Thank you gentlemen for such interesting insight.

LTW - you may not feel you have the words, but you have the heart.

I understand you all a little better.


I started to ask God some questions as I was reading these messages. It may seem strange but I picked up one of my favorite books and opened it on to a page. This is what I found:


"I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answers would suffice? Only words, words, to be led out to battle against other words." C S Lewis.

Exactly my point Spider.

Who wrote the words that you’ve just posted?

Jesus?

No. Jesus did not write those words.

Mathew wrote those words.

And Jesus told Mathew that he did not understand.

When Matthew wrote his account he wrote it within his context of misunderstanding.

Believe it or not, I actually read the entire copy and paste. I had already read those verses in the actual Bible many times before. It’s clear to me that these are the words of a man who misunderstood Jesus.

Matthew was already absorbed with the mythology of the Old Testament. When he wrote about the teachings of Jesus he tried to fit that picture in with his mythological beliefs.

Moreover, historians believe that these stories about Jesus weren’t written for several decade after Jesus’ death. So Matthew had to have really been straining his memory to try to recount Jesus’ exact words and meanings.

What you are posting here is actually quite far removed from the actual man named Jesus.

Also, historians believe that the term “Hell” back in those days actually referred to a burning sulfur pit where the Romans would cast the bodies of the convicted men that they would crucify.

So these stories that are written in the New Testament need to be taken into account for the time and place where they were written. The language and translations that the stories were subjected to. And to the various slants that not only the original writers placed onto the stories, but also the many slants that were introduced as the stories were passed down through the generations and translated from language to language.

Jesus lived over 2000 years ago. Matthew wrote his account over 2000 years ago. The printing press wasn’t invented until only about 600 years ago. So for over 1500 years these stories were being retold and rewritten by hand. We can’t even be sure if Matthew himself would even agree with today’s version!

Also, you need to take into account the personal anger and revenge that Matthew himself felt toward the Romans who had oppressed him. All the phrases saying, “Woe to you hypocrites!” may well have been Matthew’s personal feelings. I find it hard to imagine Jesus actually preaching about the Pharisees live using that kind of language. If Jesus has actually preached like that the crowd probably would have dispersed before the sermon was over.

Like Voil has suggested Spider. You can’t be trying to take these things so literally. You need to step back and try to see the Bigger Picture.

The New Testament is a story about LOVE. Not a threat about being sent to HELL.

You seem to just pick and chose the most gory verses you can find. You pervert the Bible Spider via you presentation of it. You present a perverted picture of Jesus. You only focus on sin, judgment, and damnation.

You’re obsessed with hell and sin Spider.

Where’s the LOVE Spider????

Is there any way a person can get to God through LOVE and acceptance of others?

Can you preach about that for a change?

Abra how is it you know Matthew misunderstood? Where you there perhaps?

Maybe someone can help me with this. I have come to a point where I know God exists. My problem is that I don't know if I like him or not. Why does he allow such suffering? I can answer that partially in that man has free will to choose good or evil. So much of the human suffering in this world is a result of man choosing evil.

But what about natural disasters? This, man has no control over, does not choose to do evil, yet great suffering occurs. Why? What is God's purpose in tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.?

Steve wrote:
"Abra how is it you know Matthew misunderstood? Where you there perhaps?"

I believe it’s in the Bible that Jesus told his very disciples that they do not understand on several differnet occasions. I’m not interested in trying to look up specific verses. If you’d like to discount that interpretation fine, the rest of what I said stands.

It’s perfectly clear that Jesus never wrote a single word in the Bible and that all we have is hearsay from people who had a differnet perspective on things. That cannot be argued with.

I’m offering food for thought for whatever it’s worth. To anyone who cares to ponder it.

If you have reach difference conclusions of your own, that’s fine with me.

My main question to Spider was whether a person get come to God via love?

Mac wrote:
“Why? What is God's purpose in tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.?”

Don’t forget disease, birth defects, property taxes,….

Oh wait, I guess property taxes are man-made. They just seem so innate!

The answer to your question is simple.

Imagine that you’re living in a perfect heaven.

Nothing ever goes wrong.

You never get hungry. Food is always available.

Toilet paper’s free.

No one like to work in a sewer so plumbing never clogs up.

There are no jobs to do that anyone would dislike.

In fact, there are no jobs to do that anyone does like.

If anything at all needs to be done it would be less than perfect.

In this perfect state if you were not completely satisfied in every way you would feel as if you are “suffering”

To suffer is nothing more than to be in a condition that you judge to be less desirable than another condition.

The only question now become, “How much are you willing to suffer to enjoy life?”

Yes, enjoyment!

Enjoyment comes from achieving goals, mastering imperfections, conquering deficiencies, triumphing over limitations, taking risks, prevailing over peril.

Without the risks life would be boring. Completely boring and uninteresting. Dullsville.

God knew this when she created us. She created the universe in such a way so we would have challenges. So it would be interesting, fulfilling, and rewarding.

