marco wrote:From schooldays too I recall my Latin master telling us that mistakes are a useful learning process. We learn from them rather than laugh at them. If I recapture the beliefs of my childhood I should imagine there will be a permanent smile on my face. Dread thought.... Perhaps teaching the ignorant instead of laughing at them is the Christian thing to do. It may be that the quiet voice of truth is drowned out by our own laughter - be we believer or atheist.
The mistake you seem to be making, Marco, is taking my "merriment" personally, in the sense that I'm laughing at you, rather than merely at your comments. That's easy to do... I can understand that, but, well, it's not meant that way.
Too, describing it as "merriment" is a mischaracterization thereof; such is really not the case. Again, I chuckle at the comments I see, and not at the person, but it goes much further than that. To explain:
I pray for my children every day that they will never know a day when they didn't know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior... for them, but also because
I can't say that about myself. There was a day up until which I had the same -- or at least a similar, in many aspects -- outlook on God and Christ and the Bible as you and many others on this forum. Thanks be to God, those days are in the rear view mirror for me, but from time to time I look back at a lot of the things I thought and said... and I laugh -- sometimes in amusement, sometimes in regret, and sometimes even in pain. The point is, I was once where you are... or at least a quite similar place. But then, God... well, to put it Biblically, He redeemed my life from the pit (Job, the Psalms, et al.). He called me out of darkness and into His marvelous light. Because I deserved it? Most certainly not; I deserved just the opposite. But He did it, because, as the Bible says, it pleased Him to do so. Why? I have absolutely no idea. And so, there's a hopefulness in my "merriment," too, that God might do for you what He did for me. So there ya go.
As for the teaching comment, I agree with you on that, but that's exactly what I've been doing. Or trying to do, anyway; a teacher's job is immensely harder (if not impossible) when the hearer takes things personally, even though that's not the intent of the teacher. But I can't let myself be deterred; God is sovereign over all that.
marco wrote:If Jesus did not see himself as God, but as the VIP spoken about by sundry prophets, why should we in this advanced year think otherwise?
PinSeeker wrote:Ah, but He most certainly did. Many times. We've had that conversation, several times over. The only two possibilities we're really left with are that He was either 1.) a complete lunatic, or 2.) He was (is) who He said He was (is) -- God, made man.
I see immediately there is the possibility of Christ being sane, but wrong in his ideas. There is evidence of that too. There is another possibility that people take the words of Christ and attach a meaning he never intended - and he retains his sanity. I don't know why you would wish to entertain only two possibilities.
Ah, but His "ideas" are not really what we're talking about, here, is it, Marco? No, the immediate context here was Jesus claiming to be God, which He did many times over. Forget about whether you believe Him or not; if a person claims to be God, those are really the only two alternatives. Either he (or she) is nuts, or he (she) is who he (she) says he (she) is.
marco wrote:Go well and may your God go with you.
Well thanks. But my God has promised to never leave or forsake me, so I don't have to worry about His going with me. I do have to make sure that I always go with Him, though. But I hope the same for you.
