I just received recently what is perhaps the grandest insult I think I've ever had. Seriously.
Check it out:
Given the inordinate amount of time the Gospel writers devoted to the Crucifixion and the week leading up to it, and given the focus of the Apostles on “Christ crucified” rather than just His excellent ethical instructions, I must suggest that Dan puts perhaps too heavy an emphasis on Jesus’ teachings...
??!!! Isn't that great?!
Man, if that's the worst thing that anyone ever says about me, I'm doing pretty well.
Just thought I'd share that little tidbit.
65 comments:
Heh. Yeah, I saw that, you heretic. How dare you? :)
My comment wasn't lengthy, Dan, so I can't understand why you didn't include the last 34 words:
"...who He is and what He did are at least as important as what He taught, and the cross is really what the church should preach and what the world desperately needs to hear."
Without the cross, there is no salvation from sins: there is no "good news" of the gospel.
God could have taught His ethical commands through the intermediaries of His prophets: in fact, He did, as the two great commandments were first given to Moses. In order to save us, God Himself came and died on the cross.
Indeed, the Apostles and the Gospel writers gave a primary focus on what Christ did, but I ask you also to look to what Jesus Himself said about why he came:
"The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." - Mt 20:28
"The Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost." - Lk 19:10
"I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." - Jn 12:47
By His own admission, Christ's focus in coming to this world was salvation, not instruction.
In contrast, you have (very wrongly) written in the past that it is the two great commandments that are the "meat" of the Gospel, not the Crucifixion and Resurrection. And in that thread to which I linked, your list of things to look for in a prospective church mentions Jesus' teachings repeatedly and do not mention the cross at all, only mentioning God's grace with no reference to the incredible means through which that grace is provided, the central event in all of history.
I stand by my statement: preaching Jesus' ethical teachings are great, but the cross should never be subordinated to them.
What I offered was a criticism of you, not an insult: how often you find insults where none exist only to deny when you yourself use them.
If you have a substantive rebuttal, if you can argue that the Crucifixion should be subordinated to Christ's ethical teachings, go right ahead. I'm waiting; I've been waiting for sometime.
If you don't have a rebuttal, tell me the point of this blog entry.
I didn't simply say that you might put too heavy an emphasis on Jesus' teachings. I said that put put too heavy an emphasis on His teachings in comparison to the CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION.
There's nothing at all wrong with a Christian saying this, so I think you're grasping at the thinnest of straws to portray that comment as irrational or contrary to Christianity.
And I would be remiss if I didn't make this one obvious point:
I don't believe you have ever corrected me for drawing the conclusion that you give Christ's teachings a greater emphasis than His Crucifixion.
If someone had drawn that conclusion about me, the first thing I would have done is emphatically deny that conclusion and reassure him that, yes, I do think the Crucifixion is the most important thing, even more so than Christ's commands, important as they are.
You've never gotten around to doing that, so I can only presume that the conclusion is accurate.
You are correct that what you said was a criticism, not an insult. I merely used the term "insult" for humorous effect. This was just offered as a light-hearted reflection upon a criticism, naught else.
As to your greater criticism, I feel no need to disconnect Jesus' teachings from Jesus' crucifixion. Without his teachings, there would have been no crucifixion. I perhaps agree with your assertion that the fact that Jesus was crucified should not be "subordinated" to his teachings. But neither should his teachings be subordinated to the fact that he was crucified.
It's all of a cloth. To me, anyway.
If you think that worth criticizing, go ahead. I just happened to find that comment quite endearing and I appreciate the sentiment, regardless of its intent.
Dan, I believe that the combined events of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection -- God Incarnate, dying on the cross and being raised from the dead -- is and must be given primacy, and that in importance even Christ's ethical teachings must be subordinated to the cross.
It looks like we clearly do disagree on this important subject of the primacy of the Crucifixion.
As to your greater criticism, I feel no need to disconnect Jesus' teachings from Jesus' crucifixion. Without his teachings, there would have been no crucifixion. I perhaps agree with your assertion that the fact that Jesus was crucified should not be "subordinated" to his teachings. But neither should his teachings be subordinated to the fact that he was crucified.
I didn't suggest that Jesus' death and His teachings should be disconnected: on the contrary, I believe both that the high standards of His teachings convicts us of the need of the cross and that gratitude for the cross should motivate us to follow those teachings to the best of our ability.
My belief is that this relationship between the cross and the teachings is (or is nearly) symmetrical: the teachings lead us to the cross, and the cross inspires us to follow the teachings. But you imply an asymmetrical relationship, only that the cross is dependent on the teachings.
"Without his teachings, there would have been no crucifixion."
I'm not even sure what that means, except maybe that you think that His teachings were so controversial that they were the reason the Pharisees conspired to kill Him. If that's the case, I'm not sure how strongly the Bible supports the claim. Matthew 12 and Mark 3 both record that the Pharisees conspired to kill Jesus after He healed a man on the Sabbath. At the end of John 11, they started to ask for information about where Jesus was, because of the crowds He was attracting after another miracle, the raising of Lazarus from the dead. And in John 8, people immediately tried to kill Jesus, not because He taught them to love their enemies, but because of His seemingly blasphemous claim to be God.
And we cannot forget Christ's claim of self-determination in John 10:17-18 [emphasis mine]:
"For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father."
Despite all this, I think one could argue that there was a causal relationship between what Christ taught and the conspiracy to murder Christ, but this temporal relationship is not what either of us seem to be talking about, primarily.
I don't think the subject is whether Christ's teaching preceding His Crucifixion in terms of time or causality, but whether it precedes it in terms of importance.
The ethical teachings or the cross: which is the more central and important belief in Christian theology? Which should have the more emphasis in Christian preaching? That is the question, and on that question we clearly disagree. I believe that the cross should and indeed must have primacy, as I don't see how the death of God Incarnate could be accepted as absolute truth and subordinated to any other truth claim.
AT BEST, you think that the cross should have equal footing with the ethical teachings.
"I perhaps agree with your assertion that the fact that Jesus was crucified should not be 'subordinated' to his teachings. But neither should his teachings be subordinated to the fact that he was crucified."
