Dinner Doodle - What Do You Believe?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

(hopefully, there will be discussion about the content and not the appearance)

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

this doodle gives some hints into our church's interdenominational way of thinking:

1) we don't split hairs over non-salvational issues
2) but we will defend salvational issues by truth and not desire, knowing that falsehood will not change true reality.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Point 8 is overly simplistic.

how so?  >95% (if not 99%) of abortions are due to "convenience" alone

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Point 8 is overly simplistic.

how so?  >95% (if not 99%) of abortions are due to "convenience" alone

Cite.

there you go again, playing dumb to justify your position:  the abortion issue is NOT about woman's health, rather it is about having "the right" to kill someone based on convenience:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.pdf

first number is from 2004 survey, second number is from 1987

Reason 2004 1987
(N=957) (N=1,773)
Not ready for a(nother) child†/timing is wrong 25 27
Can’t afford a baby now 23 21
Have completed my childbearing/have other people depending on me/
children are grown 19 8
Don’t want to be a single mother/am having relationship problems 8 13
Don’t feel mature enough to raise a(nother) child/feel too young 7 11
Would interfere with education or career plans 4 10
Physical problem with my health 4 3
Possible problems affecting the health of the fetus 3 3
Was a victim of rape <0.5 1
Husband or partner wants me to have an abortion <0.5 1
Parents want me to have an abortion <0.5 <0.5
Don’t want people to know I had sex or got pregnant <0.5 1

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I wasn't playing dumb. I genuinely wanted a citation. Why do you automatically assume bad faith of anybody who disagrees with your sophomoric 'Christianity' like a complete paranoid? You do know that the placemat tells you not to do things like that, right? Why do you even assume I'm in favor of abortion?

you have a repeated history of playing dumb, Nathan.  If you want others to take you seriously, than you need to first be honest with yourself.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Why do you even assume I'm in favor of abortion?

your church teaches that abortion, at least in the case of convenience, is immoral?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

The funny thing is that I don't have a history of playing dumb

Is “dodging” a better description?! 

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, whereas you do have one of automatically assuming bad faith of anybody who disagrees with you.

That is not true, for I have even admitted when I am wrong, either by misreading someone’s post, or when I am simply wrong about something in the bible:

Is there a single case in the entire bible that a marriage between a man and a woman was not recognized, regardless if they sinned by entering into the marriage?

Ezra forcing the mixed-marriage couples of the post-diaspora era to break up?

wow, thanks, forgot about that.  guess i need to reread...I stand corrected.

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Why do you even assume I'm in favor of abortion?

your church teaches that abortion, at least in the case of convenience, is immoral?

There's no clear doctrine on this particular subject, but abortion on demand is certainly something a lot of us, including me, aren't immensely comfortable with.

How noble

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Nathan...here is an example of a goat- one who finds problems to confront just for the sake of causing dissension.  He is the type who would fuss over even the church's choice of wallpaper in the bathroom.  I don't say that out of hate, rather I say it out of experience:

I notice that of the eight topics chosen for the doodle, none of them deal with social issues, such as "Helping the poor."

I realize that obviously not every possible topic could be included, yet room was found to include two topics (6 and 7) on the subject of hurting others and none on the subject of helping others.

Ernest, would you care to walk a little further out on that limb and just spell out, loud and clear, what you are insinuating?  Just take a couple of more steps so that the thud at the end of your drop will be louder than the innuendoes of your all-knowing wisdom.  

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

It's what you get when you're in a liturgical church that sees in terms of generations. It's not immensely noble but there's no great shame in it either.

is the rewriting of your church's doctrine timed to the change of every generational wind?

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Your definition of a goat in this context is pretty good, and I'd agree with it (we all have our preferences but we need to prioritize sometimes), but I'm not sure I'd agree that Ernest qualifies.

be patient, goats are very restless and will not follow, they are never content and hate to be confined.  He'll be back, trying to find a gap in the doodle to exploit.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

It's what you get when you're in a liturgical church that sees in terms of generations. It's not immensely noble but there's no great shame in it either.

is the rewriting of your church's doctrine timed to the change of every generational wind?

