Homer Simpsons once said "If God did'net want us to eat in church he wouldhave made Glutony a sin"
But it is a sin right?
Also I heard that the bible says that in a married couple both the man and the woman are obligated to phusically make their parners happy. Is this true?
Also in a seinfeld episode a priest says Putty and Eliane are going to hell because they are not married. Why wold they go to hell because of that?
It is one of the seven deadly sins, whitch can lead to greater sin. That was the joke.
I've haven't heard this one. But I wouldn't doubt it.
I think it said they were sleeping together. That would be fornication. But the Bible never spoke very well of interreligious marrige. See Kings.
What are the seven deadly sins anyway? I get the feeling they were made up by a bunch of priests sometime in the 1000s who wanted to mess up people's lives, cuz I've never seen them in my Bible. (Not that I've ever gone and looked them up.)
The Bible never actually lists the seven together, but the New Testament names and condemns all seven:
Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Gluttony, Envy, and Sloth. Not good things are they?
Still, Jesus said the only unpardonable sin is "blasphemy against the Spirit", which I take to mean rejection of Jesus and his salvation.
Actually, it says you can baspheme the Son of Man and be forgiven. Blasphemy agaist the spirit is where you are so in dispair you would never want the salvation of Christ. It's not unforgivable because God won't forgive, but because you don't want it.
The seven lead to greater sin, that why they are deadly.
What are Sloth and Covetousness , is it anything like covert operations?
Sloth I would assume is laziness, and Covetousness I would assume is like "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's…"
Funny that the original word translated "hell"
actually means the grave...in other words,
non-existence. There is no fiery place
where people suffer for eternity....just like
there is no trinity.
And if all good people go to heaven, then
why "do the righteous ones inherit the earth"?
Hell comes from the Norse word Hel, the goddess of death. The word Hell was used in place of Hades, which the Bible uses.
Oh really, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptisng them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
Check the Book of Revelations on Hell.
I'm sure you can find a good explanition in a study guide.
Revelation talks about a "pit of fire", which certainly sounds like Hell. That also explains a bit about the complex "new Earth"/"new Heaven" thang.
Revelations also speaks about a beast with seven
heads...so should we take that literally too?
And also, if God punishes the wicked by letting them burn in a fiery place, then why did he lie
to Adam and Eve? He didn't say if you eat from
the tree, you will burn in hell for eternity...
he said that you will die.
Rev. 1 : 3 speaks that these visions presented
to John in his dreams were by the means of
signs or symbols.
God said they would die. They died. That's not a lie. He didn't mention Hell, because that would make things needlessly complex. "Oh, and don't eat the apple because you'll die, and let's see, if you were truly wicked, you'll go to a flaming placed named Hell, oh, and..."
Oh, sure Revelation is symbolic. And the beast with seven heads? I have no idea. Maybe he WILL have seven heads, maybe it is a reference to a group of seven people, perhaps something else. But the part talking about the "Lake of Fire" does not seem symbolic at all. It is written in extremely unpoetic tones.
Maybe the seven headed beast is supposed to be symbolic of the seven sins that are no no's.
You're missing the point....they disobeyed God
and were punished. Their punishment was DEATH,
not an eternity in a fiery hell....and if good
people go to heaven and bad people to hell,
then why does Ecclesiastes (sp?) say that the
death are concious of nothing?
Oh....and many people who claim to be Christian
do not follow even the basic requirements of
Christianity....a few examples :
Christians are supposed to be spreading their
messages and going from door to door.
The only moral place for sex is between a husband
and wife. Fornication, homosexuality, etc. are
wrong.
Rene - THEN I'M TOTALLY IMMORAL AND VERY PROUD OF IT!!!! *Deep breath* Ok...if the only moral place for sex is between husband and wife...WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO DON'T BELIEVE IN MARRIAGE? *Another deep breath* What do I need with a piece of paper and a piece of metal to tell a man I love him? I don't. So I obviously (or not so obviously) don't believe the sex outside marriage bit. Not that I'm a Christian, anyway. Ok, ok, moderator...I'm shutting up. :)
Rene, please. Do you mean to tell me that you go around door-to-door waving a Bible in people's faces and spewing the same arguments you do in these pages? Cause if you, I can tell you why you probably haven't convinced anybody. Also, I don't seem to recall that the Bible tells us to do this. If it did, I'm almost certain I would have heard about this before. We are supposed to witness, yes, but not provide competition for the Jehovah's Witnesses.
