Ask an Evangelical III

[GhostWriter16]

That seems to me then to mean that you do need works.

Just ask the thief on the cross and James what the difference was (James says Abraham's faith was "Completed by his works.")

Plus the rich man was told if he sold his stuff he would "Gain treasure in Heaven" so obviously there's more to Heaven than just trying to barely get in.

And read what Jesus says about his disciples.

Yes, you can say that works are necessary, but you can't say Salvation is BY works. We can't earn our Salvation.

 

[Heerlo]

Also, consider Acts chapter 15.

In Acts chapter 10, Peter had preached to Cornelius, and the people with him, who were not Jews.And they most likely had never kept any rituals of the Jewish Law and probably never did.

Now while Peter preached to these people, they were saved, without any immediate good works or Law Keeping.

Now, all the way to chapter 15 of Acts, these Gentiles(non Jews)had been saved unless they had turned their back on God.But here in the first verse of Chapter 15, it says that "certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved."

Now, like I said, all this time these Gentiles had been saved, most likely without being circumcised or keeping the Law of Moses.But these people were saying that accept you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, that you could not be saved, which was not true at all.

In Romans Paul points out the fact that God imputed Righteousness to Abraham BEFORE the covenant of circumcision, showing that it had nothing to do with him being saved and having Righteousness.

Now, back in chapter 15 of Acts, you can see that Paul and Barnabas had an argument with these people who were proclaiming this.And later some of the Pharisees said that it was needful for them to be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses, which would be adding something to what Jesus did to save us, His death on the Cross.But there was nothing that had to be added, seeing that these Gentiles had been saved all this time without adding these things.

So the early Church had a big meeting to determine whether this was right or not.Verse 7 says, "And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles[non Jews]by my mouth should hear the Word Of God, and believe.And God, who knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us[the Jews];and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts BY FAITH.Now therefore, why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?But we believe that through the GRACE of The Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they."

Peter said all these things, and the meeting of the church concluded that these things were not neccasary for salvation, and I believe, not neccasary to maintain salvation either.

So the Church in Jerusalem, where I think this meeting took place, sent a letter to the Gentiles, saying, in my own words, that they did not have to do those things that the people at the beginning of the chapter had said had to be done, thus assuring them that it was not neccasary for salvation, and that they were already saved without these things, by Grace, through what Jesus did by dying for us, and us accepting Him as our Savior.And the letter also just told them things that they were not to do, things that could take away their salvation, which they had by Grace, without good works.

Edit:And like you said, Ghostwriter, the man on the Cross, who was a criminal or something like that, did not have any good works that he could use to get him salvation, as none of us do.But he was saved right there on the Cross, and went to Paradise just like Jesus said he would, even though he did not have any time to do any good works to get him to Heaven.It was purely Grace, as it is with all.

 

[History_Buff]

On making distinctions, is it racist to say that black people tend to jump better than white people?

If you say that because you see a lot of black basketball players, it's racist. If you take the time to study the jumping ability of representative samples of blacks and whites, and find that black do in fact jump better than whites, then it's not.

Technically I think MisterCooper is right that being against interracial marriage can be done without being racist.

I would disagree with this pretty strongly. I mean, I don't generally find black women attractive, like at all, but if some other white guy wants to marry a black girl (or whatever other combo), then great, all the more happiness to them.

There's no reason to think that interracial marriage could be a bad thing, except for racism.

 

[Heerlo]

And I believe that you are supposed to have works, but in no way do I believe that they save your soul.Only Jesus' death on the Cross could do that.

And I urge anyone who may be reading this, that if you have not been saved, pray to God, being sincere, and let Him know that you accept what Jesus did in giving His life for you, and ask forgiveness of your sins, and read the Bible, obey it, and go to church somewhere that teaches what it says, because it is the Word Of God, the only thing that will stand in the end.And all who reject Jesus and what He has done for us will not make it to Heaven, not because I said they won't, but because it's what God's Word says.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Don't pray to God. He doesn't exist and you really must learn to work things out for yourself. Instead think about solutions. Challenge yourself.

But most importantly, don't be satisfied with answers. Faith is a dead-end road to go on.

 

[Heerlo]

Don't pray to God. He doesn't exist and you really must learn to work things out for yourself. Instead think about solutions. Challenge yourself.