No, that's not the sort of seeing in terms of generations that I meant.  I meant that liturgical churches typically see on an incredibly large time frame and hence attract all sorts of people with disparate political and social beliefs and even some pretty different interpretations of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition

what are saying, are you saying they're so caught up in rituals that they never really say anything, therefore no one is offended?  I mean, what exactly is stopping them from speaking clearly in regard to substantive matters?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

See, Nathan, I told you, if given a little time, he’d be back…

I notice that of the eight topics chosen for the doodle, none of them deal with social issues, such as "Helping the poor."

I realize that obviously not every possible topic could be included, yet room was found to include two topics (6 and 7) on the subject of hurting others and none on the subject of helping others.

Ernest, would you care to walk a little further out on that limb and just spell out, loud and clear, what you are insinuating?  Just take a couple of more steps so that the thud at the end of your drop will be louder than the innuendos of your all-knowing wisdom. 

That both you and to a lesser extent, this doodle, emphasize the "do not" portions of Christian doctrine at the expense of neglecting the "do" portions.

I hear fairly little from you about loving thy neighbor (and to be clear, and to forestall you taking this off on that tangent, I am not referring at all to sex) or helping the less fortunate.  You spend a lot of time here complaining about the motes in the eyes of others and come across as being proud that you make those complaints.

I find you being so worried about what can be broadly categorized as the sins of commission while you seem to be ignoring the sins of omission.

So, you’re claiming they’re simply Dont-odles and not Do-odles?  Well, you know, I just wanted to start over and make a new thread. Be like everybody else. Have some friends, y'know, maybe a dog... But, no, you had to come in here, you couldn't go suck on some other thread.


Now, we can do this the hard way, or... well, actually, with you, there's just the hard way….But, this is not gonna be pretty. We're talking violence, strong language, adult content...


Here is one whole Dinner Doodle on Love:





Here is one dedicated to Charity:





Here’s one dedicated to Loyalty:





Here’s one dedicated to Bullying:



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Now, see what happens when you roughhouse?  With all your contention, you’re going to cause Nathan to accuse me, once again, of bullying your stupidty and not obeying the Doodle.

But, in the end, seeing that the Harvest is coming, DON’T be a goat, Ernest, falsely accusing those who preach truth, but DO be a sheep, lest you be swallowed up in the end, by the Mouth of Hell.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

...Your argument style, jmfcst, has many flaws...

Well, can't you cut me a little slack?  After all, I'm "arguing" with many  who have no intention of repenting.  The fact is, I probably should just kick the dust off my feet and move on.  But, I am learning through these debates as it does serve as a sort of bible study for me, and I have learned much through the constant churn of scripture.

The stubbornness I encounter, esp from liberal Christians, on this forum can be quite frustrating, and no doubt it has jaded me somewhat.  But I try to make it challenging as well as entertaining for myself as I can:  challenging in that I pretty much open myself up to every angle of every argument against scripture the world has to offer.  But, I must say, I’ve been very unimpressed by the “wisdom” of the world, as every argument from the world has been extremely and transparently hackish.

The best argument against scripture I’ve encountered is simply, “I don’t believe”…as any attempt by nonbelievers to expound upon the reasons for their unbelief forces them into mind-numbing and purposeful dumbness.

I mean, how many times has someone on this board quoted an “expert” and within a couple of posts the “expert” has been proven to be an overpaid clown?

But, if the bible truly is the Word of God, none of this should come as a surprise.  And, don’t get me wrong. I would love to change my tone and speak constructively of the righteousness of God, but without an agreement on repentance, there is nothing to build upon.

So, I am left to entertain myself as best I can.  For example, my preceding post to Ernest in this thread is full of quotes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 1 Episode 1, “Welcome to the Hellmouth”

http://www.buffyworld.com/buffy/transcripts/001_tran.html

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And there is how I entertain myself.  So, my lines may not be original, I'll grant you, but that doesn’t stop them from being true.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

oh, forgot to give another line the proper credit:

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[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I've been spoken to constructively of the righteousness of God before.

but yet you refuse to acknowledge what the bible is saying point blank about homosexuality.  There is no righteousness of God without first turning to God and accepting his word.

