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Bible Questions and Spiritual Discussion
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Davidwayne Lackey
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04/01/2011 20:28 |
TRW you said:
Davidwayne;
You said; “The passages are so clear that you cannot come to any other conclusion.”
You cannot come to any other conclusion because you are interpreting the scripture guided by religious misconception instead of being guided by the TRUTH.
TRW:
Yes the Bible speaks of “the devil” but it also speaks of THE TRUTH. Your understanding of one is in violation to the other.
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Davidwayne:
I am guided by The Holy Spirit who teaches me God's Word as I read and meditate on it. I am not guided by denominational dogma. God's Word says what it says and most often so clearly that even a child can understand it when it is so obvious you cannot come to any other conclusion. That is the case with the passages I have posted so far in this thread. For the rest of Scripture that is harder to understand there is The Holy Spirit that opens up understanding.
1Jn 2:27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
The anointing is the indwelling of The Holy Spirit.The NLT puts it in more concise language for the modern reader:
1Jn 2:27 But you have received the Holy Spirit, and He lives within you, so you don't need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what He teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as He has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.
It is clear in Scripture that without The Holy Spirit we cannot properly discern God's Word. God's Word is the whole Bible and we need the whole of The Word in order to interpret the parts of it with the help of The Holy Spirit. The Truth is all of God's Word not just a few key passages that tickles our fancy because they seem to say what we want to hear.
You talk about being guided by TRUTH as if is separate from the overwhelming majority of the rest of The Bible, as if the TRUTH is in just one key verse in Geneses. From there you look at all Scripture through the lens of a single passage from which you interpret everything else that follows and spiritualize the rest of the Bible so it will fit the original verse, in effect making a parable of the whole thing. In essence you have a Bible with only one dimension to it.
Is all of Scripture nothing but a parable? Is Jesus nothing but a parable? He would be if He was not talking to the Devil in the desert. either that or Jesus was deranged and talking to Himself.
You say you are a Disciple of Jesus. Are you a Disciple of a real concrete Jesus or a Disciple of a parable? You can't have it both ways. Jesus is or is not and if He is, and I'm saying He is, then the Devil is also a real being and not only a what as you say.
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TRW:
You are more committed to proving the existence of an evil entity than you are in learning of the true nature of God.
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Davidwayne:
Proving the existence of Satan and the whole kingdom of evil entities is not my main passion. Jesus is.
Satan and evil are inextricably linked and His existence cannot be ignored when debating the essence of evil.
I have already said there is more than one kind of evil. The evil we ourselves do, doing things with evil intent, being inflicted with an evil pain like Paul, and a real Satan who is an evil being. It was never about just Satan. It is the subject of this thread I am debating with you on.
It is not in fact my main preoccupation. That would be learning something new each day about God's Word which is the nature of Jesus in written form in all it's shapes and colors. And prayer for which I have a real passion for because I mature and grow closer to God with it and hopefully edify my Brothers and Sisters through it.
The nature of God shines out throughout the Scriptures and not all of His nature is shown in only one book. There were many mysteries about God's nature that were not known till Jesus came to fulfill His mission on the cross for example. Each and every day I learn something new. There are yet mysteries we will not know about till after the resurrection.
God is not a one dimensional Being. He is a multifaceted and dynamic Being with many sides, all of which are perfect. Perfect in Love, Perfect in Sacrifice, Perfect in Anger, Perfect in Judgment. Perfect in Justice and Perfect in all around Temperment. God is not one dimensional and neither is The Bible.
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TRW:
Didn’t Jesus call Peter Satan for a very similar reason?
But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offense unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. (Matthew 16:23KJV)
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Davidwayne:
Absolutely not.
He called Peter Satan because Peter was tempting Jesus to not fulfill His mission on the cross. When you read that passage with the rest that go along with it in context. You will find that Peter first rebuked Jesus for saying He would go to Jerusalem to be persecuted and killed.
When Jesus said thou art an offence unto me. He was saying thou art an (skandalon in the Greek).
skandalon
skan'-dal-on
A “scandal”; probably from a derivative of a trap stick (bent sapling), that is, snare (figuratively cause of displeasure or sin): - occasion to fall (of stumbling), offence, thing that offends, stumbling-block.
In other words Peter was tempting Jesus to sin by acting like Satan to keep Jesus from fulfilling his God given mission on the cross. This was already discussed earlier in the thread. Did you forget?
