Joy

[footwasher]

Nope.



Nope.



So, basically, I should stay away from anything you post.

I wish you joy, too, so don't be too bitter!

Probably pointless, but maybe this will sink in:

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/bite+head+off

bite someone's head off
Fig. to speak sharply and with great anger to someone. (Fixed order.) Don't bite my head off! Bepatient. I'm very sorry I lost my tempter. I didn't mean to bite your head off.


Besides look at it this way:

If I am wrong, those who believe me will end up wasting their time, because they would have been already saved by belief, and any extra works would land them rewards.

If you are wrong, those who listen to you will end up hearing the words, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven”. If they feel belief is enough and works are not necessary for salvation, some may choose to settle for salvation, since being in Heaven is the end of unhappiness. Or they may think works are the works Jesus did, and wait for it to be handed to them on a plate:

John 10:38
But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."

I really don’t know what alternatives you have in mind since you don’t accept any coherent interpretations of the text, settling for paradoxes in its place. Every time a listener points out a hole in the reasoning, the teacher pleads “paradox” or utilises filibuster and drowns him with “christianese”, arcane terminology, jargon, nothing that a person who has not grown up in the church can understand, or even then, pretends to understand.

I am filled with joy at the understanding I arrived at after reading stuff by Arminian, Tercel, Jaltus et al. I’m bitter that the misreading of Scripture by those in the pulpit. As they say, “A mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pews”.

Good place to state what true interpretation is:

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/...cripture-wrong

The need for fresh, kingdom-oriented, historically rooted exegesis

It is from this root—the culturally conditioned “Bible wars” of Western culture, not least in North America—that the polarization of current debates has emerged. It is in that context, again, that one hears it said frequently that all reading of Scripture is a matter of interpretation, with the implication that one person’s interpretation is as good as another’s.

This is demonstrably flawed. We must hear the questions and work through them to answers, refusing either to lapse back into reassertions, as though the questions did not exist, or to capitulate before their challenge. Genuine historical scholarship is still the appropriate tool with which to work at discovering more fully what precisely the biblical authors intended to say. We really do have access to the past; granted, we see it through our own eyes, and our eyes are culturally conditioned to notice some things and not others. But they really do notice things, and provided we keep open the conversation with other people who look from other perspectives, we have a real, and not illusory, chance of finding out more or less what really happened. Real history is possible; real historians do it all the time. Real, fresh, historical readings of the Bible, measured rigorously by the canons of real historical work, can and do yield fresh insight.

From Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today. Copyright © 2011 by N.T. Wright. Reprinted with permission from HarperOne, a division of HarperCollinsPublisher

Read more at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/...xYGWurs6lww.99

[Pentecost]

Footwasher, sorry for the delayed response, I have no good excuse, I simply haven't been on the site.

The choice is between owning property to survive and using property to serve God.

I'm pretty sure this is an example of the wrong way, and then the right way to own property. Which means I can agree with it.

Who is your loyalty to? What is your confidence in?

If you're asking me and not using rhetoric incorrectly, then the answer to both is God; obviously as a processing Christian.

Using property to serve God interestingly colours the issue of property differently.

...It does? That's what I've been arguing for the whole time... And it's not exactly an original idea. I even got it straight from my pastor in the pulpit. He did a series on stewardship.

It is a show of loyalty. OT and NT believers are both considered acceptable, justified, found righteous solely by showing loyalty, faith. Believers can show loyalty by turning away (repenting) from being loyal the world to gain earthly treasure, God’s property, for earthly life, to being loyal to God, to gain eternal treasure, property of your own, for eternal life.

What is a show of loyalty? Using property to serve God? Yes, it is, but it seems to be a non sequitur. And I do not I know what you're saying in the last sentence the comma usage is suspect. Would you please rephrase it?

Or they can use earthly resources to support God’s cause, so that when that earthly resource is finished, they will be welcomed into eternal shelter, like Rahab.

Maybe it's because I didn't understand your previous sentence, but I don't know who "they" refers to in this sentence if you meant people in general, then sure that sounds fine.

This is a vast issue, stretching from Adam up to Ananias and Sapphira in the Biblical record, but it boils down to confidence that God is sufficient. Their actions indicate they felt the opposite. Over and over that record teaches the primacy of being loyal to God for eternal treasure, rather than the futility of pursuing temporary resources.

Agreed...? Did I ever say something that indicates I trust things over God, or that I think it is right to do so?

We are in the world and have the loan of God’s earthly resources, to use to be faithful, loyal, by reflecting His image, to make Him known. Now through being IN Christ, we can have access to spiritual resources, through leaving the world which provides the earthly resources. The world is a transition phase, and its dangerous to remain too long in it, lest we mistake it to be our final rest, when there remains a rest to be attained, through Christ.

I would quibble that we ARE to be in the world, just not of it.

As we drink from the Rock, suffer like Christ in the wilderness, (the Rock is the Word, building up to perseverance through trials!), we learn that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God:

Deuteronomy 8:“All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORDswore to give to your forefathers. 2“You shall remember all the way which the LORDyour God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3“He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. 4“Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. 5“Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. 6“Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. 7“For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth iin valleys and hills; 8a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; 9a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10“When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.
11“Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; 12otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, 13and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, 14then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.