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I still think you're going about it the wrong way.

well, even as I seek to be justified in Christ, if it becomes evident that I myself am a sinner, that still doesn't mean the scripture promotes sin.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I've been spoken to constructively of the righteousness of God before.

but yet you refuse to acknowledge what the bible is saying point blank about homosexuality.  There is no righteousness of God without first turning to God and accepting his word.

It's you who refuses to acknowledge that people's interpretations of the Bible other than your own may perhaps be motivated by things other than stupidity or malice, which you seem to believe are the only bases on which a Christian can disagree with the interpretive and theological praxis of the mighty You-sama. This starts with your idolatrous obsession with the sola scriptura concept (coupled with a profoundly ahistorical and, worse, supercilious understanding of even that) and just goes on and on from there. You do realize that you're about as heretical from my perspective as I am from yours, for reasons unrelated to any sexual or romantic relationships that Christians who are not either of us may or may not have?

Nathan, if my view of scripture is wrong, than how is it my "interpretation" of sexual behavior can completely MESH into what is allow and disallowed by scripture? 

The simple truth is you’ve given no interpretation, you’ve simply ignored, even though I’ve given you every opportunity.  And you do so because there is no way to make homosexuality mesh with the bible.

From Genesis onward, not only does the bible repeatedly condemn same-sex sex …the only sex the bible allows (from Genesis onward) is the sex that occurs within the context of a marriage, and the bible defines marriage (from Genesis onward) as a heterosexual union.

It is named on the DO NOT list, and, by definition, it doesn’t fit the DO list, for the DO list is limited to a heterosexual union.

It’s cut and dry, even from the very beginning.  But if you would refute those premises, please start at the beginning of Genesis and walk me through the biblical history of allowed sexual activity in the bible…but do so in another thread.

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Also if you want to discuss your views against sola scriptura, you’re going to have to explain why scripture would play second fiddle to anything else.  And please come prepared with biblical examples to prove your points, walking us through the biblical historical record of who scriptrue was to be treated and what, if anything, was allowed to take precedence over it…but do it in another thread.

 

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

[There was something more or less substantive here but it was bad for my blood pressure to write and not especially charitable so I'd like to retract it in favor of a generic 'No you'.]

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What on Earth do you think you're demonstrating with this post?

Unless I typoed my post so badly that it is beyond comprehension, I'm not quite sure what you're asking.  Are you asking that I create a thread in support of the doctrine that scripture is complete and the standard of truth?  if so, I can do that, but it will have to wait until in the morning.

just fyi, here is how I plan to go about it...

Concerning the OT church:
1) I will prove that scripture states that when the first scripture (written word of God's instructions) was given to Moses, that God also made known to the people the entire law which God gave to Moses, so that BOTH Moses and commoners that accompanied Moses had the entire set of God's requirements.  And therefore prove there wasn't hidden knowledge held by the leadership that was only kept by the leadership.
2) I will prove from scripture that the teachers of the Law (the first scriptures) were limited in the scope of dogmatic teaching to teach only what was in accordance to the Law, the same Law the people had in its fullness.  Therefore proving God intended the written Law was the standard of truth for the OT church.
3) I will prove the successors of Moses would become corrupt in their teaching within a few generations, and that ultimately, the successors of Moses would become so blind that they would end up rejecting the Messiah...thus proving the leadership of the OT church was NOT infallible in its teachings.

Concerning the NT church:
1)  I will prove from scripture that the NT church could teach their entire Christian doctrine using only an OT for a bible, and Jesus' and the Apostles teaching authority was limited to what was already written in the OT.
2) I will prove from scripture that the leadership of the NT church taught the rest of the church the complete Gospel as it was handed down to them by Christ, so that both the Apostles and the common Christian had the full version of Christ's teachings.  And therefore prove there wasn't hidden knowledge held by the leadership that was only kept by the leadership.
3) I will prove that the unwritten history of the post-apostolic church, the rest of church history since the NT was penned, is already given to us in the bible because it is mirrored in the history of the OT church which the bible does record.
4) I will prove from scripture that the post-apostolic church lacks the authority to alter and/or add anything to the message taught by the original Apostles.
5) Lastly, I will prove the bible, as we have it today, is the complete Gospel.