What do you mean by working things out?Do you think that God doesn't exist, but Heaven does exist, and we can still go there?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

What do you mean by working things out?

It's a complicated process. You wouldn't understand.

 

[caketastydelish]

Don't pray to God. He doesn't exist and you really must learn to work things out for yourself. Instead think about solutions. Challenge yourself.

But most importantly, don't be satisfied with answers. Faith is a dead-end road to go on.

Ok, I am not even an Evangelical Christian, but I'm going to have to say this for them: If you don't have a question please don't post on this thread.

 

[JollyRoger]

Ok, I am not even an Evangelical Christian, but I'm going to have to say this for them: If you don't have a question please don't post on this thread.

I would agree. A post without a question is very disrespectful. Who would do such a thing?

 

[caketastydelish]

I would agree. A post without a question is very disrespectful. Who would do such a thing?

I will let the evangelicals decide who was being disrespectful in this case.

 

[timtofly]

So if you think you are saved, but you don't have works means you are not saved?

Faith without works is dead! Will a dead faith get you into heaven? Can one obey God and not do any "work"? Obedience to God is faith in action or in other words, works. Works is not keeping the law! Works is obeying God which produces faith. Trust and obedience is faith, but there would be no faith without doing some action.

Keeping the law is man's relation to other men in a governmental setting. It was God showing His chosen people that without God it is impossible to do anything pleasing to God. It was not God's plan to get into heaven. To a certain extent the act Jesus did on the cross was not the means to get into heaven, but to show that God is the only one who could fulfill what the law demands.

It was the fact that Jesus changed the "curse" that Adam started and faith in this as God's plan that equalizes all humans in God's sight. God does not expect any one to live a perfect life. The only thing that God demands is obeying the personal call that God gives each human in terms they understand, and who have the ability to choose to obey or disobey this personal mandate.

 

[Heerlo]

Faith without works is dead! Will a dead faith get you into heaven? Can one obey God and not do any "work"? Obedience to God is faith in action or in other words, works. Works is not keeping the law! Works is obeying God which produces faith. Trust and obedience is faith, but there would be no faith without doing some action.

Keeping the law is man's relation to other men in a governmental setting. It was God showing His chosen people that without God it is impossible to do anything pleasing to God. It was not God's plan to get into heaven. To a certain extent the act Jesus did on the cross was not the means to get into heaven, but to show that God is the only one who could fulfill what the law demands.

It was the fact that Jesus changed the "curse" that Adam started and faith in this as God's plan that equalizes all humans in God's sight. God does not expect any one to live a perfect life. The only thing that God demands is obeying the personal call that God gives each human in terms they understand, and who have the ability to choose to obey or disobey this personal mandate.

What I mean by works is that anything you do that you think will get you into Heaven.There is nothing that we as humans can do for ourselves to get us into Heaven.Due to the disobedience of Adam and Eve, we are all born in sin, bound for Hell, and we owed a sin debt that we could never repay.

So, if the only thing that you have to do to get into Heaven is to obey God's call on your life, then there was no reason for Jesus to come to the Earth and die.Do you think that God would send The Son He loved so dearly to die the terrible death no the Cross, had there not been a reason for it?He died so we COULD have eternal life.We cannot obtain eternal life, not even by trying our hardest to please God in our own efforts.It simply cannot be done.It is by Grace, and not by living a good life.

And I'm not saying that you shouldn't live a good life.You should, and I think it may be that if you really are right with God, that you will live like you are supposed to.

But, like I said, we owed a debt that we could not repay.And there had to be someone innocent to take the Wrath Of God for us, so we would not have to take it.That person was Jesus.He paid the price for our sin on the Cross, and we receive eternal life, not by good works, but by just accepting what He did for us there.See my sig line.God gave His son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish.That was the reason for it.We are not saved by works.

And after we are saved we must obey God in everything that He says, for to not do so, would be sin, which will cause you to lose your eternal life.

 

[JollyRoger]

I will let the evangelicals decide who was being disrespectful in this case.

Why have you now posted twice without showing enough respect to ask a question?

 

[Core Imposter]

GW, I apologized for being drawn off topic. Ok?

