What's your conception of "the Gospel"?

[Methos]

Recently, for the first time in my life I had a dire need, and for the first time in my life I prayed for weeks on end asking God for help. And God, if he exists, did nothing. I harbor no love or hate for any divine being or their followers, but I know I would never worship some entity that could not, or would not help.

I'm curious, but did you attempt to also try and help yourself, or did you just leave it for your prayers to fix? By helping yourself, I mean actively seeking to fix whatever it was you were praying about.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Yeah, God helps those who help themselves. Also known as the most transparent cop-out ever invented.

You know what. I am a God. No really I am. Ziggy the Self-help God. Just test me. I will help those who help themselves. Works every time, guaranteed. If you didn't feel helped after helping yourself, I'll refund your faith 100%.

Refunds will only be made when you weren't helping yourself ineffectively. I'm not going to help the incapable. What am I? Gaia?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Who was it who said: "I prayed to God for a new bike, but I didn't get one, so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness"?

 

[classical_hero]

I agree. I find it humorous that people argue the Bible is 100% correct and then use statements made about the gospel as evidence. Yet, when you point out when the gospels were written and the fact the Bible wasn't "created" until over three hundred years later, they get upset and claim I'm not a Christian.

Well if we did not have any of the Greek manuscripts we still would be able to get a very good idea of the New Testament just from the writings of the early Church fathers, many of them who were disciples of the twelve, or disciples of the those disciples, so they had very good knowledge of what Jesus did and what he said. The New Testament was written within the life time of those who had heard Jesus speak. so they would be able to tell what happened. Also the last events of Jesus happened when there hundreds of thousands of people.

Very correct. Yet, even believers don't understand that.



At one point there was a document that did trace itself to Peter, but it was found to be fraudulent. There may be other documents that I'm not aware of. I would suggest asking Plotinus about it.

Well the first book was written some 20 years after Jesus was around so all they had to rely on was the OT to get the message across, which they did so, since they obviously did not anything written of the New Testament, which is why it saddens me people who say the ar Christian, reject the Old Testament, since the Gospel message of simly trusting in God is found through out, from Genesis to Malachi. Some of the books are harder to find the message, but some are very explicit, such as the example of Abraham (Genesis 15:6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.) a verse that Paul used plenty of times to show how simple it is to trust in God.

@Ziggy. I think you are misinterpreting what Methos is trying to say. From what I am reading he is saying that even though you are praying for things to happen, they do not happen to those who are idle and just wait for God to do all the work, since some things He needs us to be active in our service for him, for prayers to be answered.

 

[kosiosko 1]

Actually I did choose after reading the Bible, it can reasonably be expected that a Christian with access to the Bible should read it, I did not say anything about disregarding Jesus, I did however say the opposite

sorry if I implied that it was your views on JC, the second paragraph was a generalisation on how I see it expressed around me

just curious if you chose a different denomination to the one you were born into after reading the bible

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

From what I am reading he is saying that even though you are praying for things to happen, they do not happen to those who are idle and just wait for God to do all the work, since some things He needs us to be active in our service for him, for prayers to be answered.

Yeah, I'm like that exactly.

If you strife to help yourself, I'll give you the strength to persevere. Why do you doubt me? If you doubt me it won't work of course. You do need to have faith in me, absolute faith that with me watching over you, you will fulfill your goals you set your mind to and give it your best shot.

Trust me

 

[Onionsoilder]

I'm curious, but did you attempt to also try and help yourself, or did you just leave it for your prayers to fix? By helping yourself, I mean actively seeking to fix whatever it was you were praying about.

Chemotherapy, Chiropractic, Herbal Supplement things, Physical Therapy, yeah, we did a lot to try and fight the cancer. None of it worked.

 

[Camikaze]

So, what's your conception of it? What do you feel the message is that's intended to be transmitted?

As far as I'm concerned, this thread goes hand in hand with the Holy Book tl;dr thread. Be nice, play fair, etc.

That fits nicely with the whole 'spread the Good News' thing. Of course, there are what some would see as crucial elements within the Gospel about the story of Jesus, but the essential bits are the lessons learned, not the story itself. The Good News is the good that you as an individual can do in the world, using the Bible as a guideline.