treeplanter
Well-known member
A question for Christians:
Edit
Edit
Last edited by a moderator:
Good and Just?
- Thread starter treeplanter
- Start date
CrowCross
Well-known member
What if I were a coach and I trained you hard...sweat, laps, exercise (no pain no gain) so you could compete, add to the team and win the game?
Romans 5:3 Not only that, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.
treeplanter
Well-known member
I would praise you as a great coach!
Big difference between being allowed to suffer due our own free will choices and being destined to make the wrong choices!!
Perhaps you missed this part:
"God has bound everyone over to disobedience"
CrowCross
Well-known member
Instead of battling God...have you ever thought about allowing God to use you?
Last edited by a moderator:
If you can close your eyes and imagine how god would use you in this world.... picture it.... oh, the things that you would do for the benefit of man. Now whatever images took hold, what claim does god have on them? I can have them myself.
Last edited:
CrowCross
Well-known member
I truly pity you.
Not to long ago I was in a homeless encampment in the woods...a tent city...I was there in a "use me" fashion. They USED ME to help pick up trash, garbage, old rugs, tarps, needles....I could have refused but I said...USE ME.
I did it all for the glory of God.
Was I as wrong as you suggest for allowing them to USE me?
Last edited by a moderator:
CrowCross
Well-known member
Yes, you can do things and gain your glory. Walk around with your chest puffed out....letting people know just how good you are. Perhaps you can come up on stage and get a piece of paper that tells everyone just how good you are. They can clap for you. Wouldn't that be nice?
Instead of battling God...have you ever thought about allowing God to use you?
No. Just the humble inner smile and the secret of what had passed between 2 people.
Have you ever thought God has nothing to do with how we treat each other - good or bad, even if He is invoked? If you're already thinking of doing some good - why complicate it?
Last edited:
CrowCross
Well-known member
Have you ever thought God has a lot to do with how we treat each others? You know, do on to others as you would have them do onto you?
CrowCross
Well-known member
Yup, God used me and I did it for His glory.....
Not quite sure what that's supposed to mean....but I'm sure you meant it to mock God. Instead of mocking God why don't you praise Him?
No. God isn't interested in feeding the needy, housing the homeless, or fixing the broken. We do that on our own having learned why we should do it and how we should do it without any supernatural guidance over centuries and centuries that suffered before us without this very recent knowledge of ours.
You know, that was Confucius, 600 years before Christ - not a theological doctrine in the least. It's one of common governance.
El Cid
Well-known member
God has done none of those things.
treeplanter
Well-known member
Scripture clearly states that God made us {has bound everyone over}
sinners {to disobedience}
so that He can then save us {have mercy on}
Furion
Well-known member
You are not good, you are not just.
Throwing me out would only supply more evidence of it.
Ontos
Active member
What is the context of this verse relative to all of Romans 11 - or did you think you can just cherry pick a verse and get away with it?
treeplanter
Well-known member
The context, relative to Romans 11 in whole, is that God has not / will not reject Israel even though Israel had largely rejected Christ
Good thing, too, given that it was God, Himself, who consciously and purposefully hardened the Jews' hearts against Jesus...
Do you understand the OP?
How is it good and just that God consciously and purposefully caused the Jewish peoples unbelief and then holds it against them until such time that Israel is returned to full communion with Him?
Furion
Well-known member
Downright difficult ain't it?
You already know you are not good and just so it's difficult to pull yourself out of your little hypothetical and replace it with God.
Just forget the hypothetical land and come out straight up in your quest to get a Christian on your side and proclaim how unfair it all is with God
Then again you've done it so many times this thread will get there anyway.
But I repeat, you are not good and just so it would just be more evidence of your not good and not just ways. God hasn't thrown me off the planet so He must be good, right?
Last edited by a moderator:
Ontos
Active member
He didn't, you're merely asserting it. You accuse God of "making people sin" and "causing unbelief", you haven't even properly addressed just what "hardening of the heart" even means... Your exegesis needs much justification.
Last edited by a moderator:
docphin5
Well-known member
Paul did not say, as you did, ”God CAUSED the Jewish unbelief”. Instead Paul says, (vs 31)
“they too have now been disobedient…”
There is a big difference between God directly “causing” disobedience, as you say, and God turning one’s disobedience into good, —the latter which Paul appears to be saying, when he uses THEIR national disobedience (chosen by the leaders of nation Israel) to show a future nation Israel how God extends mercy as he sees fit and NOT according to how nation Israel’s leaders (eg., legalistic Pharisees) presumed, eg., animal sacrifice, circumcision, food purity, sabbath observance, etc. —the rituals abrogated by Paul/Jesus.
“…in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.”
IOW, nation Israel’s rejection of the good news (preached by Paul), ie., freedom from ritual purity adopted by Gentiles via moral living and faith in the rising son of God, —nation Israel’s rejection WILL be used as a benefit for a future Israel AFTER the future Israel sees God’s mercy extended to Gentiles who accepted the freedom of salvation absent any ritual purity required by Pharisees who rejected the Good News in the past.IMO, we have not seen the fulfillment yet of what Paul predicted to come. If Paul was a prophet then nation Israel should return to El Elyon absent any requirements of ritual purity (ie., absent a Temple) as a consequence of El Elyon extending salvation to non-Jews who lived a moral life believing in a son of God who lives in us as the spirit of God.
Paul is seeing the past, present, and future as one thing. In his view all things are connected, like a nation: a nation either fails together or it succeeds together. He is not looking at individuals and asserting that God has “caused” individuals to sin, as you claim, but instead Paul proclaims that in God’s plan the entire HUMANITY is all connected through the Son of God who either fails together or succeeds together. Where nation Israel failed, Gentile nations succeeded. Subsequently, when Gentile nations fail, nation Israel will succeed BECAUSE God turns everything to Good for those who choose to live honorable, just, good lives, for “There is neither Jew nor Gentile in Christ.”
In Paul’s view spanning across thousands of years, the rebellion of nation Israel against the Good News preached by Paul would benefit a future nation Israel. Given that nation Israel has not existed from BEFORE Paul (67 BC) until OUR generation it is quite possible he foresaw this time, especially given the recent discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi, etc. Stay tuned if you want to see prophecy fulfilled before your very eyes.
The point being this scripture you quoted (Romans 11:32) is not saying what you think it is. Although there are other scriptures which impugn the “God of this world.” (2 Cor 4:4). But not all gods are equal in Paul’s epistles. Paul believed in a true God over all things (1 cor 8:6), even over the “God of this world” (2 cor 4:4).
(vs 8:7) “However, not all possess this knowledge (Greek: gnosis).”
Last edited by a moderator:
treeplanter
Well-known member
Then why don't you explain what a "hardening of the heart is"?