Fair enough?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Nathan, you're making my head spin, for I don't know why you brought up sola scriptura in the first place...so let's retract and do a sanity check to see if we agree:

If, hypothetically, BOTH the OT and NT condemn the wearing of red shoes, yet allow and even encourage the wearing of blue shoes...is there any logical argument a Christian can make for the wearing of red shoes, regardless if he adheres to sola scriptura or not?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Nathan, you're making my head spin, for I don't know why you brought up sola scriptura in the first place...so let's retract and do a sanity check to see if we agree:

If, hypothetically, BOTH the OT and NT condemn the wearing of red shoes, yet allow and even encourage the wearing of blue shoes...is there any logical argument a Christian can make for the wearing of red shoes, regardless if he adheres to sola scriptura or not?

Is the condemnation sufficiently clear that every Church Father up until St John Chrysostom, including St Augustine and St Clement, did not interpret the NT passages in question as referring to something different but similar?

the hypothetical is purely a sanity check, it does NOT include matters of differences of interpretation of even language translation…consider the hypothetical to point blank…

so, again I ask…

If, hypothetically, BOTH the OT and NT condemn the wearing of red shoes, yet allow and even encourage the wearing of blue shoes...is there any logical argument a Christian can make for the wearing of red shoes, regardless if he adheres to sola scriptura or not?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

If, hypothetically, BOTH the OT and NT condemn the wearing of red shoes, yet allow and even encourage the wearing of blue shoes...is there any logical argument a Christian can make for the wearing of red shoes, regardless if he adheres to sola scriptura or not?

Purely in terms of the hypothetical, purely from the information presented, no, there's no argument there.

so, following sola scriptura or not, has absolutely nothing to do with it, right - it's merely a matter of the information presented in scripture?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Ok, sanity check over.  We are in agreement.

I’ll wait for your return to answer the next question which will bring us back on topic, because I plan to walk with you through the scripture to determine which point you and I disagree on the information presented.  And I’ll start with the following question:

Question 1:

When did Adam become a sexual being (i.e. when did he develop a sex drive)?  Was it when he was initially created?  Was it when Eve was formed from the body of Adam, in that the forming of Eve somehow remade Adam into a sexual being with a sex drive?  Or did Adam develop a sex drive due to the fall of man? Or was it at some other point (please specify)?

Please answer the question the best you can, using ONLY the information given in scripture, and give a reference to passages which helped form your answer.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

While I wait to see if you have any response to my response on the four additional doodles, I may may well give you my answer to question 1.

The answer depends on how you deal with the two different creation narratives included in Genesis.

Genesis 1:27 has mankind being created male and female by Elohim.  Hence in the first creation account, mankind was sexual from the moment of their creation.

Genesis 2:7 has a singular man being created by YHWH Elohim.  Only later in Genesis 2:22 is woman formed.  It is not sensible that God  would give man a sex drive he could not use, so in the second narrative, man would not have been a sexual being any earlier than the creation of woman. From Genesis 3:16, since childbirth is made painful for the woman, rather than childbirth is made, and it will be painful, a reasonable inference can be made that man and woman had been engaging in sex, as had various animals who had had not only been having sex, but had sufficient time in the garden to give birth, since God does not need to explain the concept of childbirth to her. Therefore, man was a sexual being before the fall. Since no other significant event is recounted between the creation of woman and the fall of mankind, once can conclude that in the second creation account man becomes a sexual being with the creation of woman.

The difference in the treatment of human sexuality in the two creation narratives is but one of the reasons why I do not consider the early portions of Genesis to be literal truth, but parables intended to illustrate certain concepts in a manner comprehensible to the ancient Israelis.

Of course, if one insists on trying to combine the two accounts into one indivisible whole, then since the lack of a sex drive prior to the creation of woman in the second narrative is an inference, one would have to conclude on the basis of Genesis 1:27 that man was always a sexual being who had to forgo those urges until woman showed up.

