This sub-branch of the discussion has been quite interesting.True believers can murder? KingJ, you must really live a sheltered life, and you need to read your bible more widely.
Your explanation is of little value because it is not our sins which excludes us from eternal life, but not being born of the Spirit of God.
Thankfully my absence of brains doesn't come into it. I prefer referring to my spirit when it comes to understanding scripture.
There you go again, mortal/venial sins. Just more inventions from a church that has done very little over the centuries to root out those who commit its called "mortal" sins.
David will be in hell today if his repentance was not sincere. What stands out is that the two mortal sins were once offs. He was not sold out to the mortal sin. He was not a 'murderer' as Paul explains in 1 Cor 6.
In the OT... how is it that some people went to Abrahams bosom and others Hades?
There are many instances where Paul says / mocks Christians for bad judgment citing ''even the world does not do X / gets Y right''. So you are disagreeing with Paul for starters by not using your brain.
So your church is ok with rapists at the pulpit? It is a yes or no answer. You are dodging.
Evil and sin are the same thing. We know that certain thoughts are evil. We don't harp on it too much though as we know a thought is a venial sin. There is a blur that comes in with sin toward God. Sins like idolatry and homosexuality are not that evil if you have no God in your thoughts. As these sins are pulling the middle finger to a Creator God and not our fellow man. As is the case with something like the Jews not respecting the Sabbath.I think we may be confusing evil with sin. The generalized concept of "evil" is something any human can know about and find repulsive. That's things like murder, theft, etc. The problem is that God is not only concerned with evil, but also with sin which goes much deeper. Every angry thought, every random judgement about that lady's funky dress at the mall, every little "white" lie we tell to make people feel better about things... They're all like getting a little speck of something in our eye, like we are all spiritually blind. And they all lead to our separation from God.
Evil tends to be things that happen on the surface, such as the actions we see outlined as against the Lord in the ten commandments. The actually sinful things, though, go much deeper. Consider when Jesus is speaking about Adultery in our hearts, telling us we need to love our enemies, etc.
A decent person can follow principles which will, largely and on the whole, prevent him or her from evil. However, the very nature of sin--which can often be invisible to the human eye without the guidance of the Holy Spirit to help us turn from it and Jesus' sacrifice to cleanse us of what we did prior to accepting him as Lord / what we mess up and do after that happens, is beyond the realm of any human to remain clean from no matter how hard we try. It is inevitable that we will mess up, messing up because of sin separates us from God, and only by accepting Jesus and what he did for us can that be set right.
I hope that helps paint a clearer picture, gentlemen.
That is a beautiful prayer filarks. I am in accordance with you
Yes that is what I said and the church is full of them. People believing that their good in life is enough.