The teachings should definitely not be subordinate to the cross, you say, but you could only "perhaps" agree to affirming the reverse.
("Perhaps"?!)
This is a significant disagreement.
And let me offer one quick analogy.
Suppose a Christian preacher focused on the cross to the absolute exclusion of Christ's ethical teachings, an extreme example of a mistake in the opposite direction of the one I think you're making.
He's essentially preaching what Paul warned against in Romans 6, permitting sin without censure because grace overcomes sin.
I should (and I believe I would) confront this preacher given the opportunity. I would tell him something like, he's putting too heavy an emphasis on grace to the detriment of the obedience that ought to follow in gratitude of grace.
He could find that quite endearing: "look, this poor man thinks I'm putting too much emphasis on grace."
Doing this, he would miss the point entirely.
Bubba, Dan, Bubba, Dan .... stop me if you've heard this already:
It was the custom among Buddhist monasteries that if a wandering devotee asked admission to the house, he was to debate the head of the head monk and if he won the debate, he could stay at the monastery as long as he liked. If he lost the debate, he had to leave.
The head monk had been meditating and fasting all day and was so weary, he was in no condition to debate anyone. So he sent his rather foolish one-eyed brother in his stead as there was nothing else to be done. Since he knew his brother to be of limited insight and resources, he suggested that he engage the stranger in the silent debate technique.
Not long after the stranger asked audience with the head monk and said, "I have no right to ask to stay here, your brother is brilliant and utterly defeated me in the debate."
Very surprised the monk asked the stranger to relate the debate.
"Well, as you suggested we agreed on the silent debate. I held up one finger indicating that the Buddha was one. He then held up two fingers to indicate that the Buddha could not be separated from his teachings. So I held up three fingers to show that it was the Buddha, his teachings, AND all the devotees together. Your brother then grasped his hand into a fist, indicating that the three, Buddha, his teachings, and the devotees in reality all the same thing. So you see, I have been outdone and I will be on my way."
Not long afterwards the monks one-eyed brother showed up in a heat demanding to know where the stranger was.
"I understood you had won the debate."
"Debate!? I am going to punch him in the nose!"
So the monk asked his brother to tell about the debate as he saw it.
"Well, this impertinent fellow held up on finger, mocking me because I have only one eye. I remembered all your teachings of detachment and forebearance and so I held up two fingers congratulating him on his two eyes. Then, THEN, he held up three fingers to show that there were only three eyes among us. So I made a fist to punch him in the nose but I missed and he left before I could take another punch at him!"
---------------------------
Reminds me so much of Dan and Bubba.
Well stop me if you've heard this one:
Three guys are in a bar on the top of a cliff. The first guy says to the other guys "You know, if had just one more beer, I reckon I could fly."
The second guy says "No Way!"
So the first guy orders a beer and drinks it. Then all three guys walk out to the edge of the cliff. The first guy jumps off, starts falling to the ground, and then flies gracefully back to the top of the cliff.
The second guy is totally amazed, so he says "You know, if I had another beer, I bet I could do that too."
All three guys go into the bar, and the second guy has one more beer. After he finishes, he says "Ok, I will be able to fly now."
All three of them go outside and the second guy jumps off of the cliff. He falls to the bottom, hitting the ground and dying instantly.
The third guy turns to the first guy and said "You know Superman, you can be a real jerk when you drink."
======
Doesn't really remind me of anyone, just telling a story...
Bubba asked:
The ethical teachings or the cross: which is the more central and important belief in Christian theology?
What if I asked it this way: The teachings that Jesus told us to follow or the story of the crucifixion, which is more important?
I’ll repeat, I don’t think you have one without the other. But God forbid that we set aside Jesus’ teachings as mere window dressing – secondary to the “more important” story of the cross. It’s all one story, from where I sit.
The New Testament doesn't play this either/or game. It specifically connects the crucifixion and resurrection with Jesus' teachings. His teachings so upset the Powers and Authorities that they led to the cross.
And the NT writers saw the Cross and Resurrection as God's stamp of approval and vindication of Jesus' Way.
If the cross and resurrection are saving, as Bubba and I agree (though not on HOW), we have to ask what that salvation looks like: It looks like the life described by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere. If Jesus is not only Savior, but LORD, then we must focus on following Him--doing what he taught.
In the Great Commission, "teaching them to do all things whatsoever I have commanded you" is placed along with baptizing as part of "making disciples of all nations."
Or to put it another way, Bubba, the higher Christology one has, the MORE one should be concerned to live out Jesus' commands, not less. After all, if Jesus is not just another 1st C. rabbi whose opinion one can take or leave, if Jesus is really the Word made Flesh, Crucified and Risen, LORD of ALL, then what he taught is not optional nor unimportant nor to be downplayed--As MOST so-called "conservative Christians" do.
If some liberal Christians (I will let Dan decide whether or not this applies to him) appear to people like Bubba to want to reduce Christ to an ethical teacher, and to dismiss issues of Christology, Trinity, and atonement as trivial--and some do. Then it is just as true, and very disturbing, that most conservative Christians have a religion ABOUT Jesus but ignore everything Jesus said.
Bubba said:
"I believe that the combined events of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection -- God Incarnate, dying on the cross and being raised from the dead -- is and must be given primacy, and that in importance even Christ's ethical teachings must be subordinated to the cross."
...and I couldn't more strongly agree. Dan, despite our disagreement in matters of "THE faith" I do believe your heart is in the right place, but that doesn't make your position right, or healthy in terms of advancing Christianity and the Salvation it promises.
Bubba,
I think you are reading far too much into the term "story." The term does not equal "fiction" or "false story" and does not imply that the crucifixion/resurrection was not a reality. I guess you haven't read much narrative theology, huh?
Michael, I know the word doesn't imply a fictional account, but Dan's other statements have consistently led me to think that's where he's heading, even if he's not already there yet.
Bubba,
You may not want to set Christ's teachings ASIDE, but you subordinate them, relegate them to a lower status than the Passion/Resurrection. Dan seems to be doing the opposite. Both are unbiblical moves.