M. Jenkins:
What do I need with a piece of paper and a piece of metal to tell a man I love him?
Darn it, M.! And I was about to send the monogrammed towels! Why must you foil my plans? :( (It could be because you are smart enough to realize that marriage is not a requisite to fulfillment. If so, good for you and you probably didn't need the monogrammed towels anyway :) )
I do have that piece of paper and that piece of metal. Considering that some states had laws forbidding people with epilepsy to marry as recently as 1984 (even if those laws were not enforced), frankly, I consider those papers a symbol of progress. And to be honest, I could not imagine myself loving someone enough to spend the rest of my life with him, forsaking all others without marrying him. But that is just me.
Rene: You don't approve of pre-marital sex. OK, abstain from pre-marital sex. You don't like homosexuality. OK, abstain from having sex with people of your own sex, most heterosexuals find it very easy. But that trinity thing... if you don't believe in that, would you be kind enough to share what you believe in?
What are the basic requirements of Christianity, anyway? Other than believing Jesus was telling the truth when He said He was the Son of God and that He died for our sins and that He resurrected and that there is more to Easter than the bunnies?
(And if anybody knows where the Easter bunny tradition came from, feel free to share!)
J. Goettsche -
*LOL* While I appreciate the sentiment, it's really not necessary. It'd help if I found a man I could tolerate for the rest of my life first. :) I'm rather picky about that...lotsa personal reasons.
And while I do understand that the license and rings are very important to some, I personally don't feel they are. And the laws that say it's illegal to live with someone of the opposite gender (cohabit, I believe it's called) I find to be incredibly silly. Marriage is a personal choice and no law should interfere with that (though I do understand the reasoning behind it).
I don't know about the Easter bunny, but I do know about the rings for marriage! :)
Rene
First, Ecc. is written by a very depressed Solomon, and is basically a Jewish "I got the blues" song. For the Jewish people, death was meaningless--it was "Sheol", and God did not state otherwise to them. However, as the New Testament entered, Jesus said something very key.
"And the righteous shall go to eternal paradise [or something], and the rest shall go to eternal torment."
You may of course, argue that there is no Jesus, no Bible, etc., but this is a key Christian tenet.
The going to door-to-door thing sounds a lot like a Jehovah's Witness, of which I disagree with. Where does the Bible mention "Go thee to door to door, and do not leave until you have won yon argument"?
Yes, I believe that pre-marital sex and homosexuality are wrong. Those are Christian tenets, as well.
Easter Bunny. Rabbits are a sign of fertility, spring, and a Anglo-Saxon Fertility goddess named Eoster who also had a Festible after the first full moon of spring.
If you belive every word of the Ecumunical Creeds, you're Christian.
Catholics, Protestents and Orithdox do. Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses don't.
So Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses aren't Christian, and therefore are going to burn in hell? Is that what you're saying?
Not to be unkind or anything, but I think so. This multiple wives thing is very suspicious, and I'm sure tha God does NOT want people disrupting everyone's lives knocking on the doors and handing out pamphlets.
There are many discrepancies between the Mormon, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian faiths. However, that's not to say that there aren't people in the Mormon church who are, in fact, Christians. The problem Christians have with Mormonism (I really don't know that much about the Jehovah's Witnesses' doctrine) is that they believe in additonal testaments, for one, the Book of Mormon. According to Mormon doctrine, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, received the text for the Book of Mormon from an angellic being. This is taken by the Mormons to be an additional gospel. However, the Bible states quite clearly that if anyone, whether it be a human or an angel of light, should teach a Gospel other than the one that has been given to us in the Bible, that person is condemned, as are all who follow him/her. You can quickly see how these two religions are indeed quite different.