Yo, hate to repeatedly shake you up, but Jesus interpreted Gen ch 1 and Gen ch 2 as a single account of the beginning – NOT two separate beginnings – and comingled passages from both into a single story:

Mat 19:4 4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

So, once again, your attack on the bible places you in opposition to the way Jesus interpreted the bible.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Third, when Jesus referred to God having "made them male and female" there is no way of concluding whether he was referencing Genesis 1:27 or Genesis 5:2, so one cannot claim for certain that the quote came from the former.

to claim Jesus was quoting from Gen 5:2 and not Gen 1:27, is a complete joke, for both Gen 5:2 and Gen 1:27 say the same thing.  In fact, Gen ch 5 is just the list of Adam's relatives and only repeats Gen 1:27 as a quick preface:

Gen 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. "

Gen 5:1 "This is the written account of Adam’s line.  When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them “man”.  3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 5 Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.  6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh. 7 And after he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. 8 Altogether, Seth lived 912 years, and then he died."

To claim that Jesus could quote a summary statement Gen 5:2 in order to sidestep a more detailed account in Gen 1:27 because he somehow believed Gen ch 1 was a made up story is to be purposely ignorant of the fact that Jesus explicitly pointed to “at the beginning of Creation”, and since Gen ch 5 is NOT the beginning of Creation, but rather give a brief preface to give context to the genealogy of Adam’s decedents, he can only be referring to Gen ch 1:

Mark 10:5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’(Gen 1:27) 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,8 and the two will become one flesh.’(Gen 2:24) So they are no longer two, but one. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

Jesus not only believed Moses wrote the first five books of the bible (Matthew 19:7, 8; Mark 7:10, 12:26;; Luke 5:14; 16:29,31; 24:27, 44; John 1:17; 5:45, 46; 7:19), he also believed the creation account of Genesis (Mat 19:7-8; Mark 10:5-9), and he also believed Genesis about  Abel (Luke 11:51), the Flood and Noah (Mat 24:37-79; Luke 17:26-27), Abraham (John 8:56-58),  Sodom and Gomorrah (Mat 10:15; Luke 10:12), Lot and in Lot’s  wife (Luke 17:28-32), and in Isaac and Jacob (Mat 8:11; Luke 13:28).

And, notice, before Jesus quotes Genesis, he never goes through a long list of reasons why he doesn’t believe it, as you do.  Rather he, and the rest of the NT, treated Genesis as historical fact as they did the rest of the OT.  They made absolutely no distinction between Genesis and the rest of the OT, except in the fact that they place GREATER emphasis on Genesis than they did the rest of the OT.

Jesus and the Apostles honored and respected scripture, and considered it the written word of God penned by men as the spirit guided them.  You don’t.

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Taking a look at this one again, I have to say I find it creepier than I did the first time I looked at it.
...Besides encouraging the view of Jesus as remote and impersonal by calling people arrogant if they consider Jesus to be a buddy,

That is a complete misrepresentation of what it says – rather it says that WE would be arrogant if WE had initiated that definition by defining God as our friend, for it is not our place to define God.  Be we didn’t have to initiate that definition, for God was the one who defined our relationship with him in terms of “friend”.

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the doodle doesn't see anything at all wrong with a fifth grader falling in love with his teacher!  Thankfully the teacher in the doodle story didn't offer the kid some private tutoring in biology.

So, now it is somehow evil and creepy that 5th grade boys fall in love with their attractive female teachers?!

In the arrogance of your desperate search to find fault with those that actually believe the bible, you are completely ignorant.  This story about a 5th grader falling in love with his teacher is a story from my pastor’s life.  He was a poor student in school up until 5th grade when he fell in love with his beautiful 5th grade teacher, Miss Carstarphen. 

On the first day of 5th grade, he took a seat in the back of the class before the teacher walked in.  He was in his own world when he heard a voice announce, “[Hello, class.  My name is Ms. Carstarphen and I’m going to your teacher for this year.]”  He looked up and saw the black haired angel (which is why he picked a brunette for the doodle pic) and it was love at first sight.  She told the class that after the first bathroom break, she was going to allow the students pick the seat in which they wanted to sit for the whole year, and if they behaved, they would not be moved.