Without the life and teachings and ministry of Jesus, the cross literally makes no sense. Without the crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus is just another 1st C. Jewish teacher.
It's one package. These moves where one or the other are subordinated are both huge distortions of the gospel.
Wow. This IS the Rubicon of modern Christianity:
"Dan, I believe that the combined events of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection -- God Incarnate, dying on the cross and being raised from the dead -- is and must be given primacy, and that in importance even Christ's ethical teachings must be subordinated to the cross."
Let's see. Since Jesus's teachings, as far as we can tell them, are the product of Jesus's thinking, and the other stuff is the product of His followers' thinking, I reckon the questions are pretty stark:
Are you (universal "you" there, but to Bubba directly, too) trying to follow Jesus or the are you trying to follow His followers?
Do you have faith in Jesus and what Jesus said, and His example, or do you have faith in His followers, that is, the early (and present) Church?
That's the nut.
I take Jesus, myself, as poor as my concept of Him might be.
It's a dichotomy, but it's really not a false one -- although I think that Grace, for it to be worth anything, has to cover earnest faith in anything to do with Jesus, you know, savior-of-the-worldwise.
I want to make one comment on the picture of the Mennonite Church that Dan has used to illustrate this post. Many people have the idea that the Anabaptists of the 16th C. (and their modern descendants, the Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, Church of the Brethren, Brethren in Christ, some Baptists, etc.) focused on the ethical teachings of Jesus and downplayed the writings of Paul, etc.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I have an extensive collection of Anabaptist writings from the 16th C. and they knew the entire Bible REALLY well. Menno's favorite quotation, with which he signed most of his writings, was a quotation from Paul.
The Anabaptists did not differ greatly from the other Reformers on matters of Christology, on the Trinity, on the crucifixion or resurrection, etc. With a very few exceptions, the Anabaptists would have fit most definitions of mainstream, orthodox, Christianity.
Their big difference with the other Reformers (who often drowned them) or with Catholics (who preferred burning them at the stake) was that they took the teachings of Jesus on simple living, radical economic sharing, hospitality to the poor, the stranger, and the outcast, nonviolence, love of enemies, forgiveness, etc. as ESSENTIAL--as defining what it meant to be "born again." (Read Menno Simons' tract, "The New Birth" in which he claims that the followers of Luther and Calvin aren't really "born again" because one sees no changes in their lives.)
But this was not an alternative to a high Christology or to Trinitarian faith or to the Atonement (although the Anabaptists were not invested in any one model of atonement, such as penal substitution), etc. They saw this as a seemless whole. So do most of their descendants, today.
The idea that the Anabaptists ignored Christian doctrine and placed all their emphasis on Christian ethics was a lie of their opponents. Unfortunately, it is also a romantic image of Anabaptists held by Christians who have been exposed to Protestant fundamentalism and burned out on it--confusing Anabaptism with 19th C. Protestant Liberalism.
I do not know that my friend, Dan, has made that mistake. It might be that Dan is just overreacting to the constant fundamentalist diatribes of Bubba and cohorts.
But I wanted to clear up any confusion.
Like a good Wesleyan, I'll take a "both/and" approach rather than "either/or". Both the teachings and the work of Jesus are equally important, and neither should or can be de-emphasized in an authentic Christianity.
"but you subordinate them, relegate them to a lower status than the Passion/Resurrection. Dan seems to be doing the opposite. Both are unbiblical moves."
No, I'm not relegating the Resurrection to a lower status. All I've ever said is that they are all part of the same story (Jesus' story in the Bible - not a work of fiction!). I see no logical nor biblical reason to desire to want to make "the cross" more important than Jesus' teachings.
I agree with some of the sentiments left here that really, who Jesus is and his teachings are inseparable, because so much of Jesus' teachings were about Himself. I had an atheist English teacher who called himself a "small c christian", one who followed Jesus' teachings, but didn't believe he was part of God or that he did anything special other than tell people to be nice to each other.
So I have tried at times to read the gospels from his eyes, as someone who thinks Jesus was simply a good man, but the thing is, it is very hard to. About every other thing Jesus says seems to be about who he is. Really, it seems the Sermon on the Mount is about the only thing I can read where it is primarily practical advice for life without so much of the "kingdom of God" talk. It's very hard to read Jesus' words as if he was a good teacher. As C.S. Lewis says, Jesus was either the son of God, or he was quite insane, or quite evil.
Off on a tangent slightly, but my point is, I believe the identify of Jesus is a component of His teachings.
But, we didn't really get anywhere, because we are really facing the same question, only categories have been shuffled.
I would say you could err either way. If you focus only on Jesus' identity, this is almost like fire-insurance Christianity. It's the, "okay, I said the prayer to be saved, but I don't have to listen to anything about Jesus' teachings on how to live. I know all the right stuff, so I'm set." It's like the all grace no works set.
At the same time, if we focus solely on Jesus' teachings about how to live, it becomes the all work no grace set. Jesus tells us how to live, but how we live doesn't get us into heaven. By believing on who Jesus is, he redeems us despite our shabby works, and he empowers us to actually live out his teachings.
I'm confused Eleutheros.
Did you just call Dan a half blind fool, or Bubba.:O
Kmoo, it's the Silent Debate. I'm holding up one finger.
I grasp my hand into a fist.
Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise.
"I'm holding up one finger..."
Yeah, E, and we know which finger...
Without the cross, Jesus was just another moral teacher, like Buddha or some-such. It's the fact of the cross and the subsequent resurrection that not only validates His teaching, but gives it PURPOSE... makes it into a handbook for Christian living. But without the cross and the resurrection-- an event which proved conclusively that He was who He said He was... "Before Abraham was I AM"... following Jesus' teaching would not have secured anyone any brownie points before the throne of God. We'd all stand guilty of our sin, and we'd all be relegated to the Lake of Fire. Without the Resurrection-- promised by Jesus himself... "As Moses lifted up the serpent so too must I be lifted up" --His teachings would have been meaningless in terms of our eternal destination... NO ONE would see Heaven.
