"True worship acceptable to God"

[Elijah John]

Jehovah's Witnesses claim to be the only group which practices "true worship acceptable to God" and that all other sects do not.

Seems an extraordinary claim.

Prove it!,... Give us extraordinary proof to support your extraordinary claim.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 14 by 2timothy316]



[center]

Ouch, true worship is going to STING[/center]

"Therefore, I appeal to you by the compassions of God, brothers, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, a sacred service with your power of reason. And stop being molded by this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over, so that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." Romans 12:1, 2

You have to present your BODY as a living SACRIFICE?

If you are worshiping in the spirit and the truth, how come you aren't dead yet?

And here I was thinking God doesn't want human sacrifice, that he's appalled by it, that Jesus sacrificed himself so that we humans didn't have pay the ransom or something like that.
Silly me...

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 36 by tam]



[center]

In this part of the forum the BIBLE is the final authority.[/center]

Thank you for your opinion, Blastcat.

Of course, this is not really the point of my post (re: the claim that the final authority is the bible, rather than the truth that the final authority - except over His own Father - is Christ.) So I am not really interested in getting into a different topic with you at the moment and on this thread.

No problem.

I just brought it up because that passage is usually considered to be a good command. I think it's one of the worst in the Bible. It's not that it's an evil command, really, I think it might have been well meant. BUT I do think that it's crazy.


Whoever wrote the Bible were far better at poetry than reasoning, that's for sure.


When I mean "crazy" I mean "does not make any sense if we are to follow it in the real world". I think that's why most people don't follow the command at all. It's so stupid. We HAVE to be able to defend ourselves, and we DO.

Turn the other cheek?
That's STUPID.

But let's not talk about that. It's not pertinent to the OP.

But in THIS forum, tam, we ARE supposed to take the Bible as authoritative. Not whatever we can dream up in our heads about "Christ" or the Father.

In THIS forum, as I often forget, we are NOT allowed to question what the final authority is. It's the Bible in here, tam.

Thanks for your opinion about what you think the final authority should be.

[dio9]

True worship is to be not like a Pharisee's of empty ritual , (no offense to any modern day Christian Pharisees) for the sake of ritual. But of genuine gratefulness for all good things around us.
When you sit down to eat , are you worship-fully grateful for your bread? True Worship is nothing more than appreciation and gratitude.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 43 by dio9]



[center]

The repugnant and fallacious "Holier than thou" argument.[/center]

True worship is to be not like a Pharisee's of empty ritual , (no offense to any modern day Christian Pharisees) for the sake of ritual. But of genuine gratefulness for all good things around us.

Meh.. the people you call Pharisee's might see things differently. They might call YOU the "Pharisee". Calling other people names isn't the best kind of argument you can make.

When we say "TRUE WORSHIP" of COURSE we mean GENUINE worship.
Just changing the word "true" to "genuine" doesn't make for a very good argument, either.

When we say "TRUE WORSHIP", of COURSE we do not mean "empty ritual".
Changing the word for something explains NOTHING.

And it's quite obvious to an outsider to your faith that some Christians might call your brand of worship "empty rituals" and not genuine at all. They might call your kind of worshiping "fake", and only THEIRS "true".

What you SHOULD be focusing on is WHAT precisely constitutes REAL ritual, and REAL
"gratefulness". I think it's PRETTY obvious to me that if I were to ask ANY Christian of ANY kind ( including modern day Pharisees, if there are any who call themselves that ) IF THEY ARE GRATEFUL TO GOD...

Oh come on.
Of course they would all say YES.


What I'm seeing here is a kind of a "holier than thou" opinionating.


This is how I interpret what you said:

"I KNOW what the true worship is, and anyone who disagrees with me don't"


I see that as the HEIGHT of arrogance.
Where is the Christian humility?

I don't see any of that at ALL, sorry to say.
Are YOU the judge of what constitutes "true worship"?

Are you the judge of all Christians?
Who put YOU in charge of all Christians?

I'm an outsider to all of this.. but I can plainly see that a lot of people come in here thinking that they can speak for God, and for all Christians.

I am skeptical of those claims.

[otseng]

OMG! This has to be the best response I have ever had! You can read... sort of!

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[Elijah John]

You have the problem of figuring out how you are going to continue to count Jesus' teachings as worthless, and how to continue to cling to your distorted views on what makes a true Christian, in spite of what the Bible says.


.

Just because we disagree on interpretation does not mean that I "continue to count Jesus' teachings as worthless" as you charge.

"In spite of what the Bible says"? Correction, in spite of what YOU (and your organization) say the Bible says.

Can you tell me what scriptures in my posts are NOT what I think they say? Can you explain, for example, how I'm wrong in my understanding of Matthew 5:44 and John 13:35?

.

Pacifism is worth a thread of it's own. A couple of possibilities here though.

-We both agree that Jesus is not God, so being human, he could have been wrong on this one.
-He could have been preaching an ideal, not a minimum standard. An ideal for the martyrs.
-He could have been using hyperbole, and exaggerating to make the point that one should take care to avoid conflict, and to not escalate by retaliation.

There are major implications though, to taking this verse literally as your group has done.

