Well the question is "did Jesus require anything". If you are requiring someone to do something, that means they have to work to accomplish the task. Christ simply said that if they believed He was the Son of God, than they'd be saved. It's faith.
I'm not a protestant, and I disagree with your "faith alone" doctrine. But that's not what this question is about.
I'm not talking about salvation, either.
I'm simply talking about conditions placed on whether Christ allowed someone to follow Him.
Well Christ allowed anyone to follow him. Sorry I guess my brain is too fried tonight to say exactly what I mean or completely understand the exact meaning of the question.
Christ, during His ministry, told some followers that they had to satisfy conditions before following Him.
They had to commit to their faith both by following Christ's commands and turning from sin.
For example, Luke 14:33 - In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
Mt 16:24 - Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
And then there's the story of the rich man who asked to follow Him and be saved. First Jesus advises the man to obey the commandments, and then told him to sell his possessions and give the money to the poor.
Both of those conditions are "works"
In that story of the rich man, I understand those commands to be so the man could literally follow Christ. I don't believe Christ is saying he had to do those works to be saved.
Yeah a handful of Christians are dicks just like a handful of Muslims are terrorist. All Christians must be dick and all Muslims must be terrorist kinda like the dicks are real Christians like ISIS are real Muslims
About 90% of the literally thousands of Christians I've known. I don't know what percentage that is of all Christians. Maybe I just have really really bad luck.
It's not accurate, it has to be your area. I'm assuming it may be because if your sexual preferences and we invite gays to our church and we have a gay in our clergy actually. Maybe my church is more accepting than most Christians. I don't know
It has nothing to do with being gay. The Christians I grew up around had no idea I was gay. They were just dicks in general about everything and anything not exactly like them. But yes I'm sure it's a statistical anomaly.
Of course I have. My non-religious friends aren't racist, sexist, classist, heterosexist... My Christian family and acquaintances are all of the above.
Listen, as I said elsewhere, if I loved this Jesus guy I'd be here apologizing to anyone who experiences Christ-followers as dicks. Instead you're here defending it and belittling my experience. How loving of you.
Yes, when you insult an entire class of people I don't take that lightly. Probably the same way that you would take it if I wrote "90% of gays/Dems/women (etc) are dicks." (Of course I don't think this.)
I would and have easily disparaged religious people and political parties as a group because they chose to belong and are accountable for that and their actions.
Kermie look, the people who follow the religion the way Jesus would want them to wouldn't give you that impression. You are seeing the fault in the people themselves that has nothing to do with their religion that they have chosen.
Besides, the modern interpretation of Christianity attracts dickish people. It's not like Christians are a random selection of all people. They're a self-selected group, which attracts people who are already fearful, petty, and narrow-minded.
Hate the sin, not the sinner. I personally think gays go to heaven and it's taught it my church. Being gay is a sin just like every other sin in the book. If every other sin sent you to hell, no one would go. Being gay is just a sin like any other
Look, I know some really decent Christian people. Some of the nicest people I know are Christians. I'm just saying the vast majority I know aren't nice at all. And they do it in the name of Christ. So you can't totally absolve their religion.
There is a church of about 250 Christians in PA all of which accept gays for who they are and even elect them into positions within the church. We have roughly 15 openly gay men and women in our church, all of which are treated no differently
It's not horrific, I would love to have you attend our church one time.. Just one time.. Being gay would be looked upon no differently than you telling them you smoked. Who cars, it doesn't change your character does it? Plus we are taught not to
One of the most damaging things our Founding Fathers did was equate religion (a chosen aspect) with things like sex and race (which aren't.) People get a free pass to be horrible because "freedom of religion." I'm sick of it.
Judge because only god can do that. It's not our place. Our job is to accept them for the person they are and praise god within our walls with them like they are any other sinner because that's what we are. A roomful of sinners
That sounds amazing, Nathan. I'm all for that. If people actually practice that (and are the same way about transgender, race, immigrants, etc.) and actually live what they preach, that's awesome! Like I said I know a handful of ppl who are similar.
But look around. Most of the Christians here are not like that. Most of the Christians in the world are not like that. Maybe someday they will be. Right now they aren't. And you as much as anyone should be calling the heretics out.
Instead you want to give your wayward brethren a free pass and pretend Christians don't do horrible things in the name of Christ to all kinds of people around the world. Speak up! Call them out. Show your faith if it's actually what you say it is.
It's practiced by all of us in a genuine form at my church. One guy was actually rude to a very feminine gay teen about a month ago because of him being different and gay and he was very promptly informed for about an hour and a half about why he
Was wrong and why his action of judging the young man was far worse than his sin of being gay and since it occurred about halfway through the service his scolding of the man lasted half an hour past the time church let's out and no one left
He preacher left to a standing ovation but the man who made the comments refused to apologize and was asked to not come back until he was ready to because that behavior will not be accepted in our walls
Kermie I don't know why anyone takes the time to reply to you. You consistently take every opportunity to enter polls about religion and say the same stuff over and over. You have a chip on your shoulder about people of faith, discussion is futile.
Easy now, he's coming along. No need to re-attack. He obviously has a reason to act the way he does, theirs no reason to attack. That will solve nothing
Every man is worth the time to transform his view of my religion because I'm taught my faith should reflect Jesus and when they talk to me and see me they should feel as if they were talking to and seeing Jesus and it should be obvious to see
Oh it was a long time and usually people complain when the sermon goes 5 mins over but no one left or said a word that time. They could sense that what he was saying was very important and it was actually pretty fun to experience
Thanks for reminding me why I should use the poll targeting feature more often, Kermie.
Clearly people like you can't handle polite conversations about faith.
Come on guys he's being respectful to me now, just treat him alright and I'm sure he will. He does get defensive though, but I treated him ok and he's being completely ok with me
Nathan, he's not ok with you. Not really.
I've had these conversations with him before- polite, respectful, etc., and he always snaps back to his prejudices.
My efforts didn't make it into his long term memory. Neither will yours.
But good luck.
Nathan, maybe the two of you could continue your conversation in Messages, rather than supporting his practice if hijacking polls like this. But I doubt he would want a private discussion.
My bad I thought since their was 3 Christians talking to kermie and Christians were called 90% dicks earlier in the thread that that's where you were coming from. I stopped reading the other comments when they got out of hand
I said conditional, but mainly because of the young ruler (already mentioned in comments) and also he said "Take up your cross and follow me. That's for everyone...
...Also I could see unconditional because of His unconditional love, and because some of the people that followed him were... shady: Matthew the tax collector, Paul who was Saul. But he requires us to meet Him halfway, there is no lukewarm.
Telling people to leave everything behind, to give up sinful lifestyles, to sell all they own and give their money to the poor, to drop what they were doing...
It's pretty much His m.o.
Oh, just the part where you had to leave mother and father behind, all of your riches, basically everything gets left behind. Then you put Jesus first.
Show of Hands
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