I feel edged out by fundamentalists and evangelicals, is my belief in evolution and Christ really that rare? Do you have to be Creationist to be Christian? The life of Christ and his Works convince me of his Divinity more than his descent-ion from David. Why do "Christians" draw so much from the Old Testament?
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They are historical and authentic.
All Christians should know that Jesus taught in Parables.
Mature Christians also understand that Jesus supersedes the Old Testament so it no longer applies to us.
Not any true followers of Jesus
Because it is NOT OLD – it is ALL scripture.
All of what Messiah quotes is from the Torah. What Paul quotes is from the Torah. These things are NOT done away with.
They are vital!
If he is not from the line of David – then He is NOT Messiah.
If the world is not 6000 years old, the YHVH is a liar.
These truths are not expendable or our faith is completely undermined. That’s what every evolutionist wants to prove. If YHVH – (God) – is wrong, then so is His Messiah.
Please understand that there is a war for your mind as well as your heart. Look at scripture and compare that with science and you will find that they are NOT in conflict. Only the interpretation of the evidence.
Dinosaur bones are found and science says they are old – but dismiss the evidence that they are usually found in mass graves and in contorted forms – (the flood!).
They find a tree 2 miles down in a coal mine that is tropical in nature – or tropical palm fronds in an oil well in Alaska and throw it out as evidence for a pre-deluvian world.
There is a TON of evidence and it is systematically being hidden all to push a godless agenda. THAT is why I am outraged. If the majority of the evidence pointed the other direction then I would believe them – but it does NOT!
And I don’t believe them.
Shalom
Yes. Me, for one.
No.
No.
Good question. I don’t have a really good answer, though. I can guess, or give my opinion, but that’s all.
All christians, know that any part of the bible which does not agree with them, is allegory, metaphor, and symbolism.
I do….the meaning is much more important than the use of convoluted reasoning to "prove" something that does nothing to help build a better world…the Bible is a great guide book, but it is not a rule book….and religion can be a nice part of life, but it is not the point of life.
but then, I guess my avater gives that away, huh?
There are several places in the Old Testament which states that it is a shadow of things to come. So if you want to watch events and history unfold, it’s important to have understanding of events in the Old Testament.
I believe if God wants you to know something hes gonna just come out and say it. God isn’t one to confuse but He is one to lead in the right direction.
Seek to be Born Again and The Lord will lead you thru allegories and metaphors. Concentrate on the new covenant
the parables were fictitious, but the regular stories, like the ones in the old testament are real.
You can believe in Evolution and Christ, if you want, but I don’t necessarily. It could be that God used evolution.
Off of the Internet I have found that most Christians believe the bible to be metaphorical rather than literal. However they also are the ones that are quiet about their beliefs so often they are pushed to the side and ignored.
Many of the bible stories are clearly metaphorical, especially the parables of Jesus, which were metaphors intended to challenge our faith and paradigms.
But the Old Testament is still important, because it is laying out God’s plan — all the foreshadowing of Christ’s coming and what his life was going to mean, who he is, etc.
I think of it this way — the OT is the story of God’s chosen people, called into a new way of living in relationship with him and with one another, and giving us glimpses of what is to come.
The NT is the story of God perfecting that relationship, and extending that invitation and salvation to all people through Jesus Christ.
And now the church (believers in Christ) is the continuation of the story — and we are meant to be Christ’s body on earth, which is the essence of the great commission and Jesus’ teaching.
Peace to you, through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Noooo you do not have to be a creationist to be a christian but the bible says (and you have to believe the bible to be a christian) that the world was created in 6 days and on the 7th he rested. In the new testament the bible lets you know when its allegory and real life.The bible is absolute truth there is no false hood in it so when it says 6 days I believe it took six 24 hour days. Its pretty to the point. read Genesis Chapter 1 again and see if it says that it took billions and billions of years to create the world.
A fundamentalist is to take the Bible literally, which means in the sense in which it was written, as evident by the context and form, which usually is literal (most of the Bible is history or moral commands), but can be allegorical (prophetic or poetic), and which is rather obvious. As far as being a Creationist vs an Evolutionist, as Genesis is written and referenced as literal, then while one may be a Christian and erroneously hold to macro evolution, this is not Biblically tenable. And holding to theistic evolution is very problematic.
What you need to do is first examine what a soul must do to become a Christian, and do so. http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/
Then examine the real problems with evolution, and it’s dating, and god-less theory, which requires attributing powers of Deity to energy.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4014/
http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/does-god-exist-scientifically-aatj-1b3e.htm (various science based videos)
http://www.doesgodexist.tv/ (various science based videos)
http://www.conservapedia.com/Theory_of_Evolution
http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/survivalOfTheFakest.pdf
http://www.dandydesigns.org/
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=1472
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1452
Jesus’ teachings and parables use a variety of of language tools, including allegory and metaphors, and actual facts.