If that part about the condemnation sounded a little harsh, remember: It's the Christian doctrine that everyone is a sinner and is just as condemned. We fall so short of God's standard of righteousness that, compared to Him, any kind of sin looks just as ugly. The good news of the Gospel is that, while we're totally unable to buy off our own salvation, Jesus Christ, who had no sins for which to pay, payed the penalty for the sins of mankind.
Even though they believe in God? That's pretty...ummm...nevermind. It's too rude to say what I want to say.
"You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder." James 2:19
Belief in God doesn't save you. You have to accept Jesus' gift of salvation. The Mormons make much less of Jesus than what he is in the Bible. The Mormons believe that everyone exists as a "spirit child" of God before they live on earth. They believe that Jesus is the firstborn spirit child; worthy of honor, but not worship. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus is God come to earth as a man.
Andrew:
The Bible makes it clear that Jesus is God come to earth as a man.
Do you or your church have an image of Jesus? If so, reconcile your above statement with the Second (or Third, if you're Jewish) Commandment: You shall make of me no graven image. [phrasing is mine]
"Do not make any idols"--Cont. English Version.
A picture of Jesus is not an idol unless you worship it.
This was the cause of the Great Schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. The Orthodox wanted to use icons and decided thta pictures were okay, statues were not, and you had to make sure you weren't worshipping the picture. Then the Pope excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Patriarch excommunicated the Pope. And so it goes…
Actually, our church doesn't have any statue of Jesus. We do have a stained-glass window of Him and a wooden cross hanging over the pulpit. However, these are only symbols to remind us of what Jesus did while on earth. We do not worship them. Even though our church doesn't have a statue of Jesus, I would not automatically condemn on account of idolatry any church which does. If it is there to serve only as a reminder, it's fine. If it is worshiped or ascribed supernatural powers or the properties of a link to God, etc., then there's a problem. Statues are statues. They can be respected and admired, as any work of art can be, but to revere them is indeed idolatry.
In Ancient near eastren polytheistic religions, if you made a statue it was a god. That's where the belief comes from about graven images.
Matthew 24:14, Mat 28:19,20. Read it and weep!
And what the heck did all of Christ's followers
do in the book of Acts...spreading their message.
And the bible makes it clear that Jesus is the son
of God, not God! Geez!
Matthew 24:14--"When the good news about the kingdom has been preached all over the world and told to all nations, the end will come." This mentions nothing about "door-to-door evangelism". This does make a strong case for missionary work and strong evangelism, which I endorse.
Matthew 28:19-20--"Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to everything I have told you. I will be with you always until the end of the world." Still, nothing about "door-to-door evangelism".
Acts--Yes, they spread their messages. But Paul and Peter went to public places to talk or peach, not into people's homes, unless invited.
Trinity--According to the gospel of John, Jesus is the Word, different from the Holy Spirit. The Spirit and the Son are part of the Father, in my opinion, else Christianity becomes a religion of three gods, not one.
In case anyone was wondering, the passage from John was: "In the begining was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him and without Him, not one thing came into being. What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it." John 1:1-5.
So, what's the latest on what happens to unbaptised babies when they die? My understanding is that they cannot go to heaven because they were not baptised. And they cannot have decided to accept Jesus. What happens to them? Do they burn in hell? They used to go to Limbo, but Limbo was cancelled decades ago.
Baptism, in my mind, has nothing to do with salvation. It's important, but accepting Jesus is the key, not baptism.
I don't know about unbaptised babies--that's for God to deal with.
The Father is a part of God the Son is A Part of God and the Holy Spirit is a part of God.
But no one ever said Trinitarian Theology was easy
What happens to unbaptized babies? The same thing that happens to baptized ones. I agree with MikeC on that point. As for what that thing is - I have no idea. I don't know of anywhere the Bible addresses it; I guess God has decided it's something we do not need to or should not know.
I believe in the Judeo-Christian deity (God as all-seeing, all-knowing, all that). I should be prepared to believe in a God Who is just and Who would address the issue of "what happens to those who die before they are old enough to make a decision about God?" with nothing but justice.
I would expect God to be just and kind as well. However, I have heard horror stories of clergy telling mothers that their dead child will burn in Hell. Is there really no doctrine on this issue?