Now, I'm not suggesting Jesus' teachings are not important for the Christian... they are, as I stated, to be the guidebook for all Christian living. His teaching are to become our testimony... a LIVING testimony to the unsaved world of our commitment to Him. His teachings through us are meant to call the world to forgiveness through His Death, Burial, and Resurrection... not through His teachings. The Church's focus should be to go out into the world and preach the Gospel, which is Christ crucified, buried, and raised incorruptible. After the unsaved are brought into the family of God, only then do the teachings of Jesus have any merit, because... BECAUSE... without the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus there is no salvation for anyone, and no amount of teaching from the lips of a man 2000 years dead can promise a man still bound by Law, unmerited favor... Grace... a full pardon from the penalty of sin.
The Cross is more important only in that without it, all the teachings in the world won't save anyone from Hell. However, once saved, the teaching of Christ DO become the most important aspect of a Christians' life. For with the Cross behind the child of God, the teachings show him how to walk, mature, and eventually run the race set before every follower of Jesus.
The same is true of Evangelism. The teachings of Jesus, while immensely important in the life of a Christian, is the least of the Unsaved's worries. They needs the Cross FIRST, then bring them into the church and teach them how to walk in their new life.
It is the Cross that is the focus of the Gospel. Everything in the Bible either looks forward, or back to the Cross; with the Law as a burden for those looking forward, and the teachings of Christ as a lamp for those who have moved beyond.
Not trying to be argumentative, but this should be self-evident.
"...BECAUSE...without the death, burial, and resurection of jesus there is no salvation for anyone..."
Depends upon your definition of salvation. Perhaps the teachings, and the life described therein, are salvation.
Or perhaps...
A thousand scholars studied this riddle.
Each one using his own flawed tools.
A thousand flawless answers proffered.
He raised his fist. We all are fools. kmoo
And now an amateur poet must stop.
...I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
I think it has more to do with yer definition of the "Kingdom of God."
I think we're living in it right now. I think "advancing the kingdom" is to follow Jesus's living example and his teachings, having faith in the God he pointed to for salvation, whatever *that* means.
I think Jesus so radically blew away first-century Palestine's world view that the people he encountered were compelled to one extreme or the other: Follow him or want to kill him. And I think that because they were Jews, the only way they could follow him, and so radically change their lives, was to stick the experience of their encounter with Jesus onto their existing world view. So, voila: He's the Messiah.
Which is a great vehicle for communicating the story, if you're living in first-century Palestine: the Ultimate Paschal Lamb. But, not being a Jew, that doesn't do it for me -- although I have no problem with it, as an important metaphor and part of my Christian heritage.
But here's a better way to tell the story:
February 2003. Jesus of, say, Omaha, is preaching peace in the face of the principalities and powers of his day, condemning the Rome of his day, Pax Americana, on the eve of its invasion and occupation of Iraq. "Satan" enters the Judas of his day, in the form of a clandestine government arm using a piece of data-mining softwear that illegally monitors his phone calls. Jesus of Omaha is arrested as a threat to national security, but there's no press, and no public record. His followers, fearful for their own freedom, scatter. The few others who notice he's gone don't care -- he *was* a long-hair and an unAmerican trouble-maker, after all. He's shipped to Iraq. He's turned loose on a "field of battle." He's captured and sent to Abu Ghraib, where "the U.S. doesn't torture people." President Pilate washes his hands of his torture and death, like he's washed his hands of the very real and actual sins against God and crimes against humanity his administration has been responsible for. Jesus's followers experience his death, and his resurrection -- although there are doubters as to the actuality and meaning of the resurrection from the very beginning. Nonetheless, the power of God is unleashed in their midst by their devotion to Jesus of Omaha, his teachings, his example, his very SELF, and his followers, in turn, turn the world upside down!
That's a way of telling the Gospel story that makes more sense that one involving a lamb without blemish.
This is what happens when World Communion Sunday sneaks up on me. :-)
I just had to make a post on that, over at my own place.
Thanks, ER, for that reading from the Liberal Gospel of "None Of That Bible Stuff Is Important, Anyway" The Jesus you just described can't save anyone.
As for what the Definition of Salvation is, in its Biblical context: Freedom from the penalty of sin; namely death, and Hell.
You are quite welcome, EL.
"...in it's biblical context: Freedom from the penalty of sin; namely, death and hell."
This explanation had it's merits.
It was down on paper, in black and white.
But putting salvation into that box
to this old poet, didnt seem quite right.
An educated redneck's comment
seemed more clear to my dim view.
The "Kingdom of God", on earth? or heaven?
I only wish we really knew. kmoo(an old, uncertain "brother?" in Christ):D
For now we see through a glass, darkly...
Kmoo. Let's jus keep walkin' blindly, but in faith, whatever *that* is! :-)
"An educated redneck's comment seemed more clear to my dim view. The "Kingdom of God", on earth? or heaven? I only wish we really knew."
Cute... but I'm game. Perhaps your problem with the glass being so dark-- as opposed to fully half-empty, is one of perception. As described in Opposition VI, which describes the three classes of both Light and Darkness.
Light--
Physical: The paramount perception of the sighted, and the eyes the vehicle to said perception; the apparatus by which the physical world is perceived.
Positional: To stand further from the source of Darkness than that of Light; to perceive shadow in terms of a lack of full light; to perceive Darkness as ultimately undesirable.
Spiritual: To see Light as the ultimate source of Goodness, Mercy, and Grace; to see Darkness as the ultimate source of Evil, Condemnation, and Damnation.
Darkness--
Physical: The realm of the unsighted, and the remaining senses the vehicles to unsighted perception; the apparatuses by which the physical world is perceived.
Positional: To stand further from the source of Light than that of Darkness; to perceive shadow in terms of lack of full Darkness; to perceive Light as ultimately undesirable.
Spiritual: To see Darkness as the ultimate source of Goodness, Mercy, and Grace; to see Light as the ultimate source of Evil, Condemnation, and Damnation.
Perhaps the problem is one Positional Darkness; that shadows-- for you --are patches of light that extend outward and away from the source of Darkness.
