that.

And no, don't you dare say anything about me watching Little House On The Prairie It's such a good feel-good show! I watched it every day with my mother when I was little.