And for the record, to keep it clear, I've said repeatedly that I believe that it is the best practice to marry within one's race. That is not being against interracial marriage, or opposing it. I don't advocate any sanction against it, in law, or in society or in the church. I just think its the best course of action to marry within your race. I also believe its best to marry someone with whom you share the faith. If my opinion, by someone's definition, renders me racist, fine. I don't care.

GW called me out in another thread on it and I questioned him on it here for that reason and he has agreed that it is not racist. Therefore I consider the matter concluded.

Again, I applaud the thread.

 

[timtofly]

Why have you now posted twice without showing enough respect to ask a question?

Not every one is a good lawyer?

What I mean by works is that anything you do that you think will get you into Heaven.There is nothing that we as humans can do for ourselves to get us into Heaven.Due to the disobedience of Adam and Eve, we are all born in sin, bound for Hell, and we owed a sin debt that we could never repay.

So, if the only thing that you have to do to get into Heaven is to obey God's call on your life, then there was no reason for Jesus to come to the Earth and die.Do you think that God would send The Son He loved so dearly to die the terrible death no the Cross, had there not been a reason for it?He died so we COULD have eternal life.We cannot obtain eternal life, not even by trying our hardest to please God in our own efforts.It simply cannot be done.It is by Grace, and not by living a good life.

And I'm not saying that you shouldn't live a good life.You should, and I think it may be that if you really are right with God, that you will live like you are supposed to.

But, like I said, we owed a debt that we could not repay.And there had to be someone innocent to take the Wrath Of God for us, so we would not have to take it.That person was Jesus.He paid the price for our sin on the Cross, and we receive eternal life, not by good works, but by just accepting what He did for us there.See my sig line.God gave His son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish.That was the reason for it.We are not saved by works.

And after we are saved we must obey God in everything that He says, for to not do so, would be sin, which will cause you to lose your eternal life.

All I am trying to do is seperate the notion of works from salvation. Faith is not salvation either. I realize that we have had almost 2000 years of confusion regarding these terms, or 400 years in the English. I am not trying to change any one's belief system. I am pointing out that using such terms is confusing to say the least. In James 2, where we get the terminology of faith and works together, James is not explaining salvation, but a personal experience with God. The Catholics which allegedly have been the flagship of "christianity" has never associated salvation with any choice, but the working out through one's actions one's whole life the works necessary for salvation. Being "baptized" as an infant assures one that Adam's sin has been justified and that from then on the process has been "works". When the heretics broke away during the reformation, this process changed to a personal acceptance of the sin atonement (Jesus' death on the cross) that produces salvation. Evangelicals have gone a step further and have stressed the point of salvation.

Accepting Jesus as the savior is an act of faith. It is also not technically a work. One also cannot work out their salvation to be saved, but they show obedience and honor to God through acts and deeds. If one relyed on works for salvation, they would fail and to some may even fall out of grace with God. Adam who was perfect, fell out of grace, thus we as imperfect would be doomed to fall out even further? We cannot be saved any more than any one else can be. We all have equal footing in that manner. It is misleading to tell any one they do not have a choice (infant baptism) and it is misleading to say that one has to work for salvation.

Salvation is God's gift of grace. One can take it or leave it. Having Faith or living the law (works) has nothing to do with this gift. One can have Faith in a belief system. One can even have faith that the Bible is God's word. Unless one accepts God's gift though, they will not have salvation. That has nothing to do with religion be it Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or any other religion. None of the "Abrahamic'" faiths are very Abrahamic in this regard, but they have attempted to explain things in their own terms. Most still view works as the "law", and they forget that Abraham did not have the law, but faith in God, and that came from obedience to God.

Now Evangelicals can argue that only "SALVATION" through Jesus is the only act of obedience acceptable, and they may be right. They do seem to come closest to any Biblical text known to man. Repentance and baptism were preached and practiced by the disciples of Jesus. I think that christianity though, held to works and baptism and forgot about repentance to good works. It was more repentance from bad deeds.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Ok, I am not even an Evangelical Christian, but I'm going to have to say this for them: If you don't have a question please don't post on this thread.

I totally agree.

 

[GhostWriter16]

If you say that because you see a lot of black basketball players, it's racist. If you take the time to study the jumping ability of representative samples of blacks and whites, and find that black do in fact jump better than whites, then it's not.