But your question runs deeper than that. To be a Christian, it would be necessary to believe that the Bible is God’s Word.
The "Word" was made flesh… and His name is Jesus.
If your personal beliefs contradict God’s Word, then I’d have to say that you do not believe in the Biblical Jesus, but in some Jesus that is not our Savior and Lord.
The Old Testament comes alive in the Life of Christ, and the New Testament is hidden in the Old Testament. The Old Testament remains the foundation for Christian faith. The initial followers of Jesus were considered to be a religious sect of Judaism.
Those who have trouble believing God, seek to change God, i.e., become idolatrous by worshiping a god of their own making.
hi kbk.
if your question is whether you have to be a creationist to be a christian, my answer is yes.
evolutionists believes that we are here today by "chance", and it is 180 degrees opposite of what we believe, we are here for a purpose, and that is to worship God.
evolution is not science, its a religion.
religion of scientists and atheists who believe that we came from rocks. rocks that somehow managed to think for themselves and turned alive. uniquely, they still trust their judgments even though they know they are essentially, rocks.
Yes, it was his teachings that made me believe. i believe that love exists, and Jesus confirmed and emphasized it. evolution does not confirm the existence of love.
If you ever listen to the old testament laws that seem to be really absurd and really does not represent love at all, they are intended only for those who lived before Jesus’ arrival. why? because God wants everything to be perfect to prepare his own arrival to this earth. thats why he told his people to stone anyone who missed the sabbath, or those who commit adultery, because he cared of the world’s salvation.
and since Jesus already came and we can say "mission accomplished", salvation is accomplished, unlike people in the old testament, we have SOMEONE to imitate to.
The reason why the old testament is a part of the bible is to help us identify. you won’t understand the new testament without the old testament.
as christians, our focus is not those laws anymore, but instead Jesus himself. he is the accomplishment of the old testament.
I believe that it is not possible to be a rational person and to believe the Bible literally (though I don’t mean a rational person can’t be Christian, because I believe a rational person could believe the Bible figuratively)
Take Genesis, for example; in chapter 1 it is stated that God created plants on day 3 and man (and woman) on day 6. In Chapter 2 it states that God created man, then plants, then woman.
Both of these things cannot possibly be absolute truth.
Something has gone wrong.
If you look at the bible from the point of view of metaphor it is easy to turn Genesis into a metaphor for the big bang and evolution.
The easiest explanation for this is that God did not physically put pen to paper to write the Bible. Man did that, so therefore the Bible is fallible. If you were living in the time before Christ and were trying to write the Old Testament and God revealed or described the Big Bang to you, how would you explain it? Probably with "God said let there be light, and there was light"
Few would dare ask the question you have, good for you.
Yes, the bible and many other works of Jesus were absolute symbolism, no acceptations.
The bible is full of truth for those whom seek Jesus and not an Golden Boy idolic "son of God" to bow down to as this would embarras Jesus I sense.
The bible is but one works of many. It contains some 40 books and those books were all paced to form the bible as the views appeared to fit the agenda of orderly affairs. ith this in mind do search outside of the bible for workds of Jesus for there are many.
Genesis was a symbolic account of mankinds coming in to the physical realm of Earth. Adam and Eve were symbolic representations of groups of humanity taking on the male-female genders, the fruit was their acceptance of this reality and the serpent Ego of mankind.
The serpent evolved taking forms of several "evil encarnates" personified by writers whom wished to convey truth as best they could. Ego is known as the Devil, Satan and so on.
Jesus was a true Being, he represented truth in self. His mission was to show man whom he was in truth, his mission failed due to the Church views taking on a fundementalist physical literal view of the events of Jesus turning it into an historical physical event and not a true spritual event, a ripoff.
The Apsotles within the story of Jesus represented the 12 primary personalities of man shown in the Zodiac. The zodiac has 12 signs and this is no coincidence. Recently a complete Zodiac was unearthed in the middle east in a large Mosiac, another clue to humanity and reality.
"Christian Creationsit" are simply fundementalist. I hate lables but I have no other brief-way to convey the narrowness of their views with this lable as it truly sums up ignorance.
In Revelation we have symbolism used to show mankinds new birth Spritualy speaking. Fundementalist will preach hell-fire and damnation and they are lost to their own realities they may never awaken from.
Those whom interpret any of Jesus works in a literal sense have lost the abiliy to gain anything from it absent what they wish to place in it. Jesus "decendant of David" was without doubt a Jewish issue. Remember that the sources whom recorded the bible, and others works, did so by what they saw and heard, nothing more. They interpreted it threw their own filters of perception.