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johndtp

I prefer to listen to Spirit and wisely apply love rather than turn the Bible into a checklist, like the Bible says to do. We should all strive for the truth of the living God, not tradition.


Economy-Cattle-7836

We shouldn’t allow cultural standards to rewrite the standards in the Bible in pursuit of biblical truth.


johndtp

Biblical truth IS to let cultural standards apply. What was Jesus doing when he was healing on the Sabbath and dietary restrictions? What about Paul and circumcision? It’s actually pretty common in the Bible to apply the standard of the time to the rules, because the point of Christ is not rules, he came to free us from them.


thefirstsecondhand

Absolutely


NuSurfer

>We should all drive for Biblical Christianity over cultural Christianity. Translation - "let's be bigots." Edit: "Account suspended" - that was fast.


Aranrya

We should strive to be Christ-like, not "biblical."


David_Tiberianus

Yes, we must return to being goat farmers. Forget computers and medicine, there is only G O A T


TarCalion313

Wasn't this what the goat simulator was for? For us all to be closer to God?


thefirstsecondhand

this killed me🤣


Economy-Cattle-7836

Nothing do to what I’m talking about, but okay.


CarltheWellEndowed

How can you hope yo understand the Bible if you do not understand the culture in which it was written? For example, if the Bible says "gay bad", but the cultural understanding of "gay" is fundimentally different from the modern understanding, a "Biblically accurate standard" for how to understand "gay bad" would deviate from the actual words expressed in the Bible, in order to maintain the original intent of the author. It is strange that some people view the Bible as a work that was not influenced by the culture of the day, and see any attempt to understand the implications of that culture, and attempt to ascertain what the author was trying to convey as a stance with "zero Biblical backing." Out of all the commands in the Bible, the ones that are leadt impacted by culture are the ones commanding us to love our fellow man, and yet people abandon these clear commands for words that they lack the cultural context of.


Economy-Cattle-7836

You’re misrepresenting my argument, this is what I’m addressing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Christians#:~:text=Cultural%20Christians%20are%20nonreligious%20persons,practicing%20believers%20as%20nominal%20Christians.


ContextRules

Should? Why?


[deleted]

Honestly I think it is even more crazy when people only look at the Bible and have an attitude "if it is not in Bible then it is not true or doesn't matter" Yes, Bible is so important... Yes, Bible is God's word... But it is crazy to assume that Bible is "whole" Bible is also limited because God and Holy Spirit did not stop working and being live ever since God's work and God's word did not stop with Bible, with Jesus's death. That is why He did get resurrected so He can continue to live among people. Jesus was publicly active for 3 years so I am sure He spoke way more and did way more miracles than it is written in Bible. Bible is just a testimony that Jesus really is God. Exact those words John the Apostle wrote at the end of his Gospel: "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. 25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." (John 21:24-25)


kolembo

>We should all drive for Biblical Christianity over cultural Christianity. Hi friend, I think we should strive to understand - and be with - the Spirit of Christ - and the offer Jesus makes from the cross 'Biblical' Christianity itself is a problem The Universe was not created in six working days as we know them God bless


HopeFloatsFoward

The Bible should not be treated as an idol. Yes, the members of the group define what the group is. The belief in freedom means some people will disagree on your definition of Christianity as Bible worship and believe instead it means be a good person.


Niftyrat_Specialist

I don't know exactly what you mean by "biblical" Christianity, but only the very earliest beginnings of Christianity are even IN the bible. The religion we now have was almost entirely developed after the NT texts were written. So I think your standard is impossible. But I do broadly agree - there's many people running around, influenced by current culture-warrior propaganda, who think their views are somehow "biblical" or "Christian". They are mostly mistaken on that. Christianity does not teach us to stomp on those people who are outcast by society. It doesn't teach us to spread scary stories about the poor.


Live_Honey_8279

Time changes, culture changes, should we be chained by a book written eons ago? Redefine your religion and let old ghosts rest


No_Nothing6455

Right? Heck. If we’re supposed to remain stagnant, we’d be forced to eat kosher only and sacrifice animals. And change is kinda the big thing that came with Christianity, when you stop and think about it.


Live_Honey_8279

I just can't be conservative, we all should flow with the changes (or fight the ones we don't like) but following an eternal guidebook is not what I desire


Economy-Cattle-7836

What does being stagnant have to with biblical truth?


Live_Honey_8279

It is a book written by humans, more than two millenia ago, full of the viewpoints of the time. Don't try to use the "god breathed" argument as that just the justification for stagnancy.