There is an idea of an "age of accountability" through Scripture. If a person dies before he/she is mature enough to understand sin and salvation and accept Jesus as his/her savior, that person is not held accountable for his/her sins. After, all, God is just.
On the Trinity: John 14. It's part of the Last Supper. Jesus tells his disciples that he will be going to His Father's house to prepare a place for them (and for every Christian). He concludes by saying that they know the way to where He is going. Thomas asks how they can know the way, and Jesus replies (verses 6, 7) "'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.'"
(continuing) "Philip said, 'Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.' Jesus answered: 'Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father"? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.'"
You might take the last part as showing that Jesus isn't God because God's doing His work through Jesus, but I don't. Look at what it says: "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. ... Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?" It seems confusing if you pick at it long enough... and it is. We can't fully comprehend the Trinity, but it does exist: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. They are all God. They aren't all God the Father, but they all are God. There is a verse that speaks of how the Holy Spirit answers to Jesus and Jesus answers to the Father, but that is only a distinction of function, not being.
One thing I'm interested in hearing, Rene... If Jesus isn't God, who is He? Was He just a "good teacher"? Is He a spiritual being below God? Do we owe Him worship? Any special honor at all?
Well, since I had to unhook my computer for a few months, I have really missed out on a great discussion board! I am recommending to my friends and colleagues at seminary that they visit these boards from time to time to familiarize themselves with something other than the standard textbook stuff that is talked about in the classroom. A person can only read so much Karl Barth or Soren Kierkegaard before they go scooters (which explains me, sometimes!)
Anyway, if I may weigh in with some comments and observations:
The sole basis of Christianity in many, if not most, mainstream Christian denominations is a public profession of faith in Jesus of Nazareth, a.k.a. Jesus (or Yeshua) ben Joseph, as the Son of God, incarnate from YHWH, the One LORD God, who was crucified, died, and raised from the dead so that the sins of all people in all ages would be forgiven and right relationship with the Creator once again be established. How that profession takes place, and the exact wording of it varies. That's vastly oversimplified, which is one of the reasons why there has been so much debate, arguement, and downright fighting about Christianity since the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit compelled the apostle Peter to stand up and shoot his mouth off!
So let's take this from step 1: Jesus, the Messiah (or the Christos, in Greek) referred to himself as the Son of Man and the Son of God...you could spend megabytes of bandwidth debating that alone. But in the last half of the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus is talking about life and death and dying and living, and when he talks about Abraham seeing his (Jesus' day) the crowd around hims ask him how that was possible, since Abraham had died well over 2,000 years earlier, and Jesus replied: "..before Abraham was, I am." The real significance of this is that the phrase "I AM" was how YHWH identified himself to the people of Israel through Moses ("Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" - Exodus 3:14), therefore, Jesus' statement "...before Abraham was, I am" was his stating that he was not merely a prophet sent by God, but truly God!
I think the confusion about Christians supposedly being instructed by Scripture that they are to go door-to-door comes from what's known as the Great Commission: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations [people]...", Jesus' words to the Apostles at the end of Matthew's Gospel. To make disciples is not necessarily to go door-to-door, or street preaching, or handing out of Gospel tracts, though any of those things can be useful means of sharing one's faith with others when done properly, but to "make" a disciple is to take someone under your tutelage, to teach them that which you know; in essence, to share your life and who you are with someone else because you care so much for that person that you want them to share in the benefits of what you have seen and learned in your own life. St. Francis is said to have said something like, "I testify to the Gospel of Jesus Christ every day. Sometimes I even use words."
RE: stained glass, statues, icons, et al
Icons in the Eastern, or Orthodox, tradition (as I understand it; Orthodox brothers or sisters correct me if I am wrong) are a means of contemplation of the presence of God. One does not pray to them, nor does one worship them, but the image is a focal point for a time of contempletive prayer or meditataion. Stained glass and statues came to prominence in the Western/Catholic church during the Middle Ages when the vast majority of people could not read, and even if they could, almost no one aside from clergy and nobility could afford a Bible (because they had to be hand-copied from someone else's at great expense). So the statuary and stained glass of the cathedrals became a way of telling the story of Christianity in pictures, something to reinforce the oral tradition of Biblical stories passed on from generation to generation. Unfortunately, yes, there are some who pray to the statues in place of God - I think of almost every Catholic wedding I have been to in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (a city deeply steeped in Roman Catholicism) where, at one point in the ceremony, the bride kneels before the altar of the Blessed Mother (traditionally to the left of the "High" altar as you look at it) and pray to the Blessed Mother. I don't want to appear to knock praying to the saints. Though I, as a Presbyterian, and former Catholic, have strong feelings against such things, I know many Catholics for whom prayer to the saints is a powerful means of seeking God's will.