She also created built-in safe guards. No one will suffer more physical pain than they can tolerate. The body will go into shock, become numb, or even fail to remain alive if it is mangled to a degree beyond tolerance. She took care to make sure that limits would be set on just how dissatisfied we can become.

What about emotional pain? Emotional pain is our own judgment call. We create our own emotional pain. You may beg to differ, if you come home from work and find that your entire family has been raped and murder the emotional pain would be overwhelming! Sure it would. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s your own personal choice to feel pain over the matter. Who were those people who died? Who did they belong to? Where they ever yours to begin with? No they weren’t. God merely allowed you to share life with them for a while. You should be thankful for that.

That doesn’t mean that you should just shrug your shoulder and say, “Oh well, easy come easy go”. Of course not. You’re going to wallow in emotional pain remembering all of the loving people whom you will never see again in this life. And that’s the way it should be.

However, if you look at the bigger picture you’ll know that those people haven’t really gone anywhere. Other than back to the very same place from whence they came. Just as you will eventually return home.

If you believe in God you know that you are spirit and spirits never die. You are eternal just as all your friends and loved ones are. You will be with them again, and again, and again.

There is no injustice. Suffering, is a necessary part of what make life rewarding without it the universe would be so boring you’d be screaming to get out!

Moreover, you shouldn’t just view hurricanes, earthquakes and the such as natural disasters, you should also view nasty deeds done by men as natural disasters. There is no such thing as sin. That’s just a label that we place onto humans when they do things that hurricanes, and earthquakes do. The same acts, just different causes. Humans who do despicable things are SICK! And in that sense they too are natural disasters.

That doesn’t mean that we should all run out and do despicable things claiming that we’re merely natural disasters. The point is that the vast majority of humans are NOT natural disasters. The vast majority humans are loving caring individuals. If they simply act in their natural way that’s how they will act.

One thing to keep uppermost in your mind is that the world is NOT inherently evil. If the NEWS actually reported violent crime (and even accidents) in the correct proportion to how they actually occur in life, a one-hour news cast would contain less than 5 minutes of violence, and the other 55 minutes would be devoted to reporting how nice people are treating each other.

Blink your eyes whilst watching reality news and you’d think we live in a perfect world! You’d miss the violence altogether.

The world is a beautiful place. It’s just grossly misrepresented on the news.

God is very nice, and so are most people.

"It’s perfectly clear that Jesus never wrote a single word in the Bible and that all we have is hearsay from people who had a differnet perspective on things. That cannot be argued with. "

But that CAN be argued with. We are told that all of the Bible is God breathed and useful for instruction, if some of it is lies, that then that statement is a lie. Just because they didn't understand, doesn't mean that they didn't hear or remember. These were all men who lived in a culture with a very strong oral tradition. Even today, there are national competitions in Israel wherein the contestants must memorize books from the Torah. I don't see any reason to doubt that Matthew accurately reported what he witnessed and heard.

Mac60,

"But what about natural disasters? This, man has no control over, does not choose to do evil, yet great suffering occurs. Why? What is God's purpose in tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.? "

2 Corinthians 1:8-11
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For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us; Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.
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We've all heard the saying "God helps those who help themselves", but God doesn't want us to depend upon ourselves. God wants us to depend on Him completely. We have also heard that "God won't give us more than we can handle" and that's not completely true. God will sometimes give us a burden that we can't carry, so that we will put down that burden at Jesus' feet and carry the cross instead.

Look to Genesis, when Jacob wrestles with God. God saw that Jacob would never stop struggling until he died, so God cursed Jacobs leg. Jacob had been a strong man and although he loved and worshpped God, Jacob only ever depended upon himself. With his crippled leg, Jacob found that he had to depend upon God.

Maybe we can carry our own burdens, but God can carry them for us and make our lives far easier and rewarding.

So to answer your question, I can think of a few answers...

1) To make us depend on God rather than ourselves. As you said, we can't control the weather, but God can. We can't stop an earthquake, but God can. Instead of putting our faith into mankind or the Government, we should place our faith in God.

2) To allow us to be blessed. We are blessed though our generosity in helping one another, so God allows natural disasters so that we can be blessed by blessing others. Remember of the widow who gave the last of her food to Elijah. She was picked out of the thousands of widows in Israel, to have the opportunity to bless Elijah and thus receive a blessing for herself. Her food didn't run out the whole time that Elijah was there. And when her son got ill and died, Elijah brought her son back to life. If she hadn't blessed Elijah, she wouldn't have received the special blessings that she did receive.

Sun 09/30/07 12:20 AM
Abracadabra,

"Contrary to what you might think I accept you for who you are."

"Why can’t you just accept them for who they are? "

You just contradicted yourself. If you accepted me for who I am, then you wouldn't say "Why can’t you just accept them for who they are?".

-------------------------------------

he has accepted the fact you believe you are a christian

and obviously he accepted the fact that you do what he says you do

or he would not be trying to ---enlighten--- you that you are doing it

he is only trying to turn you towards the light