But even if your interpretation is right and real, is pacifism the sole criteria as to what defines "true worship"?

If so, the Quakers too, are practice "true worship" don't they?

But grant for the sake of argument that your group is right on this issue. You folks could be, (and are, from my pov) wrong on other issues.

And other sects are right about some issues even IF they are wrong on this one.

So who practices "true worship acceptable to God"? Your group alone, the other Christian sects, or all Christians and other religions as well?

You really think that God rejects others who seek Him, who love Him, who thank Him, who praise and worship Him because they are "doing it wrong"?

[dio9]

[Replying to post 43 by dio9]



[center]

The repugnant and fallacious "Holier than thou" argument.[/center]

True worship is to be not like a Pharisee's of empty ritual , (no offense to any modern day Christian Pharisees) for the sake of ritual. But of genuine gratefulness for all good things around us.

Meh.. the people you call Pharisee's might see things differently. They might call YOU the "Pharisee". Calling other people names isn't the best kind of argument you can make.

When we say "TRUE WORSHIP" of COURSE we mean GENUINE worship.
Just changing the name doesn't make for a very good argument.

When we say "TRUE WORSHIP", of COURSE we do not mean "empty ritual".
Changing the word for something explains NOTHING.

And it's quite obvious to an outsider to your faith that some Christians might call your brand of worship "empty rituals" and not genuine at all. They might call your kind of worshiping "fake", and only THEIRS "true".

What you SHOULD be focusing on is WHAT precisely constitutes REAL ritual, and REAL
"gratefulness". I think it's PRETTY obvious to me that if I were to ask ANY Christian of ANY kind ( including modern day Pharisees, if there are any who call themselves that ) IF THEY ARE GRATEFUL TO GOD...

Oh come on.
Of course they would all say YES.


What I'm seeing here is a kind of a "holier than thou" opinionating.


This is how I interpret what you said:

"I KNOW what the true worship is, and anyone who disagrees with me don't"


I see that as the HEIGHT of arrogance.
Where is the Christian humility?

I don't see any of that at ALL, sorry to say.
Are YOU the judge of what constitutes "true worship"?

Are you the judge of all Christians?
Who put YOU in charge of all Christians?

I'm an outsider to all of this.. but I can plainly see that a lot of people come in here thinking that they can speak for God, and for all Christians.

I am skeptical of those claims.

Should I have said honest gratitude and appreciation is worship?

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 47 by dio9]




[center]
True Worship: We should be honest[/center]

Should I have said honest gratitude and appreciation is worship?

I can't tell you what to think.

It seems that NOW you are saying that anyone who doesn't agree with you are DISHONEST.

Are you saying that?

If I were to ask any Christian if they worship HONESTLY, do you THINK they would say YES to that? What is the POINT of saying we should be honest?

I learned that at 3.

Should I now question your honesty?
You might SAY you are honest.. but really?

ARE YOU?
AM I?


Is anyone?

[onewithhim]

True worship is to be not like a Pharisee's of empty ritual , (no offense to any modern day Christian Pharisees) for the sake of ritual. But of genuine gratefulness for all good things around us.
When you sit down to eat , are you worship-fully grateful for your bread? True Worship is nothing more than appreciation and gratitude.

So you are really saying that let's never mind the Bible---it is a bunch of crazy talk. Right?

[onewithhim]

You have the problem of figuring out how you are going to continue to count Jesus' teachings as worthless, and how to continue to cling to your distorted views on what makes a true Christian, in spite of what the Bible says.


.

Just because we disagree on interpretation does not mean that I "continue to count Jesus' teachings as worthless" as you charge.

"In spite of what the Bible says"? Correction, in spite of what YOU (and your organization) say the Bible says.

Can you tell me what scriptures in my posts are NOT what I think they say? Can you explain, for example, how I'm wrong in my understanding of Matthew 5:44 and John 13:35?

.

Pacifism is worth a thread of it's own. A couple of possibilities here though.

-We both agree that Jesus is not God, so being human, he could have been wrong on this one.
-He could have been preaching an ideal, not a minimum standard. An ideal for the martyrs.
-He could have been using hyperbole, and exaggerating to make the point that one should take care to avoid conflict, and to not escalate by retaliation.

There are major implications though, to taking this verse literally as your group has done.

But even if your interpretation is right and real, is pacifism the sole criteria as to what defines "true worship"?

If so, the Quakers too, are practice "true worship" don't they?

But grant for the sake of argument that your group is right on this issue. You folks could be, (and are, from my pov) wrong on other issues.

And other sects are right about some issues even IF they are wrong on this one.

So who practices "true worship acceptable to God"? Your group alone, the other Christian sects, or all Christians and other religions as well?

You really think that God rejects others who seek Him, who love Him, who thank Him, who praise and worship Him because they are "doing it wrong"?

"True Worship" would include ALL of the things I listed in my 2 posts. Quakers do not practice them all. (And what kind of Pacifist religion would not object if one of their members became a NON-pacifist? Richard Nixon threw all of that aside when he became Chief of the Armed Forces.)

You tell me---what sects and religions practice ALL of the things on my lists? Tell me, for I would like to know.


.