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TRW;
“TRW the only thing Gen. 2:16-17 proves is the evil existed before Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. I fail to see where that proves there is no evil one identified in Scripture as the devil Satan. This passage does not deal with the subject of the Devil.”
Here again you are interpreting Genesis 2:16-17 with the religious misconception of “Adam and Eve and a forbidden fruit” instead of what is actually written. Do you realize by saying that evil existed before Adam you are also saying that God created evil.
This should be inconceivable!
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I am not at all saying God is evil. I am saying that God allows evil to exist. If God did not allow evil to exist it would not exist and there would not have been a tree of knowledge of good and evil. I am also saying Satan is not the only evil entity or Being and that evil in all it's forms existed before Adam and Eve. If this were not true then there would have been no tree of the knowledge of good and evil. How could there be knowledge of evil if evil did not exist. You cannot have knowledge of something that does not exist. Satan the Devil comes into the picture in Scripture in Geneses 3:1,
Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
The Serpent was the Devil Satan:
1Ti 2:14 And it was not Adam who was deceived by Satan. The woman was deceived, and sin was the result.
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TRW:
The Bible said: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)
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Davidwayne:
God knew there would be evil and yet he called all creation good, for God is also omniscient. God was not talking about the beginning only. If God was taking about the beginning only then He could not say everything He made was very good knowing what was in store for the human race till the end of the age.
God is omnipresent throughout all time.
God see's everything from beginning to end. God knows the end will come out very good.
Creation is an ongoing process with new babies and new growing things being created all the time. When God says everything He had made was very good He had to be looking at everything from the beginning of man to the end of man's age.
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TRW:
You also said that Genesis 2:16-17 does not deal with the subject of the Devil.
This is where mainstream doctrine has misguided us all. Genesis 2:16-17 is entirely about the devil and is at the heart of our spiritual understanding.
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The Devil as I just explained did not come into the picture till Geneses 3:1. Gen.2:16 may allude to the Devil because he is evil but that is not what Gen.3:1 was specifically talking about. There is also intent to do evil. Satan may be the first and the Prince of evil but he certainly had many followers afterward and with them intent to do evil in the future. As Jesus said, as you think so you become(do), and they became evil. That is the knowledge of good and evil. There you have both a who and a what. The what in Gen.2"16 and the who in Gen.3:1.
The what is the intention to do evil. In order to have the intention to do evil some being had to be the first with intention and that is obviously not God.
Adam and Eve could not have been the first beings with intent to do evil. They were sinless till the Serpent beguiled Eve into eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To beguile someone into doing a sin is a sin itself therefore sin existed before Adam and Eve ate the fruit. And as 1 Timothy 2:14 illustrates the who was Satan the Devil.
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TRW:
Genesis 2:16-17 has nothing to do with an apple or a forbidden fruit.
Here Our Loving Father is alerting Adam to the danger of “the knowledge of good and evil.”
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2:16-17)
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Davidwayne:
God was not alerting, He was commanding. God also knew beforehand that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit. God is omniscient. And it was God who planted the tree, not the Devil.
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TRW:
There is no way that we can separate “the devil” from “the knowledge of good and evil,” when we follow the sequence of events.
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Davidwayne:
You are correct, the knowledge of evil existed because of The Devil.
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TRW:
First; God warned Adam of the danger of “the knowledge of good and evil.”
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Davidwayne:
God did not warn, He command Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil or to even touch it lest he die.
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TRW:
Second; Adam disobeyed God.
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Davidwayne:
Yes Adam disobeyed God. Eve disobeyed first then Adam.
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TRW:
Third; Man begins to believe in the existence of an evil entity called the devil.
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Davidwayne:
Obviously, since before Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit they were completely innocent of the knowledge of good and evil and so would not know about the existence of the Devil, known as the evil one. To them at the time he was just a serpent, another creature of the field till the serpent beguiled Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. That is when the serpents true nature was revealed to them because their eyes were opened to it after eating the fruit.
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TRW:
Fourth; God sends His son Jesus Christ to reveal THE TRUTH that God is an omnipresent spirit which negates the belief in “the devil” to those who believe.
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Davidwayne:
God did not send Jesus to reveal His omnipresence . God's omnipresence was well established long before Jesus came to dwell on the Earth as a man.