RE: Matt's statement about believing every word of the Ecumenical Creeds
Matt, by your standard I would not be considered a Christian. There are parts of the Scots Confession and the Westminster Catechism that I disagree with, particularly with regards to forbidding liturgical art and certain forms of music in worship. In fact, the 'every word of the Creeds' thing has been a bone of contention in my denomination - the Presbyterian Church (USA) - for the past few years as the denomination wrestles with the question of sexuality and church leadership. The USAToday version of the issue is that our constitution now has a clause in it forbidding the ordination of anyone who is unrepentant of "that which the Creeds call sin..." While I applaud the efforts of the denomination to set certain standards regarding sexual relations and those who are ordained as pastors, elders, or deacons (please note, this standard is meant to apply to all people, and is written so as not to single out any particular sexual orientation), I do have a problem with the Creed statement because I am 'guilty' of that which some of the Creeds call sin because I have used, and will continue to use, banners or drama or contemporary praise music as a part of worship. When it comes right down to it, the Creeds are expressions of our faith and traditions, but should not be held up as a standard by which people must be measured - the sole standard is Christ alone.
(I appologize for the length, but want to get this last point in.)
With regards to the question of marriage - I will not presume to tell anyone here how to live their lives. What I will say is that marriage is called a covenant. A covenant is a special relationship in which, if I can grossly oversimplify here (with apologies to my bocce teacher and ethics theologian Max Stackhouse for butchering his teaching), the parties involved are concerned with their mutual well-being and growth. It is a deeply personal committment to work for the well-being of the other. And a covenant cannot be broken except by mutual consent. Marriage today has many aspects of covenant, but is lacking in many as well, not the least of which is why some people even bother to get married at all if they have in the back of their minds that if they don't like the way things are going they'll just get a divorce. That's not a covenant, that's a contract. Two people who are living together may have that sense of covenant between them - a bond that would, and will, last a lifetime. And if they did, I would encourage those two people that, if they felt it was proper and beneficial to do so, they should make a public profession of that covenant and invite others to become a part of the covenant as well. In other words, when you get married, it is a public declaration of the covenant the two of you formally establish, and it is more than a marriage of two people, it is also about two families, two sets of friends, two careers all merging together into a messy and slightly fun oneness...in other words, two lives becoming one.
Which, when you think about it, is what I started talking about: that God so loves each person and wants each of us to be as one with Him, that He established a covenant with us - through Adam and Eve, through Abraham, through Jacob, through Moses and the tribes of Israel, through Ishmael and the children of Mohammed, and through the prophets, and finally became the covenant when He became a human being, living and experiencing all that it means to be human, and then dying, taking our brokenness (or sin) upon Himself, because He knew there was no way we would ever have the means to do that ourselves.
That, my brothers and sisters, is what it is about.
There are 3 ecumencal creeds whitch are accepted by all Christians. The Apostal's Creed, The Nicean Creed and the Athanaiasian Creed. They deal mostly with the Trinity.
What, pray tell, is the Athanaiasian Creed? Never heard of it before, although I'm familiar with the other two.
Athanasian Creed
Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic faith.
Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.
Now this is the Catholic faith:
That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their person nor dividing their essence.
For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
But the diviinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.
What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has.
The Father is uncreeated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated.
The Father is immeasurable, the Son is immeasurable, the Holy Spirit is immeasurable.
The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal.
And yet there are not three eternal beings; there is but one eternal being.
So too there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings; there is but one uncreated or immeasurable being.
Similarly, the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, the Holy Spirit is almighty.
Yet there are not three almighty beings; there is but one almighty being.
Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God.
Yet there are not three gods; there is but one God.
Thus the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord.