First off let me just say I didn't even say that black people jump better, I just asked if its racist. I don't see stating a fact with less info makes it racist but saying it with more makes it more racist. What if someone told you and you believed them? Doesn't necessarily make you racist.

I would disagree with this pretty strongly. I mean, I don't generally find black women attractive, like at all, but if some other white guy wants to marry a black girl (or whatever other combo), then great, all the more happiness to them.

I actually think that quote taken without the rest of it actually makes me look worse than it should. I actually said, immediately after, that opposing interracial marriage was "Simply wrong." I'm not sure if it necessarily qualifies as racist though, intristically. I'm with you that it shouldn't matter, but if you think whites and blacks are equal but both should stay separate, who are you racist against, exactly? I suppose you could say "Whichever race isn't yours" but I'm not 100% committed to the accuracy of that.

There's no reason to think that interracial marriage could be a bad thing, except for racism.

This statement I tend to agree with, that if its not racist its irratiional.

Ok, I am not even an Evangelical Christian, but I'm going to have to say this for them: If you don't have a question please don't post on this thread.

Thanks

I would agree. A post without a question is very disrespectful. Who would do such a thing?

I will let the evangelicals decide who was being disrespectful in this case.

Oldschooler was trying to help with the thread. In fact, Oldschooler's post(s) are thus more helpful than Jolly's, which literally contributes nothing. At least Oldschooler was trying to get other people to ask questions and not clog the thread.

I'm really not sure what Ziggy was getting at with his post, in any case I 100% disagree with it.

 

[History_Buff]

And for the record, to keep it clear, I've said repeatedly that I believe that it is the best practice to marry within one's race.

The question is, WHY should someone prefer to marry within their own race?

GW called me out in another thread on it and I questioned him on it here for that reason and he has agreed that it is not racist.

I don't know that GW is the best arbiter of what's racist or not.

First off let me just say I didn't even say that black people jump better, I just asked if its racist. I don't see stating a fact with less info makes it racist but saying it with more makes it more racist. What if someone told you and you believed them? Doesn't necessarily make you racist.

I know, I'm certainly not trying to pin you to saying it, but it's just a good example is all. As for why your degree of knowledge is important, it speaks to why you believe that thing. If you see something, and it agrees with the stereotype in your head, so you go with it, that's bad. If you actually know and can demonstrate some difference between racial groups, then it's just a fact, so it can hardly be racist. Unless you were to turn around and say something moronic like "black people are scientifically better at jumping than white people, so we shouldn't let them play basketball".

As for believing what somebody else tells you, it would depend on the credibility of the witness. If you're believing someone reading a peer-reviewed, scientific paper, that's Good. If you believe someone in KKK robes shouting the same thing, that's Bad.

I actually think that quote taken without the rest of it actually makes me look worse than it should. I actually said, immediately after, that opposing interracial marriage was "Simply wrong." I'm not sure if it necessarily qualifies as racist though, intristically. I'm with you that it shouldn't matter, but if you think whites and blacks are equal but both should stay separate, who are you racist against, exactly? I suppose you could say "Whichever race isn't yours" but I'm not 100% committed to the accuracy of that.

Well I don't think racism needs a victim to be racism. Or the victim might well be the person holding prejudices.

But the reason I'm so interested in the topic is that in this sentence:

whites and blacks are equal but both should stay separate

the part after the 'but' doesn't really reconcile well with the first part. It's a very strange thing to say. Like saying "Hello officer, I'm perfectly innocent, but don't look in that closet over there". So, returning to the quoted sentence, why should the races not intermarry? Because that's important to understanding the quote.

 

[GhostWriter16]

The question is, WHY should someone prefer to marry within their own race?

Indeed.

I don't know that GW is the best arbiter of what's racist or not.

Nor did I ever claim to be.

It seems that it is perfectly possible to think blacks and whites are equal, think that intermarriage between them is an equal wrong between each party, and not actually be racist. I would say, however, that you cannot rationally hold this position.

I am open to be convinced that opposing interracial marriage is automatically racist, although I am already convinced it almost always is racist against SOMEBODY.

 

[Arakhor]

It seems that it is perfectly possible to think blacks and whites are equal, think that intermarriage between them is an equal wrong between each party, and not actually be racist. I would say, however, that you cannot rationally hold this position.

This bit I would agree with.