You have redefined the word omnipresence to mean something it was never intended to mean. It means that God is present everywhere at all times. It has nothing to do with being a literal part of God.
God spoke all of carnal creation into existence through the part of Himself we know as Jesus, through whom He created all of carnal creation. First Jesus by speaking a literal part of Himself into carnal existence, then through Jesus everything else. All of carnal creation was created separate through the first born of all creation Jesus, a literal part of God.
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TRWord
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04/04/2011 15:21 |
Davidwayne:
I am guided by The Holy Spirit who teaches me God's Word as I read and meditate on it. I am not guided by denominational dogma. God's Word says what it says and most often so clearly that even a child can understand it when it is so obvious you cannot come to any other conclusion. That is the case with the passages I have posted so far in this thread. For the rest of Scripture that is harder to understand there is The Holy Spirit that opens up understanding.
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TRWord
Here you have divided the scripture into two parts saying;
1)God's Word says what it says and most often so clearly that even a child can understand it.
2)the rest of Scripture that is harder to understand there is The Holy Spirit that opens up understanding.
The belief that the Bible should be interpreted literally except for those instances when this is just not possible is the common understanding and the reason why most of us have been misled.
Scripture interpreted through the human intellect leads to common understanding while scripture interpreted through the spirit leads to spiritual understanding.
Since the advent of Our Lord Jesus Christ there have been two states of being in the earth. There is our natural state of being, which is common to all of us who have not received the Spirit, and there is a new state of being, of those who have received the Spirit.
And as Paul has pointed out, these two states of being are of two distinctly different understandings; Common understanding is that of the natural man and spiritual understanding is that of those who have received the spirit.
1 Cor. 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
1 Cor. 2:13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1 Cor. 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Actually the recognition of “an understanding of the scriptures” different from the one which is commonly known, is the first evidence of the birth of the Spirit because this new understanding is spiritually discerned.
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Davidwayne
You talk about being guided by TRUTH as if is separate from the overwhelming majority of the rest of The Bible, as if the TRUTH is in just one key verse in Geneses.
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TRWord
Truth most certainly is not one key verse in Genesis. TRUTH is the nature of God as an omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient Spirit” as revealed by His Son Jesus Christ. And yes all scripture must be interpreted in light of this TRUTH.
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Davidwayne
Is all of Scripture nothing but a parable? Is Jesus nothing but a parable? He would be if He was not talking to the Devil in the desert. either that or Jesus was deranged and talking to Himself.
You say you are a Disciple of Jesus. Are you a Disciple of a real concrete Jesus or a Disciple of a parable? You can't have it both ways. Jesus is or is not and if He is, and I'm saying He is, then the Devil is also a real being and not only a what as you say.
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TRWord
A parable is a simple story used to illustrate a much deeper spiritual message.
Your question;
“Are you a Disciple of a real concrete Jesus or a Disciple of a parable?” suggests that you see a parable as something that is unreal. You said; “Is Jesus nothing but a parable? He would be if He was not talking to the Devil in the desert. either that or Jesus was deranged and talking to Himself.”
We cannot read the Bible the same way we read the news paper; as commentary. Jesus is always teaching and He is teaching here in Matthew 4:1-11 also.
We are being taught here how to overcome temptation. How we should respond when the tempter come unto us. You are using Matthew 4:10 to confirm your understanding of the tempter.
A literal interpretation of the serpent speaking to Eve Genesis 3:1-5 as well as a literal interpretation of Jesus speaking to the devil Matthew 4:10 are both sure to mislead.
In the first instance Adam is being tempted through Eve. This is a deeply spiritual lesson where the figure Eve “the help meet” must be interpreted by the spirit.
Gen. 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
The Scripture begins by telling us that “Man” represents both male and female. (Genesis 1:27) The Scripture also tells us that the name “Adam” represents both male and female. (Genesis 5:2) Interpreting Genesis 3:1-5 as our female speaking to a serpent not only debases our understanding but it has been responsible for the fact that women have seen as lesser vessels. This also leaves us with the hanging question if the serpent is an evil being who created it?
Interpreting Matthew 4:10 literally as Jesus speaking to “an evil entity” called the devil goes against the Truth of the nature of God.