But getting back to reality. That 'glass darkly' is ill-applied here. There are certainly things we cannot know about the future. But there are many things we DO know by simply reading scripture. Example: Each and every one us has a choice to make in this lifetime, and that choice will determine our eternal digs-- Heaven or Hell, it's up to you... your choice. Another thing we can know of a certain, is that Heaven WILL be on Earth, and the City of God WILL be the New Jerusalem. But more importantly, there WILL be a judgment wherein each and every one of us will give account to God for the works we performed in our bodies. Christians and non-Christians alike. The difference between the two is vastly important. Christians will see Heaven on Earth, and the City of God, non-Christians will not.
ER- Tell me where God has ever asked anyone to walk blindly. In the past, He didn't reveal His entire purpose to prophets and kings-- primarily because men would not have fully grasped his intentions if He had. But that is hardly 'walking blind'. Even today, it's easy to say, "I'm walking blindly into such-n-such situation," but this is not true. We can't see the future of our actions in the temporal, but if you're walking in the spirit your actions aren't concerned with the temporal as much as they are the eternal. And since you're even unsure about what Faith is, try Hebrews 11:1, or more simply, 'taking God at His word knowing He keeps His promises and will never lie to you.'
Dude, Faith in God is NEVER blind. Faith is believing the promise of God as though it were already before you... knowing that because He said it, it's a done deal. There's nothing blind about such faith.
Oi, but this thread has gotten off track. Sheesh!
"Perhaps your problem with the glass being so dark--as opposed to fully half-empty is one of perception"
You may be correct.
You see
Kmoo has no long credentials
No BS, MS, or PHD.
Prestigious, ivy covered walls
don't figure in his history.
Kmoo has been accused, at times
of having a skull as impervious as rock
so finite explaining the infinite
leaves this humble man in shock.
Kmoo is just a half-baked poet
and a simple mechanic, like his dad
so with all the wisdom in this room
there isn't much that he can add.
however
A fixation on the afterlife and a literal interpretation go hand and hand
to lead far to many would be scholars
to build their theologies on a pile of sand.
This humble old poet ponders his death.
A beginning or end? He cannot say.
But loves the Lord with all his heart
and lets those pieces fall where they may.
You have given me much food for thought Elashley. Thank you.:)
And the out of context scriptures may just be a demonstration of the futility of quoting scriptures to back up a point.
But man dieth, and wasteth away:
Yea, man giveth up the ghost, and
where is he?
As the waters fail from the sea,
And the flood decayeth and drieth up:
So man lieth down, and riseth not:
Till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake,
Nor be raised out of their sleep.
kmoo
Terribly sorry. When posted it appears that kmoo is claiming the last paragraph was written by him. The first two rhymes came from kmoo's pen. The last can be attributed to a much more talented poet.
Michael
The original post concerned Dan's emphasis on Jesus' teachings at the expense of the crucifixion and resurrection. I have started to think lately that maybe an emphasis on the crucifixion and resurrection has a lot to do with our innate fear of death and what, if anything, comes after and that our downplaying of Jesus' teaching has something to do with our innate laziness and the seeming impossibility of truly obeying those teachings.
In that context, I thought I was right "on track".
However these thoughts are not well formed and in a battle of wits I fear that I am hopelessly "out gunned" in this room.
BTW, thanks also to you. Your blog has provide this "lurker" untold hours of entertainment and even more "food for thought".:)
And thanks also to Dan.(This is turning into a pathetic "lovefest"). You have much more patience with my blathering and poetry than Mrs. Kmoo does.:)
Charity suffereth long, and is kind...
EL, re: "Tell me where God has ever asked anyone to walk blindly."
Acts 9:
8And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.
9And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.
10And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.
11And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth,
12And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.
13Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem:
14And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name.
15But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:
16For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.
17And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.
18And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.
Put that in yer literalist pipe and smoke it! I think there is more in this passage than ... meets ... the ... eye.
EL, re: "Tell me where God has ever asked anyone to walk blindly."
John 9
1And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
2And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
3Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
4I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
6When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
7And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.
THERE IS more to this passage than meets the eye, too.
In one case, Paul was blinded BY HIS ENCOUNTER with Jesus, yet was told to walk in faith to do God's will!
In the other, a man came to Jesus blind, and was told to WALK BLINDLY to healing!
LOLOLOL!!!! You are SO unbelievably dense! Put THAT in YOUR pipe! LOLOLOLOLOL!
I hasten to add: The Bible says both. Whether that's the same as "God telling" is open to interpretation! But EL says the two are the same; so there are some answers to EL's challenge.
Calm down and tell me why that's dense.
I smell goose cooking.
Eric, behave. ER having a difference of opinion does not make his statement dense.
Thanks everyone for the comments, sorry I haven't been able to keep up with you.
Kmoo, I for one, like your poetry, such as it is...
I humbly apologize, ER. I chose my words poorly. You are not dense... we are simply on different wave lengths. And thank you Dan for bringing this to my attention.. I am duly and honestly chastened.
What I should of said, had I time to spell it out, was that you took the 'blindness' literally; the very tack I am often accused of taking with scripture, whereas I was speaking of blindness in terms of 'Understanding...' One who is incognizant of the whys and wherefores can be said to be 'blind'. Different wave lengths.
Again, I apologize.
I remember Abraham Heschel's comment that Scholasticism is the sin of making things precise that should stay vague.
Jesus said, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things that I say?" Whatever importance you ascribe to the cross, you blaspheme it if you imagine that it does anything for you if you're not making his teachings your whole business. The cross is, among other things, about freeing us from our guilt. If we aren't receiving the cross for the purpose of doing what he says, our faith is dead and we're still in our sins, because God will not hold guiltless him who takes his name in vain.
Of course the cross is of supreme importance, just like his teachings, because without it there is no resurrection, death is not conquered, and so there is no life for us and we won't be doing what he says. The Ten Words testify to this, in stating that the doing of them grows out of God being the one who took us out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves. They aren't really commandments but the fruits of deliverance from sin by the same power that delivered from Egypt. We're supposed to understand that if that's what it took to get out of Egypt that's the power to get out of sin, because while some have scurried out of a situation like Egyptian bondage without the power of God, no one has scurried out of covetousness that way.
