Bible Questions?

What do you believe the word worship to mean?

Here is a Scripture for you;
Jesus said to her: “Believe me, woman, The hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will YOU people worship the Father. YOU worship what YOU do not know; we worship what we know, because salvation originates with the Jews. Nevertheless, the hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him. God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth.” (John 4:21-24)

What does Jesus worship?

 

So could the earthquak e in Haiti be said to be another one of God's 'punishments'?

The seven plagues, the floods, now an earthquake?

I can accept that maybe God did not cause the quake to happen, but surely such a loving God as shown in the New Testament would not have just stood back and let it all happen.

 

No the the earthquake was not a "punishment" from God.

An increase in earthquakes is a sign that we are living in the last days but no one is being directly punished by them.

As for God standing by and letting "things" happen, one of the things the Bible teaches is that in the beginning mankind basically said to God; we know better than you and we don't need your help, leave us alone and that is what God is doing. He is allowing mankind time to realize that we don't know better than him and that we do need his help.

I know some won't agree but to me it seems mankind is on the verge of self extinction and that means God will soon step in to prevent mankind's total extinction and will save those that have come to realize that mankind can not live without God.

 

How are we to pray?

 

I was always taught to believe that God is our father, and we his children. He allows us to make mistakes, so that we learn from them and in time come to understand that He is right and only wants what is best for us?

Although, it all seems very harsh and not the kind, loving God I was led to believe. Yes, we may have turned our backs on him and thought we know better - all children do that to our parents. But, God saying - "I'll just let you die", which is what He is basically doing - doesn't show us that He is the right way, just that He has the power to be petty and kill those who don't follow His every word.

He sent Jesus - but that was 2000 years ago, things have changed dramatically since then. If we have rebelled that much, a loving father would just point that out, make us aware by proving who He is - not making us aware by killing thousands. The people that might have died in the earthquake for example may have been devout Christians. What does that show?

Or like in the news today, that Osama Bin Laden is claimed to be alive and vowing more attacks - How can God let that happen to 'innocent' people. Again, as above, it isn't like he is allowing the non-christians to die, but anyone who is unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

Better: Who does Jesus worship?

The Son Incarnate worships the Father in complete obedience to God according to his human nature. Jesus is worshiped and glorified with the Father according to his Divinity.

 

Is there only one true religion?

if so,

Who determines which religion that is? and if the bible is the word of God, why wouldn't the bible itself be the religion?

 

Since christ resurrected and was able to come back I would say that the weight of his supposed sacrifice is greatly diminished, loving ones enemies is an immoral thing to ask of anyone.

No, it means he knowingly created the decision, whatevere that may be.

 

what living example?

It is not you who responded but a greater will, a will of life with a penchant for jubilation and egg nog.

 

The course of life, the impermanence of death, the path to fulfillment.

There is no opposing will. It is not necessary for the student to be greater than the teacher. It is enough that the student be like the teacher.
Everyone has their pets.

 

Yes but there is more to it than that.

You are forgetting that God also has the power to bring people back to life, the resurrection and the there is going to be a resurrection for the righteous and the unrighteous. So to God death is a little like a father giving his child a time out.

One, at this time God is killing no one. Two, things have not changed that much, accept as you have pointed out, that mankind has rebelled that much more. Really, it is still true there is nothing new under the sun.

As for proving who he is, we still have his word the Bible and the good news is still being taught worldwide and people are still being told the truth and being allowed to decide for themselves whether they want to accept it or not.

And about the devout Christians who may have died in the earthquake, time and unseen circumstance befall us all and those died are now asleep in death and will be resurrection in the near future onto a paradise earth to live forever.

As I said there is more that is involved in this matter, in the beginning when mankind turned their back on God more was involved than just children turning their back on their "Father". God at that time was accused of withholding what is good from mankind and of ruling improperly, thus a kind of "court case" has ensued and thus God can not just step in and fix things until that case is resolved. The only way to adjudicate that judicial case is let mankind try to run things their own way until it is obvious to everyone that mankind has tried everything and the only way for mankind's problems to be solved is to turn to God. Then God will step in and fix things.

 

If Jesus worships the Father, does the Father worship Jesus?

 

Yes

God

In a way it is, the big problem comes when a religion deviates from the Bible what the Bible says.

 

An act of humility and submission.

What does "with spirit and truth mean"?

The Father, but do we have the same relationship to God as Jesus does and would that make a difference in how we worship? Is it wrong to worship Jesus?

 

If someone willing took a bullet for you would you think less of him if he didn't end up dying?

How is loving a fellow human being wrong?

Knowing what will happen and creating what will happen are two different things. God doesn't force decisions. He didn't set out to create puppets.