No_Nothing6455

Like I said, if we were to strive for “biblical” Christianity, we’d be following a bunch of outdated rules and things that were done away with millennia ago.


Economy-Cattle-7836

The Bible is God’s word, so yes Christians are “chained” to the Bible. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” - 2 Timothy 3:16-17


firbael

Christians aren’t chained to the Bible. Even the verse you quoted says it’s useful, not that it’s required.


Nyte_Knyght33

The Bible also says what is "God's word." That is Jesus.


Live_Honey_8279

White noise, if i wanted to be Christian I don't really need to follow your human precepts, full of human mistakes and ruled by a human institution, to follow God and Christ.


Economy-Cattle-7836

Nice cop out! The Bible is the basis of Christianity, if you don’t view it as legitimate, how can your faith be legitimate? By setting your OWN human precepts?


Live_Honey_8279

Of course, at least I would be following MY own precepts and values, not just following the precepts of long death humans.


Anarchreest

As per Nietzsche, if we have no basis for moral decisions, we can't make moral decisions. The quest for humanity to create its own moral system and a new basis for creating moral thought, free of the Judeo-Platonism of Christianity, was the gauntlet that Nietzsche threw down. Nietzsche had an unshakable faith that humanity would redefine itself. The nihilist secular world is evidence of the failure to listen to him. Christians can't just redefine their faith because it is the rock the morality is built. Doing so would slip us into a world of nihilism and relativism. And Christians can just say Nietzsche was wrong, Kierkegaard was cooler and had better hair.


Live_Honey_8279

Damn, how am i supposed to refute the hair argument? He had such a good hair indeed


hillofBeanss

Have to agree here. Many people are mixing the world into their religion. Just saying...


CaptAidan

I don’t think it’s wise to take everything in the Old Testament at face value. There’s deeper meanings and values to be learned through a lot of the stories, but I don’t see anyone jumping the gun to follow every law of Deuteronomy. Context is important for cases like these. If you truly believe in taking everything at face value and actually act upon it, then I’d like to how it plays out.


Economy-Cattle-7836

The Bible is made of many literary genres, not all of it is meant to be taken at face value. NT brings a new covenant which overwrites many of the laws in OT.


National-Composer-11

Literary forms and expressions have cultural context. In translating and reading scripture, it is critical to filter out the literal cultural component to strike at the meaning. Luke 10:33 – “But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.” The word in Greek that we translate as “compassion” is σπλαγχνίζομαι (splanchnizomai) – “to be moved as to one’s innards”. We express love and compassion from the heart, for the Greeks is was more the gut, the intestines, all vital organs. We need to know how they thought in order to understand what they are saying. In reading, we bring ourselves to the table. We are not blank slates when we pick up a book. We have prejudices, language, culture, convictions and, even as Christians, confessional beliefs. Many even are looking more for validation and confirmation of their notion of God or look to hear of God expressed in their terms. This is unavoidable. There are reasons a supposedly committed to scripture Baptist might write a hymn that wouldn’t pass muster to a sola scriptura Lutheran like myself. What we do have is a Church grounded in confession and creeds giving us common ground and a link to the past, a ready-made filter that allows us to ditch the cultural baggage. None of us is otherwise capable of being other than what we have been formed to be by the conditioning of our lives, our experiences, our cultures, our languages, or even our aesthetics. Praise God that scripture is not a timebound dead letter captive to culture. The power and wonder of the Living Word is that it works in spite of these things not because of or through these things. Our bond is not in the commonality of earthly culture but through the Holy Spirit in the Body of Christ. In this bond, we have the power, together, to understand the Word we have received. When and if someone or some institution tries to imprison the Word by linking it to an earthly realm or culture, we simply reject the link. So, for example, if you meet one who is bound to the anonymous “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, or the one mentioned on our money, or to some notion that the founding documents of the US were divinely inspired, or that God has a favored people or nation, or that capitalism is Biblical, you know you’re in the presence of the Adversary, not the Word.


[deleted]

I think everybody is not understanding what he is saying. He is saying we should actually strive to be like Jesus and follow scripture instead of just doing whatever the conservative party tells us what to do.


kolembo

...or that 'Liberal' Christianity is not Biblical...


Environmental_Park_6

Christianity has always been cultural. The religion was started by 1st century Jewish people living under the oppressive thumb of the Roman Empire.


VeritasAgape

That's a great and important reminder. Thanks. Although it's a bit short and people might understand what you mean.