Thanks, Peter, and welcome to Payne Hollow.
Dan said "kmoo, I for one, like your poetry such as it is..."
Setting into motion a chain of events from which the blogosphere might never recover.
I reget to inform my one, and possibly only fan that I must stop posting and go back to being the occasional lurker.
why..
(With apologies to a humorous freeman. I borrowed a line.)
Did kmoo come to this battle of wits
with a dull edged sword and ill fitting gear
so now he beats a hasty retreat
trembling with "gonad knawing fear"? kmoo
Not very likely.
"No doubt but ye are the people,
And wisdom shall die with you.
But I have understanding as well as you;
I am not inferior to you:
Yea, who knoweth not such things as these?"
Or...
(With apologies to Halldor Laxness for comparing myself to one of the noblest characters in literature.)
Like some modern day Bjartur of summerhouses
he wrestles with verse as he tends his sheep.
But sharing his sagas with all the world
leaves a simple crofter in need of sleep. kmoo
Might be some truth to that one, although my "flock" is somewhat more predictable and of a mechanical nature.
No, the reality is closer to this...
Kmoo's garden grows choked with weeds
Friends and family grow frantic with various needs.
Kmoo's tools are gathering dust
his garden spade a layer of rust.
Kmoo's calloused hands grow soft
from ignoring the work on his simple croft.
So kmoo has had to make a choice
his noble work, or a virtual voice.kmoo
"There is nothing better for a man,
than that he should eat and drink, and that he
should make his soul enjoy good in his
labour. This also I saw, that it was from the
hand of God."
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat
bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out
of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and
unto dust shalt thou return."
Bubba, I think the problem that some of us have with this sort of reasoning is that anyone can do it.
Yes, you pointed to a few verses that talk about the cross. And the cross is a vital part of Jesus' story. But you point to those verses and say, "...therefore, the cross MUST have primacy."
I can point to verses, as well. "What must I do to be saved? Sell all you have and give to the poor."
"I have come to preach good news to the poor, liberty for the captive..."
And on and on I could point to verses that show how seriously Jesus' took his own teachings. The difference between your approach and mine is that I'm not saying, "THEREFORE, the teachings must have primacy."
Throwing a few verses out and saying therefore, that's the only way you can interpret this is just not sound logically nor biblically.
Are you saying that, in order to discover what is biblically sound, and in order to defend what we believe is biblically sound, we shouldn't appeal to the Bible?
It's true that people are capable of cherry-picking from the Bible, but that's hardly proof that any particular appeal is an instance of cherry-picking, nor is it a logical argument that we must never appeal to Scripture at all.
Your apparent position is that Christ's teachings are more important than the cross: you've made this quite clear when you referred to the two great commandments as the "meat" of the Gospel and in your list of good signs of a prospective church that mentions His teachings twice and His crucifixion none at all (except for a vague reference to grace). When pressed on this matter you concede that you only "perhaps" agree that the Crucifixion shouldn't be subordinated to the commands, and you haven't corrected this conclusion I draw about your position.
On what basis do you hold this position?
And can you possibly defend this position as biblical without appealing to the Bible?
"Your apparent position is that Christ's teachings are more important than the cross"
Well, my REAL position is exactly as I've said it at least twice now: That I think Jesus' teachings and the cross are all part of one story and that I feel no logical nor biblical reason to separate them into "more important" and "less important."
Again, I'll suggest that you stick to what I've said as opposed to what you think I mean and you'll come closer to being right about my position.
Dan, I have been keeping up with what you've said.
(And, for that matter, what you haven't said. You haven't explained how one can ascertain what's biblical without actually appealing to passages in the Bible.)
I do not understand how your "REAL" position is consistent with your earlier statements, which I've mentioned once or twice before.
You've written that the "meat of the gospel" is the two great commandments; though we agree that they are part of the same story, you failed to mention the Crucifixion and Resurrection:
"I just think that we spend an awful lot of energy worrying about extra- or marginally biblical ideals and fail to come to grips with the meat of the gospel: Love God, Love Others."
Later, here at your own blog, you wrote that the "Greater Truths" of the Bible are about right and gracious living on our part, with -- again -- not even a passing reference to the cross or the empty tomb:
"Some of us think that the bigger issues of the Bible, the Greater Truths, are exactly about right and gracious living, not about the ritual hoops one needs to jump through in order to be saved."
You then implied that salvation was the result of our following Jesus' commands and made no mention of what Christ did in order to provide the free gift of salvation:
"Some seem to have taken Jesus' usually fairly straightforward message (Love God, Love people, beware wealth, live simply, be peacemakers, do unto the least of these, etc) and made salvation a series of steps that are marginally biblical."
In the thread that prompted this particular discussion, you gave a list of things to look for in a prospective church, a list that mentioned Jesus' teachings twice and the Crucifixion and Resurrection none at all, except for an allusion to both in mentioning God's grace.
In response to my criticism, you write:
"Do you even hear what that sounds like, Bubba?
"Subordinate what Jesus taught us - the way that Jesus commands us to live if we want to follow him - to where those teachings led him?"
Implicit in this question I still see you continue to subordinate the cross to the teachings, referring to the cross only as "where [Christ's] teachings led him".
If you want to insist, as Michael has done, that the teachings and the Crucifixion are truly and precisely equal in importance -- a position with which I would still disagree -- you should explain or repudiate some of these earlier statements.
At the very least, what you assert to be the "meat of the gospel" should include the Crucifixion and the Resurrection in addition to the two great commandments -- if, that is, you want to be persuasive in your assertion that all of these things are totally equal to one another.
Bubba, I can tell you with some certainty what I think - that I do not, in fact, elevate Jesus' teachings over Jesus' death nor vice versa, but treat it as one story.
I think your bigger question here has to do with atonement - Do I accept what is probably the currently predominant evangelical view of the crucifixion as Jesus' necessary death to appease a God that demands blood payment for sin?