You see both types of loyalty in the text: full devotion to God and devotion to God through channeling “little things”. How will God make possible for the rich man to pass through the needle’s eye to reach eternal treasure, property of his own, if he is not faithful with the little things”, earthly treasure, property of Another’s?

None of this is stuff I disagree with! I don't know how a Christian could reject these teachings explicitly, but I affirm them explicitly.

This article is to be used in conjunction with another article where Wright debates the interpretation of ἁμαρτία hamartia, and how we are made justified AND sanctified, through being IN Christ. It’s worth a deep study, maybe later..


Everything takes on a different colour when the property is channeled to serving God. Solomon failed, when it became an obsession to him to collect wives and horses, even going back to Egypt to acquire the latter, something expressedly forbidden by God.

The point is that many people do not support God’s cause. Nudge, nudge, some do not even know what God’s cause is…

Storing up earthly, temporal, treasure is set up against storing eternal, permanent, treasure.

Better eat properly, so that you can be like Christ.

isaiah 55:1"Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost.

Yes, amen good sermon. Are you saying we've come to agreement? Because I notice a lack of argument compared to before.

[footwasher]

I'm pretty sure this is an example of the wrong way, and then the right way to own property. Which means I can agree with it.

Kay.

If you're asking me and not using rhetoric incorrectly, then the answer to both is God; obviously as a processing Christian.

Kay.

...It does? That's what I've been arguing for the whole time... And it's not exactly an original idea. I even got it straight from my pastor in the pulpit. He did a series on stewardship.

Depends on how one defines serving God.

What is a show of loyalty? Using property to serve God? Yes, it is, but it seems to be a non sequitur. And I do not I know what you're saying in the last sentence the comma usage is suspect. Would you please rephrase it?

It’s nuanced. Let’s try again:

It is a show of loyalty. OT and NT believers are both considered acceptable, justified, found righteous solely by showing loyalty, faith.


Believers can show loyalty by turning away (repenting)


from being loyal the world (joining with it in being selfish)
to gain earthly treasure, property of Another,
for earthly life,

to being loyal to Christ, (dying to self)
to gain eternal treasure, property of your own,
for eternal life.

Maybe it's because I didn't understand your previous sentence, but I don't know who "they" refers to in this sentence if you meant people in general, then sure that sounds fine.

Or they can also repent, turn away from
from being loyal the world (joining with it in being selfish)
to gain earthly treasure, property of Another,
for earthly life,

to

to being loyal to Christ, (joining with the world to gain unrighteous mammon to make friends with those who have eternal treasure)
to gain eternal treasure, property of your own,
for eternal life.

Agreed...? Did I ever say something that indicates I trust things over God, or that I think it is right to do so?

You maybe loyal to God but you have no idea what eternal treasure is.

I would quibble that we ARE to be in the world, just not of it.

Being not of it is using resources, life or unrighteous mammon, to access eternal treasure in the way described by Scripture.

None of this is stuff I disagree with! I don't know how a Christian could reject these teachings explicitly, but I affirm them explicitly.

By using unrighteous mammon to support worldly ends?

Yes, amen good sermon. Are you saying we've come to agreement? Because I notice a lack of argument compared to before.

Would you agree that eternal treasure was not within the reach of OT believers?

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...l=1#post138072

[Cow Poke]

I wish you joy, too, so don't be too bitter!

I get joy out of not reading your rantings.

[footwasher]

I get joy out of not reading your rantings.

You'd have to read it to know they're rantings! And prove it afterwards from Scripture.

[Cow Poke]

You'd have to read it to know they're rantings!

Experience!

[footwasher]

Experience!

Bad argument.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/falla...-the-well.html

Fallacy: Poisoning the Well

Description of Poisoning the Well

This sort of "reasoning" involves trying to discredit what a person might later claim by presenting unfavorable information (be it true or false) about the person. This "argument" has the following form:

Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented.
Therefore any claims person A makes will be false.
This sort of "reasoning" is obviously fallacious. The person making such an attack is hoping that the unfavorable information will bias listeners against the person in question and hence that they will reject any claims he might make. However, merely presenting unfavorable information about a person (even if it is true) hardly counts as evidence against the claims he/she might make. This is especially clear when Poisoning the Well is looked at as a form of ad Homimem in which the attack is made prior to the person even making the claim or claims. The following example clearly shows that this sort of "reasoning" is quite poor.

Before Class:
Bill: "Boy, that professor is a real jerk. I think he is some sort of eurocentric fascist."
Jill: "Yeah."

During Class:
Prof. Jones: "...and so we see that there was never any 'Golden Age of Matriarchy' in 1895 in America."

After Class:
Bill: "See what I mean?"
Jill: "Yeah. There must have been a Golden Age of Matriarchy, since that jerk said there wasn't."