So, at the first bathroom break, he “helped” his fellow students exit the class as quickly as possible, “[After you…please, go ahead, I’m sure you need to go more than I do…yeah, my summer was cool, now get out!]”  And after they were gone, he stayed behind and made a beeline and staked a claim to the desk right in front of the teacher’s desk, where for the rest of the school year he enjoyed a front row view and could place his foot up against the bottom of her desk of that he could fell her breath.

His unspoken love for her completely changed his attitude and caused him to try his best to please her and be a good student in order to give her a good reputation as a teacher.  He made straight A’s that year and became her best student.  Before he didn’t care how he looked, but that year he was laying out his clothes each night before school, making sure everything matched and was clean and pressed. 

He was sure she loved him with the same unspoken love, and he just knew they were going to get married some day.  And on Parent-Teacher Day, he was glad his teacher didn’t openly confess her love for him to his mom. At the end of the year, she came to school with a ring on her finger and announced to her class that she was engaged and would be getting married and moving to a different town. 

He was crushed.  But he got over it, and, more importantly, learned a lesson about the power of love and how it changes one’s character and behavior.  And he uses that story to teach about what it means to love God and how our love for God completely changes our character so that we want to please him in everything we do.

He also uses this story of his “first love” to explain the difference between your attitude when you first fall in love and the attitude you have when you take a relationship for granted, and ties it in with the following verse:

Rev 2: 2 “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.  4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.

But, of course, you don’t know the background to the story and simply assume the worst because the worst is in your heart and overflows out of it:

Luke 6:45 “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

You still haven't pointed out how it makes any difference in what Jesus or the twelve apostles said or meant if the beginning of Genesis is taken as literal history or as parables.

Well, if Genesis isn’t literal, then Jesus and Apostles were deceived, because they took Genesis as literal as they did any other book of the OT.  In fact, two of the Gospels trace Jesus’ genealogy directly to Adam.

Also, of all the parables Jesus gave, I can’t think of one where God is a direct actor in a parable.  God may be personified by a character in the parable, but he is not a direct actor.  But in Genesis, God is a direct actor.  So if Genesis is only a parable and God was ok with using made up stories about himself, why don’t Jesus’ parables include God as a direct character in action?

...there are 57 (fifty-seven) parables from Jesus!!! Can you show me a SINGLE example of a parable of Jesus’ where God is a direct actor?  Just one.

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As for the story about the fifth grader, even with the added background, it is still creepy.  It also demonstrates a profound misunderstanding about love on the part of your pastor, both back when he was a fifth grader, which is understandable given his youth then, but since you say he still holds it up as an example of love, it sounds as if he is missing the point even now.  What he recounts as what he felt for Miss Carstarphen was not love, but desire, which is not the same.  Desire is but one aspect of love, but it is also an aspect of a number of sins such as lust, avarice, and pride.  Fortunately, nothing particularly bad seems to have happened as a result of that boy's great misadventure in desire.

   you seem to be forgetting these doodles are written at the level of a child, to be shared with kids around the dinner table to give parents a ready-made biblical topic in order to promote parents teaching their children Christian principles.

Also, what aspect of “love” was missing from my Pastor crush on his teacher?!  The definition of love is plainly given:

1Cor 13:4 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Which one of those attributes was lacking from my pastor’s actions towards his teacher?!
 

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

You still fail to show how it makes a difference to Jesus' message whether one regards the pre-Abrahamic portions of Genesis to be literal history or moral stories.

1)   I have shown that Jesus treated Gen 1 and Gen 2 as complementary parts of one account of creation.

2)   I have shown that Jesus and Apostles treated all parts of Genesis with the same historical significance as the rest of the OT.

3)   I have shown that parables NEVER include God as an actor (God is God, he doesn't need to make up stories about himself), but rather only personify God in another character or object…this is in contrast to the literal historical sections of the bible where God is cast in his own identity.