And to answer that is a more deeply theological question. I certainly recognize that is one of the ways that Jesus' life and death are talked about within the Bible, but it's not the only way.
I assume you're familiar with other ways of looking at atonement?
May I reference a source...
which may not be the best source (I'm open to other suggestions) for a rundown of the different views of atonement, but it's a basic explanation. (This source seems biased towards the majority view, but still, it offers some explanation.)
If you're familiar with the various theories, then later I'll try to further explain my position, keeping in mind that I'm no theologian, just a fella reading and trying to make sense of the Bible in the context of this creation.
Here's a bit more:
Regarding this statement by Bubba:
You've written that the "meat of the gospel" is the two great commandments
And this one:
You then implied that salvation was the result of our following Jesus' commands and made no mention of what Christ did in order to provide the free gift of salvation:
[dan's quote] "Some seem to have taken Jesus' usually fairly straightforward message (Love God, Love people, beware wealth, live simply, be peacemakers, do unto the least of these, etc) and made salvation a series of steps that are marginally biblical."
Jesus was asked what the greatest commandments were. He responded, Love God, Love people. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for the legalism on relatively insignificant matters while they failed to recognize the "weightier matters of the law" - again, which boil down to love God and love people.
Jesus said specifically at the beginning of the ministry what he was here to do - preach good news to the poor, freedom for the captive, health for the ill, and to announce the year of Jubilee - the year of economic justice, God's kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. These are specific ways of loving our neighbor and God.
Jesus specifically and stridently says that the way we show love of God and follow God is to do with and for "the least of these." Again, it's a way of showing that we love God and people.
The NT writers echo this theme, saying that we are called to follow in Jesus' steps (which may indeed lead to persecution and crucifixion) [1 Peter 2], that we are to show that we are following Christ by leading lives of love for one another [1 John, etc] and that we are to move beyond the milk of basic teachings to the meat of knowing right and wrong.
I think there is a strong and consistent teaching in the Bible that the deeper things, the meatier/weightier matters of living have to do with how we live lives of love.
Which is not to say that I think we're saved by our works. I have always said that we are saved by God's grace, through faith in Jesus. BUT not merely believing in Jesus as a man who taught us to be nice, who died and rose from the dead - anyone can believe that!, but believe in Jesus' teachings, agree with them, begin to follow them.
In this regards, I don't believe I'm that dissimilar from traditional evangelical orthodoxy.
Believing that Jesus died and rose again? "Anyone can believe that!"
Incredible: the central claim of Christianity is dismissed as trivial.
No, I'm merely echoing the NT sentiment, "Even the demons believe, and tremble!" I'm just not being as extreme as the Bible.
The point I was making was one I'm certain that you agree with - that just believing in God or that Jesus is God, that he died and rose again doesn't matter a hill of beans unless you also agree with, believe in and start following in the Way he taught.
So, Bubba, you are certainly free to think that the crucifixion has primacy over the teachings. I'm not stopping you. I'm just saying that such is neither a biblical nor logical necessity.
Re, "Your criticism of me is baseless."
Bubba, I didn't criticize you, either in the classical sense of parsing your words, which you love to do, or in the colloquial sense of being mean. At least not in my comment to which you seem to be replying:
"Let's see. Since Jesus's teachings, as far as we can tell them, are the product of Jesus's thinking, and the other stuff is the product of His followers' thinking, I reckon the questions are pretty stark:
"Are you (universal 'you' there, but to Bubba directly, too) trying to follow Jesus or the are you trying to follow His followers?"
That's just a hard question. But if I were going to be critical, in the second sense, it would be based on yer huffing and puffing and insisting that everyone who doesn't agree with you must not have read the Bible, and medidated on these things alot -- oh, but mainly because of the silly attempts to crawl inside people's minds and tell them that they don't think what they say they thing, and that they actually thuink what you think they think -- which just gets tiresome. Meh.
EL: How dare you accuse me of taking the Bible literally! Hee hee. Kidding.
Actually, I think this is a perfect example of me taking it seriously, and you not so much.
Those accounts of people's actions -- Paul's blindess after conversion and Jesus healing of a blind man) have always been seen as having more meaning than what is apparent. You might say it's the penumbra of Scripture that I'm talking about. (I pause here to give EL time to finish hurling).
But, I think you nailed it, actually: just different wavelengths of the moment. Mea culpa, re: "dense," happily accepted. :-)
ER, since the premise of your question -- that I quote the Apostles while ignoring Christ's own words -- was clearly false, as demonstrated by the very first comment I posted in this thread, I think I wasn't wrong to conclude that it was an unfair criticism of me.
Dan:
The point I was making was one I'm certain that you agree with - that just believing in God or that Jesus is God, that he died and rose again doesn't matter a hill of beans unless you also agree with, believe in and start following in the Way he taught.
On this I absolutely disagree: you write that nothing matters until you start obeying His commands, and that does imply a salvation based at least partially works, namely, the works of obedience.
Sanctification comes through obedience, but the salvation that precedes sanctification -- and salvation itself is worth infinitely more than a hill of beans -- comes through God's grace and our faith in that grace, in who Jesus is and what He has done for us, not in what He teaches us to do.
Jesus didn't say that His teachings were the Way: He explicitly said that He Himself is the Way. I trust HIM for my salvation; I trust what HE has done for my salvation. Since, like Paul, I often do what I know I shouldn't do, I can't trust my obedience to what He taught for my salvation, but thankfully I believe the Bible is clear that it is by grace we are saved and not by works.
The primacy of the cross is absolutely Biblical -- in why Jesus and His angels and John the Baptist said He came, in the emphasis the events surrounding the cross were given in the Gospels, in the focus on the cross in the Epistles' praise for God, in Paul's insistence that he preaches Christ crucified, in John's repeated reference to the Lamb in Revelation, and in the two uniquely Christian ordinances commanded by the Bible -- and it is also absolutely logically necessary: I do not believe a person can long sustain the contradiction of believing that the infinite God really and historically became a finite man who died for our sins, and believing that that truth isn't the single most important truth in existence.