Examples of Poisoning the Well

"Don't listen to him, he's a scoundrel."
"Before turning the floor over to my opponent, I ask you to remember that those who oppose my plans do not have the best wishes of the university at heart."
You are told, prior to meeting him, that your friend's boyfriend is a decadent wastrel. When you meet him, everything you hear him say is tainted.

[Cow Poke]

Bad argument.

It wasn't an argument.

[Pentecost]

It’s nuanced. Let’s try again:

It is a show of loyalty. OT and NT believers are both considered acceptable, justified, found righteous solely by showing loyalty, faith.


Believers can show loyalty by turning away (repenting)

Agreed.

from being loyal the world (joining with it in being selfish)
to gain earthly treasure, property of Another,
for earthly life,

to being loyal to Christ, (dying to self)
to gain eternal treasure, property of your own,
for eternal life.


Or they can also repent, turn away from
from being loyal the world (joining with it in being selfish)
to gain earthly treasure, property of Another,
for earthly life,

to

to being loyal to Christ, (joining with the world to gain unrighteous mammon to make friends with those who have eternal treasure)
to gain eternal treasure, property of your own,
for eternal life.

Footwasher, I'm not any idiot, but I really cannot parse this. You are using a short hand I am not familiar with and the way you are dividing things is not standard.

You maybe loyal to God but you have no idea what eternal treasure is.

And do you? I consider Jesus to be a treasure, I consider the resurrected body to be a treasure, I know that I will be rewarded for my good works, or are you simply saying that the eternal treasure is more than what God has revealed yet.

Being not of it is using resources, life or unrighteous mammon, to access eternal treasure in the way described by Scripture.

I am not sure I like that definition because it implies a works based salvation wherein eternal treasure is not gained from faith, but instead things we do, which is something I think we both explicitly deny.

By using unrighteous mammon to support worldly ends?

In reference to what you quoted, I have to assume you're calling me a liar, but to address you directly I do use money to get things I want. Is that a sin? I have continually shown that it is not by knocking down your proof texts as you have brought them up. What is more important is that I give offering unto the Lord, I follow a Biblical model of stewardship. You apparently use a hypocritical model where you are meant to be impoverished but refuse to put of sin nature.

Would you agree that eternal treasure was not within the reach of OT believers?

http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...l=1#post138072

Are you conflating the in dwelling of the Spirit with eternal treasure? If so, yes. But I don't think they're the same. Eternal treasure will be given in fullness either at the Resurrection of the Saints prior to the Millenial Reign, or much more likely at the Great Judgement to be enjoyed in the New Heaven and New Earth.

I think I am done here Footwasher, I do not intend to reply in this thread again, may the blessings of the Lord fall upon you. :)

[Cow Poke]

I think I am done here Footwasher, I do not intend to reply in this thread again, may the blessings of the Lord fall upon you. :)

Amen!

[Cow Poke]

So, back to the OP -- a SMALL example of "joy" was the young lady with glittery shoes who came up to her Pastor at the beginning of the church service, giggling, telling me "look at my new shoes!" She was 3 years old, and so happy to have new shoes to wear to Church. It gave me great joy to watch her be so happy in Church.

[footwasher]

It wasn't an argument.

That was a good, honest admission.

Boy you really have it bad. Now you can't comprehend your own posts. This is what is found as fallacy:

Quote
This "argument" has the following form:

Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented.
Therefore any claims person A makes will be false.
This sort of "reasoning" is obviously fallacious.

http://www.societasviaromana.net/Col..._rhetoric3.php

Making you guilty of the next fallacy.

"And where all else fails there is the argumenta ad nauseum where sustained repetition rather than reasoned proof is used to wear down opposition."

[Cow Poke]

That was a good, honest admission.

Always honest - not an admission. Statement of fact.

And the rest of your post is ignored because it's just goofy. Get back to JOY - drop the grumblefart routine!

[Rushing Jaws]

So what exactly does joy, derived from the Holy Spirit, look like? I often see believers acting super-smiley much of the time. Quite frankly it makes me uncomfortable when I'm in their midst. I feel pressured to exert this overtly joyous disposition, and if I don't, it's almost as if I am avoided and/or marginalized - like negativity is the devil or a sober, serious disposition is bordering on demonically possessed. Now I am exaggerating of course but It is nonetheless a bit perplexing to me because I find that same joyous disposition amongst people of the world and or amongst cultic positive-thinking advocates. Now don't get me wrong, I am actually not a negative person or always gloomy, I can be quite flamboyant, but generally it is tempered with seriousness much of the time. Now of course there are plenty of unbelievers who are likewise flamboyant at times but temper that child-like energy with seriousness, so by no means am I attempting to highlight the joy of the more "not smiling is sin" believers as an inauthentic, worldly joy, but I do find it somewhat disconcerting. Any insight is more than welcome.

## I would strongly recommend having a look at a life of St Philip Neri (1515-95), for he is a particularly attractive, and IMHO, utterly convincing, example of Christian joy. He really is the real deal. Joy is easy to fake or parody, but the real thing can't be faked - it shows up the fakes for the shabby lies they are.

I don't whether that's the kind of answer you wanted.