4)   You yourself have demonstrated the significance of only viewing Genesis as figurative, for you have been proven wrong at every turn and your viewpoint of scripture repeatedly differs from Jesus’ viewpoint.

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1Cor 13:4 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Which one of those attributes was lacking from my pastor’s actions towards his teacher?!

By his own admission, his desire was self-seeking.  He desired for them to someday wed.  Yet, apparently he never considered once during that whole year whether she would want to wed him or if wedding him would be in her best interests.  His failure to consider the teacher's interests was what was lacking in his desire that failed to keep it from being love.

Dang, it is clear I am going to have to spell this out for you:  

Point 1)   My pastor used the story of his own first love as an analogy to teach about Love’s power to change one’s attitude and behavior.

Point 2)   The bible itself uses first love as analogy in the same way: Rev 2:4 "Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.”

after you compare Point 1 to Point 2, if you still have a problem with the use of ”first love” as an analogy for the believers love of God, take it up with God himself.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

No.  You have asserted those things, but you have not shown them.

Well, all you have to do is come up with a single instance to prove me wrong.

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3)   I have shown that parables NEVER include God as an actor (God is God, he doesn't need to make up stories about himself), but rather only personify God in another character or object…this is in contrast to the literal historical sections of the bible where God is cast in his own identity.

If you're going to keep quibbling about the definition of parable, I guess I'll just have to use the word that fits the creation narratives somewhat better, but hesitated to use because it has become associated with tales that are false and fantasy, and I'm not saying that the early parts of Genesis are false or fantasy (save perhaps in the wider sense of the word fantasy which relates to anything beyond normal human experience).  They are not literal, but they were included for the purpose of demonstrating moral truths about the origin of man in a form the Ancient Israelis were capable of understanding and accepting.  That word I was trying to avoid is 'myth'.

Again, God is NOT used as a direct actor in any non-historical analogy within the bible.  So, what you are saying is that, according to your interpretation of Genesis, Genesis is UNIQUE in using God as an actor in a story that is a non-historical analogy.

I DON”T BUY INTO INTERPRETATIONS WHICH FORCE SCRIPTURE TO BEHAVE DIFFERNTLY AT ONE POINT THEN IT DOES THROUGHOUT THE REST OF SCRIPTURE.

In fact, this is not your only belief which requires the scripture to do something that it does not do in any other case - your belief that Jewish Christians were held to the OT laws of unclean meat, and the passage which you make jump through a unique hoop is Peter’s vision of unclean animals in Acts 10:

Acts 10:11 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. 12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. 13 Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” 14 “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” 15 The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” 16 This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.

Granted, God is using an analogy of unclean animals to teach Peter that the Gentiles were now to be considered clean.  But if God were not also stating that Peter could now eat unclean meat, than the whole analogy becomes a negative analogy because it is making a false statement to prove a true statement, which is a fallacy of argument

e.g. You don’t using an analogy which has you telling your kids they are to play on the freeway, in order to teach then that they should brush their teeth…for the analogy would form a complete contradiction to it’s stated purpose…

And if this vision in Acts 10 does not also mean Jewish Christians could eat unclean meat, then THIS IS THE ONLY INSTANCE IN THE WHOLE BIBLE WHICH USES A CONTRADICTORY ANALOGY.


But, being in contradiction to the bible is obviously your goal.


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My problem is with your pastor's use of the words 'first love' to describe his experience with his teacher, and not at all with its use in Rev 2:4.

NEWS FLASH: the term “first love” in Rev 2:4 is an allegorical reference comparing a) the complete absorption of one’s first youthful romantic crush, to b) the exuberance the believer has when he first comes to Christ. 

In Rev 2:4, Christ is warning the members of the church that they have lost their original childlike “first love” zeal towards Christ that they had when they first came to Christ.

Similar verses are:

Mat 18:3 “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Heb 3:14 “We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.”

Heb 10:32 “32 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 34 You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. 35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.”

Rev 2:4 is simply saying you lost your initial zeal, and used the feeling of the “first love” of youth as an analogy to that initial zeal.

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You do realize, don’t you, that the only reason I keep you around is to use you as an example of the ignorance of those who argue against the bible?