Yet there are not three lords; there is but one God.
Just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as both God and Lord, so catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords.
The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone.
The Son was neigher made nor created; he was begotten from the Father alone.
The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten; he proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Accordingly ther is one Father, not three fathers; there is one Son, not three sons; there is one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits.
Nothing in this trinity is before or after, nothing is greater or smaller; in their entirety the three persons are coeternal with each other.
So, in everything, as was said earlier, we must worhsip their trinity in their unity and their unity in their trinity.
Anyone then who desires to be saved should think thus about the trinity.
But it is necessary for eternal salvation that one also believe in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully.
Now this is the true faith:
That we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, is both God and human equally.
He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human, with arational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as regards divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity.
Although he is God and human, yet Christ is not two, but one. He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God's taking humanity to himself.
He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh, so too the one Christ is both God and human.
He suffered for our salvation; he descended into hell; he arose from the dead; he ascended into heaven; he is seated at the Father's right hand; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
At his coming all people willarise bodily and give an accounting of their own deeds.
Those who have done good will enter eternal life, and those who have done evil will enter eternal fire.
This is the catholic faith; one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.
Oh. Thank you!
Wait a minute, so all the dead now, are just dead? They will not know heaven until Jesus returns? Most folk do both Good and Evil, by choice or by chance, but in a Christian Universe we have no choice, all is known by God. The more I read of religions and beliefs, the less I believe. I do not want to be just a pawn of an angry and jealous God. I prefer to believe I have freewill and the choices I make are my own, to do good because I want to, not because I have to, to please another. The threat of eternal damnation seems to be a way the churches control the flock of believers. I prefer to make my own choices, and not to be dictated to by the superstitious. Amen
Using my World History book, which is secular but describes religions, I found the part that described the Protestant/Catholic split.
I don't know if the Catholic Church changed this, but according to the book--Protestants (1) felt that all men were priests, and didn't neeed a priest for confessional or communicating to God; (2) felt that church traditions were second to the Bible--i.e., no papacy; and (3) that salvation was earned by belief alone, not good works.
Would you believe that this is exactly what we've been discussing for the past few days in history class?
Uh James, you did read the part about Christ going to Hell and back for the salvation of humanity. this creed is not used that often as it is very lengthy.
A few questions about the nature of satan suggested by the discussion on the Wicca board, they more properly belong here.
Was the serpent from Genesis the same entity as Satan? If so, was his temptation of Adam and Eve the act of rebellion which led to his expulsion?
When Satan tempted Jesus in the desert, did Satan know who Jesus was (i.e. his divine nature)?
Why did God create Satan? Is God always more powerful than Satan? Do God and Satan always work for opposing ends, in every situation?
What I think is that
(1) The serpent is Satan.
(2) Satan was either already exiled from Heaven or was just about to lead his rebellion. I'm more towards already exiled, but I dunno.
(3) Satan was aware of who Jesus was. Satan has a vast knowledge of Scripture.
(4) God created Satan as an archangel. Satan chose to rebel. I basically believe that Satan is the Temptor, designed to test men's souls.
(5) Yes, God is always more powerful. God is a god, and Satan is an angel.
(6) I would say yes, they don't get on well. Job shows Satan and God having a bon mot style one-upmanship contest.
God is Infinitely more powerful than Satan. Thus there is a better chance a little leauge could beat the All star team.
>Satan was aware of who Jesus was. Satan has a vast knowledge of scripture.
If this is true, then wouldn't it be kind of silly for Satan to tempt Jesus with the kingdoms of the world and all that other stuff? Surely Satan would know that such a temptation would mean nothing to Jesus, and that the kingdoms of the world already belonged to Jesus if he wanted them and not to him (Satan). How did Satan figure he had the power to give over all the stuff he tempted Jesus with? That's like me offering to give you a car that you already have the ownership papers in your name to.
Satan has vast power, and probably could have given Jesus empires. He was trying to do so because (1) he was not aware he would fail (that part of the Bible wasn't written yet, and Satan doesn't really care), and (2) he was trying to deter Jesus from doing whatever it is he was trying to do. (The Old Testament does not specify what the Messiah will do)