There are too quotes of Jesus that are intriguing to ponder.....Jonathan wrote:Yes, acceptance is the right thing to do. But you can't just explain the Bible away, can you? It isn't just homosexuality either, but that happens to be one of the most striking examples. I wonder if Jesus lived today, would he tell us to discard the Bible altogether and just be good? Interestingly, it would put many 'enemies' of Christianity in a Jesus-like position. I guess that makes Christians like modern-day Jews. That's some confusing nomenclature, but you get my point.compguygene wrote:I find it interesting that Jonathan has chosen to bring up the example of Homosexuality as a place where 99% of Christianity is just plain wrong and/or dumb. I am not gonna turn this thread into a debate about that. I just would like to point out the example in my own life of my son, who is openly Homosexual, attends our church, and is not judged or mistreated by either my family or my church. We all love him as our Lord commands us to. Any less than that would put us in the place of being idiots, hypocritical, and driving my son away from us. If our church did that, we would be gone, and with great protest as to why.
My point of all this is very simple. You should be guided by LOVE at all times. This is what our Lord did, much to the derision and complaint of the religious leaders of his day.
Jesus Crhist of Nazareth wrote:I came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it.
In these two quotes he does not negate the Jewish Law, but says that true love of your God and your neighbor will guide you in all you need to do. To me, that really says it all. As to the parallels of the Jews and Christians of today, I would say this. Pentacostals and Charismatics are like the Pharisees and Baptist and Fundamentalists are like the Sadducees. When I state that I am a Christian, I mean it in the true sense of the original meaning of the word, as in a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.Jesus Christ of Narareth answered the question, what is the greatest commandment? wrote:You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. And a second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself
Jonathan, I would suspect that on most moral and ethical issues you and I would agree 100%. Simply put, whether you believe in God or not, there are some things that are Right and some things that are Wrong. It is sad that on many of those things I cannot fully agree with those that proclaim to be my brother or sister in the Christian faith (note the word proclaim there, sometimes ya' really gotta wonder).