 

I don't know what the poster had in mind, but the "living example" I take as my role model is that of a righteous Jewish hippie liberal who challenged establishment religion, socialized and ate with people of all classes, including society's rejects, rejected materialism and preached unconditional love. Whether the historical Jesus was that living example is more difficult to determine, but irrelevant to me. It was that example that shaped my personal value system.

As for sacrifice, including human sacrifice, Paul, the first whose writings about Jesus are known, got a lot of mileage out of the analogy between Jesus and the Paschal lamb. Animal sacrifice was central to Jewish worship, and the Jews also had the tradition of the scapegoat who could symbolically take away the sins of the community. Paul, whose only contact with Jesus was through a vision, seemed to think Jesus' death was more important than his life. Except for the teaching on divorce, Paul seems little concerned with the particulars of Jesus' life.

I think the sacrifice and the cross are useful metaphors and symbols of the victory of an enlightened human spirit over bureaucratic oppression, and (contra Ayn Rand and her minions) I admire sacrifice of our own wants for the benefit of others. I don't accept the Augustinian/Calvinist notion that God sent his son to be tortured and die in order to appease His own anger at his human creations because of their design defects He knew about before he designed them. I get angry sometimes when things I build don't work properly, but consider it an advance in maturity to get over it; I certainly wouldn't attribute an infatile/psychotic mental state to Someone I worship. If OWB and conventional Christians are right, we're all in really big trouble!

 

So your saying that christ did not die but instead was just severely wounded?

Your comparing what would have been a personel relationship with what is the worship of a preacher who has been dead for over 2000 years, and yes if the person who took the bullet for me claimed he was the son of a god and that only through his sacrifice that the world could be saved because we are all sinners and he alone could heal us, I would think less of him.

What a world we would live in if every Hitler, Mao and Hussein were mindlessly loved by everyone instead of challenged and destroyed, go love your own enemies.

If god did not set out to create puppets why attempt to govern the people by any rules at all, why not stay silent through the entire experiment instead of offering human sacrifice and commandments to worship him?

You seem to want to say that god is only half omnipotent.

 

It's not that simple. God demands things in a different way that humans demands. God's display of anger has been different than man's display of anger, for example, so God's need for balance is different than man's way of balance. Jesus' sacrifice created a balance that could not otherwise be fulfilled unless fulfilled exactly as prophecies said they would be fulfilled. I personally see it as pushing through a narrow gateway to get to the other side, because that's exactly what Jesus did. Exactly as you say that he did what he did concerning breaking the mold as it were to a certain kind of value system and transformed our ways on dealing with things. It was as though we had forgotten those ways but Jesus needed to do what he did because we live in a very spiritual universe and these matters needed to be proven possible and the only way that could have been done is to refuse to sin and this refusal caused, for a lack of a better word, predestined set of actions concerning Jesus' refusal to sin and their outcomes from a sinful mankind. God and Jesus knew their outcomes of Jesus' refusal to sin. It's like that example that we know 50 people will call in sick to work tomorrow, but we don't know which 50. But since Jesus is God's son, he understands the heart and knows where those holdings of the heart will lead to so would use that understanding to fulfill prophecy. Now that doesn't mean he took away people's decision making process, but only that it is akin to a mother having a pretty good idea that their son won't do their homework when asked to do it because she knows her sons ways and what has prevented him from doing his homework in the past.

He broke that ribbon at the end of the finish line.

So no, there is nothing infantile/psychotic, as you put it. It was actually quite sane. So the focus itself isn't on the actual sacrifice, but that decision to not sin that had lead to that sacrifice and the 'tearing open' of sin by that refusal - God knew what that refusal on a strictly spiritual level would end up causing so thus knew it's end result (blood being spilled) ahead of time. What better way to describe what Jesus did than to use the imagery of a lamb being put to slaughter?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ng9oEIbZGI"]Metallica - Until it Sleeps
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You would honestly critizized and look down on the person who had just saved your life? Interesting.

What kind of world would we live in if everyone loved their enemies? Destruction treats the symptoms. Love cures the disease.

The rules are for our protection and to lead us to a relationship with him, because he loves us.

It takes power to withhold power.

 

I will critique anyone at anytime, and the example that you gave did not have any relation to that of jesus it was of someone jumping in front of a bullet to save my life, not someone who supposedly lived 2000 years ago and could walk on water...

White noise, I'd like to hear you say these things to a suicide bomber or a practitioner of genocide.

If your god is real he would be the ultimate dictator and his heaven would be nothing short of the ultimate totalitarian state.

White noise, again it would seem that you are looking for ways to somehow take away omnipotents without limiting power.