Your position reminds me of what quite a few modern Jews seem to do. They emphasize the wisdom of the commands of the Torah, but at the expense of what God has done and what He has promised to do: the Passover, the covenant with Abraham to bless the entire world through His seed, and the prophecies of the Messiah. They emphasize the ethical aspect of Judaism at the expense of its theological aspect, and it appears to me that you're doing the same. The really sad thing is, as Christians we really should, first and foremost, rely on what Christ accomplished on the cross, to which we can add nothing, and it appears that you may have missed that.
I will again reiterate that we should obey what Christ taught, but we should do so only out of gratitude for what He has already done for us. It is good to emphasize obedience as a necessary component of sanctification, the process by which we become mature as God's adopted children. But if a Christian emphasizes obedience to the point that he implies that even salvation hinges on it -- that nothing matters "a hill of beans unless you also... start following in the Way he taught" -- that Christian goes too far.
He veers very close to, and perhaps even implicitly affirms, a belief in salvation by works.
To try to wrap this up for my part, let me return to the blog entry that started this conversation. Your focus was on my comment that you perhaps put "too heavy an emphasis on Jesus’ teachings."
YOU DO, if that emphasis on His teachings suggests salvation by works, even if those works are obedience to what He taught.
On this I absolutely disagree: you write that nothing matters until you start obeying His commands, and that does imply a salvation based at least partially works, namely, the works of obedience.
Except that I didn't say that. Once again.
What I said and have said is that we are saved by God's grace, it is a gift.
I have gone on to say that "just believing in God or that Jesus is God, that he died and rose again doesn't matter a hill of beans unless you also agree with, believe in and start following in the Way he taught..."
And the point I've been repeatedly making is that simply believing Jesus is the son of God is not what saves us. Agreeing that God's Way is the right way and accepting that gift of salvation, saying, "Yes, God, I want that Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Not merely saying, "Yes. Jesus is the son of God." Not even saying, "Yes, Jesus came to earth, lived, died and rose again from the dead," but repenting of our wrong ways and accepting God's Way.
That's what it means to me to "accept Jesus into your heart."
And again, I think this is fairly orthodox evangelical teaching. Despite your combativeness on this point, I think you agree. You don't really think that one can believe in Jesus without believing his teachings were right, do you?
The primacy of the cross is absolutely Biblical
Says you. And you're welcome to believe it if you wish. I disagree, lacking any biblical or logical reason to agree with you. And I shall still retain the assertion that I place "too heavy an emphasis on Jesus’ teachings" as a compliment.
Thanks.
I'll say: "faith without works is dead.
It's not faith OR works -- a true false dichotomy. It's faith AND works.
Yep. I said it right out loud, too. And it diminishes neither the Cross nor obedience. It's that mobius thing again that EL mentioned.
Dan, I believe that accepting Christ's commands to the point of obeying them is important as the end result of salvation, but most certainly not as a precondition. This is good, because we cannot possibly accept His ethical teachings and faithfully follow them until we have been saved.
Evangelical Christianity agrees that saving faith in Christ leads to obedience, not that obedience is a precondition for faith to be salvific. Such a concept would rightly be described as salvation by works even if the concept is only the logical consequence of what a person writes rather than his explicit conclusion. If accepting grace requires obedience as a necessary precondition rather than as an eventual consequence, it ain't grace.
And, about the centrality of the cross in the Bible, I gave ample evidence: what Christ said about Himself and His mission, what the angels said in announcing Him, and what John the Baptist said in announcing Him; the amount of text devoted to the Passion Week in the Gospels, the amount of praise for the cross in the Epistles, Paul writing that he preaches Christ crucified, and John referring to Christ primarily as the Lamb in Revelation; and even the two Biblical ordinances of Christianity, baptism and communion.
The centrality of the cross is indeed logically necessary: the theological weight of the claim is literally infinite. God became a man who died for your sins. Infinity became a 1 and then became a 0 to save you personally. There is no way to affirm this fully and not also affirm its primacy, at least not for long.
The evidence is there, in both the Bible and in logic. Whether you deny what's there is between you and God; I certainly can't open your eyes for you.
Feel free to have the last word.
Then how about this...
Bubba said:
Evangelical Christianity agrees that saving faith in Christ leads to obedience, not that obedience is a precondition for faith to be salvific.
But have I said anything - anything at all - about obedience being a precondition?
Consider this: One day, Bob suddenly believes that Jesus was the Son of God who died and came back to life. Does Bob repent because of that? Does Bob realize his need of salvation because of that?
Or rather, does Bob need to realize that Jesus' way is the way to live, that Bob's own ways are a road to hell?
What are you going to repent of if you think your own way is a fine way to live? Is it not necessary for you to first agree that your way is wrong and God's way right?
Is not the first step to every cheesy Evangelism program out there for people to realize they are in need of a savior?
So, Bubba, you are certainly free to think that the crucifixion has primacy over the teachings. I'm not stopping you. I'm just saying that such is neither a biblical nor logical necessity.
It is possible to try to follow Jesus' teachings without dying to self (being 'crucified with Christ' as Paul phrased it) which will not result in salvation. Crucifixion certainly has primacy as we must 'die daily' BEFORE any teaching can truly be followed. Please note that it doesn't take faith to believe in a self-righteousness. It does take faith to believe that only by God's righteousness we are saved.
Matthew 10:38
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
Matthew 16:24
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Mark 8:34
And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
Mark 10:21
Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.
Luke 9:23
And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me
Hello Mr/Ms anonymous.
You said:
Crucifixion certainly has primacy as we must 'die daily' BEFORE any teaching can truly be followed.
Read what I've written. One can't "die daily" if one doesn't already agree that one's own ways lead to destruction. One must agree with Jesus that we need a savior, we need to follow Jesus because Jesus' way is the right way.
It's all of one piece. Accepting Jesus' teachings, repenting of our sins, following in the way that sometimes leads to a cross and persecution.
I think I'm done now with this conversation. For folk who aren't especially interested, this back and forth ("The Cross MUST have primacy," "It's all one story..." "No, the cross is most important," "No, it's all one story...") is bound to be pretty boring.
Feel free to email me if anyone really wants to continue that particular tennis match.
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