You can stop reading this article right now if you're looking for a
clear explanation of Christianity. I'm trying to figure that out for
myself and have chosen to write this article about the confusion,
that lies within all Christian organizations.
If you do know and have a clear and simple explanation of
Christianity, I would love to hear from you and can be reached at
greg@spiritualbooks4u.com.
I would actually love to hear from anyone who has anything to say
about Christianity.
Here's an example of what Christians are supposed to do. Follow the
10 Commandments and at the same time forget about them. When Jesus
died on the cross, he released us from the old written code or the
laws of the New Testament.
That obviously is not a clear explanation Christianity. Maybe this
will be a little more helpful. Love your neighbor and love your
enemy, but kill people in war, make women's subservient, keep
yourself separate from homosexuals and others who disagree with your
religious views.
Well, maybe that one didn't help, but I think were on our way to a
clear explanation of Christianity. How about this? In the beginning,
there was one God and then God sent his only son, to our world, to
die for our sins. God is still God but now he has a son named Jesus
and at this time they are two separate people. All of a sudden,
Jesus dies and becomes God and there is another, there is also a
Holy Spirit and if we put the three of them together, we can call it
the Trinity.
At last, it's over, I don't have a clear explanation of
Christianity, only confusing and contradicting Bible verses that
allow my mind to go bonkers.
There's got to be a Christian out there somewhere, with a clear
explanation about Christianity. Help us out and tell us what
Christianity is all about.
Reply From Reader
You invite the reader who thinks he has a clear
explanation for Christianity to email you. Well, I'm taking that
offer up. Now, I must humbly admit I do't understand everything--
but nor should I expect to. The Bibles description of God is
philosophically and theologically under defined, and
there are many questions for which I don't know the definite answer.
But I don't find this an issue. God claims to give us enough
information in the Bible to live on, not to know everything. In
court, we are asked to "Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth". Now, I would say the the Bible is the truth and
nothing but the truth, but it is not the whole truth. It's just all
we need to know.
Now, from your article:
"Here's an example of what Christians are supposed to do. Follow the
10
Commandments and at the same time forget about them. When Jesus died
on the cross, he released us from the old written code or the laws
of the New Testament."
There are two separate issues conflated here. Firstly, we have to
work out what the law actually is and why it seems to change.
Secondly, we have to work out what Jesus death on the cross
accomplished in regard to it.
If you want to please God, you must behave as he wants (sort of
obvious).
However, what he wants us to do will depend on our circumstances.
God then, wants to tell us what we ought to do. One way of doing
this is for God to give you some instructions (a law). Another way
to do what God wants is to have his spirit in you, telling you what
to do on the spot. The best way to do this seems to be via the
spirit. "But if ye are led by the
Spirit, ye are not under the law." (Galatians 5:18)
However, knowing that most people wouldn't listen to the quite voice
of the spirit, some people wouldn't be able to discern it from the
enemy's voice, most people won't be righteous enough to have him
speak to them in the first place, and the Holy spirit wasn't even
available to the masses
until Jesus death and resurrection, it makes sense for God to give
commandments on our behavior.
Now, God knew that his followers would be in many different
situations, in
many different cultures, in many different societies, in many
different ages, so creating a fully fleshed out set of laws, like he
does with the Jews (And like the Muslims think he does with them)
isn't appropriate.
Instead, he provides us with what we need to know to work out how to
behave.
1)The entire law can be summarized into two commandments:
"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and
great
commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy
neighbor
as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the
prophets." Mathew 22:37-40
From this everything can be extrapolated, with just a bit of
knowledge of
God and the state of mankind.
2) The ten commandments
The summary of the law in the Old testament, the ten commandments,
are laws that we observe to be applicable to all in all situations,
so we tell people to obey these. We can engineer them from the two
commandments rather easily.
3) The mosaic law
In the old testament, God observes that The Jews culture will be
created
depending on what he tells them to create it as, and that he doesn't
want it
to depend on any other culture, and it will be around for a long
time. So,
he happily extrapolates a law, fully fleshed out, complete with a
pre-Jesus
way of being atoned of sin, a constitution, and national holidays.
We can
learn from this example how to extrapolate the law ourselves.
With those in mind, we can with a bit of theological effort work out
how God wants us to behave.
Now, breaking God's commandments (or the spirits witness) is a sin.
Some sins are worse than others in terms of effects on you, but they
are all sin, and being in sin is bad, irrelevant of the sin James
2:10 "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one
point, he is become guilty of all."
If we have sin in our lives, God will judge is in anger. Jesus death
on the
cross frees us from the obligation to do the right thing all the
time, as
our sin is atoned for. Now, God's forgiveness is only granted if we
repent!
This is something protestants like myself often forget.
Now, repentance entails trying to not do the sin again, and that is
what we
are called to do. That is why we still try- in a doomed effort- to
do the
right thing.
Because not everybody, or anybody, regularly hears from the spirit
properly, it makes sense for a community to make use of the
instructions God has given us on how to behave-- hence, laws, that
we try- in a doomed effort- to live up to. Its the trying that
counts, not the success, because in trying to obey the law we have
repented of sin, even though we can never do it properly.
Thats all I can do now, I might talk about another issue later. So,
Have I
provided a satisfactory and concise answer to your question?
