Speaking for myself
Submitted by Drifter on 2002-09-5 14:47:04, Thursday
In reply to Re: Gospel of Thomas submitted by drew on 2002-09-4 20:31:34, Wednesday
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I am one of those who began a post questioning the authority of the bible, so I will speak as to my own motives, I dont know what the motives of others may be. I am a christian, I have accepted Jesus as my savior, and I try to live up to the standards that he taught. I am not one of those 'once saved always saved' types, who claim that because they accepted Jesus they are saved for life. I am of the type that believes what God said 'Be holy, for I am holy' (Im not looking that verse up right now, and am translating it mentally from the spanish version with which I am familiar, so it may sound slightly different in the kjv or niv or whichever version you choose, but the essence is the same). I believe in striving for perfection, and asking for forgiveness when we fail. I am a follower of Christ, and therefore a Christian. The reason I give you that background is so that you will understand that simply because I question the authority of the bible does not mean I am not a Christian. Believing in the bible is not a prequisite to being a christian or to being saved. Its the gospel that you must truly believe in to be saved (and the gospel is the life, teachings, death, and ressurection of Jesus Christ). Therefore, when I questioned the bible, I was not questioning Christianity or the teachings of Jesus or anything of that matter. I was questioning the 'sola scriptura' philosophy, which is the relatively new philosophy which considers the bible the absolute infallible word of God. My aim in doing so was mostly informational, Ive had these concerns for a long time and still have not come to a final conclusion, though I am close. So, I sought more input from christians, and I thought this would be a good place. I was successful in recieving that input, because of a post by Jules that gave me new insights I hadnt thought of before, I believe you yourself also thought Jule's post was good. Therefore I do not see the harm. I had concerns about the bible, I posted them, recieved various opinions, one of them being particularly good (which you agreed with me), and we moved on to a different topic. As far as the other concerns you planted, here is my view: when II Timothy 3:16 was written, the bible did not yet exist. Not all of the scriptures currently found in the bible had even been written yet, and certainly they hadnt been compiled into the book we now call the bible. Therefore Paul (he is the author of II Timothy if my memory serves me well) must have been reffering to some other scriptures. I believe he was reffering to the Old Testament which is often reffered to as the scriptures or the law in the New Testament. Even if he were reffering to scriptures other than the Old Testament, we cannot know which scriptures he was reffering to because he does not say, therefore if we were to take that statement to truly mean every scripture, then we would require a much bigger bible so that we include all scriptures that existed, not just the ones chosen to be a part of the New Testament in the council of Nicea. We would need to include all apocryphal books, as well as the books Maccabee, etc. As far as your comment on the way we read newspapers, its funny because I dont take what they say at face value. The few times that I have had personal knowledge about something which later appeared in the newspapers, the newspapers made many mistakes. Choose any subject that you know a lot about, and read a newspaper article dealing with that subject (be it computers, cars, pedophilia...whatever it is) 9 out of 10 times (that figure is made up) you will find that the newspaper was wrong about some things, sometimes major things, some times minor things. I will concede one thing though. Even though I do not feel that questioning the validity of the bible is wrong or conductive to destructive debate, if you feel that way then there must certainly be others who feel that way too and have chosen not to speak out. With that in mind, I think it may be a good idea for the moderators to start telling people to take debates elsewhere (perhaps to rdc, assuming it still exists). I would be willing to refrain from topics that people find offensive if it is harming the board. |
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