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Davidwayne
I am not at all saying God is evil. I am saying that God allows evil to exist. If God did not allow evil to exist it would not exist and there would not have been a tree of knowledge of good and evil. I am also saying Satan is not the only evil entity or Being and that evil in all it's forms existed before Adam and Eve. If this were not true then there would have been no tree of the knowledge of good and evil. How could there be knowledge of evil if evil did not exist. You cannot have knowledge of something that does not exist.
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TRWord
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
John 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
You said; “I am also saying Satan is not the only evil entity or Being and that evil in all it's forms existed before Adam and Eve.”
Then who created Satan and all these evil beings?
You also said;” I am not at all saying God is evil. I am saying that God allows evil to exist.”
You seem to think that by saying God allow evil to exist that this explains where all this evil came from.
Jesus said prophetically;
Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. (Luke 21:10-11KJV)
Hosea also said; “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind:”
Paul said; “For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
We fail to recognize that we act on what we believe and we reap what we sow.
From the very beginning a loving God has been trying to show us that believing in good and evil will lead to death. We have seen the consequence of this belief.
Jesus told us; Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. (John 7:24) And throughout the Bible there is evidence of the Truth of the omnipresence of God and the Oneness of spirit which should be the foundation of our faith, but we rain hell on ourselves by continuing in disobedience with our romance with the belief in good and evil.
Ps. 139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
Ps. 139:7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
Ps. 139:8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
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Davidwayne:
God did not warn, He command Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil or to even touch it lest he die.
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TRWord
To warn; is to inform in advance of an impending danger.
To command; is to give an authoritative order.
You say that God did not warn Adam but He commanded him not to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus has taught us that God is love, the “do as I say or else” image of God is of the old understanding. You also are unable to see the impending danger in the knowledge of good and evil because you believe that evil manifestations comes from evil beings instead of through our belief.
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Davidwayne
Obviously, since before Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit they were completely innocent of the knowledge of good and evil and so would not know about the existence of the Devil, known as the evil one. To them at the time he was just a serpent, another creature of the field till the serpent beguiled Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. That is when the serpents true nature was revealed to them because their eyes were opened to it after eating the fruit.
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TRWord
I don’t know why, but for some reason you have divided the tree of the knowledge of good and evil into “the forbidden fruit” and the knowledge of good and evil.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is one thought and the fruit of this tree is the consequence of believing in it. You have concluded correctly that the serpent was just a serpent, another creature of the field before they partook of the knowledge of good and evil. But you again have this pre-existing devil which is an inseparable part of you thinking which prevents you from seeing that our belief in the knowledge of good and evil is cause of all the manifestations of evil and not an evil presence separate and apart from God.
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Davidwayne:
God did not send Jesus to reveal His omnipresence. God's omnipresence was well established long before Jesus came to dwell on the Earth as a man.
You have redefined the word omnipresence to mean something it was never intended to mean. It means that God is present everywhere at all times. It has nothing to do with being a literal part of God.
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TRWord
You said; “It means that God is present everywhere at all times.”
You say this but you don’t believe this because “everywhere” means everywhere and that means there is no place for the devil.
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Ted C
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04/04/2011 23:04 |
TR, I'd appreciate a response to my post as well. Either you believe the things I listed are truly evil or you don't. I for one would really like to know your thoughts on the matters.
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Kelley
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04/04/2011 23:12 |
I just read through this entire thread this evening for the first time.... wow. I am amazed by you guys, really. I'm not really smart enough to wade in here, but TRW, I get little glimmers here and there of what you are trying to say. And yet this very basic question comes to me over and over again. You are staking an entirely "other" sort of theology on the oft repeated "knowledge of good and evil"... How can one "know" something that is an error or does not exist? To have knowledge of something means there is a "something" to know. I can see "believing" something in error.... but to "know" something in error is to not know it at all. The scripture does not say "the tree of the BELIEF in the knowledge of good and evil."
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Kelley
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04/05/2011 01:02 |
to follow your thinking back to believe in a tree of the knowledge of good and evil would have to have begun with a belief in the tree itself, that it existed, a tree which God pointed out and then planted the "erroneous" idea that good and evil were possible to know. Does that make God responsible?
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TRWord
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04/06/2011 15:26 |
Ted C
“Tell me that these men's actions and these events weren't the result of pure, blackest evil:”
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TRWord
Ted there is no denying that there are evil manifestations in the earth. Haven’t you noticed what is going on around us? There isn’t just evil manifestations in human behavior. Look at the weather and the frequent calamities. What do you call these “acts of God.”
All of this has been prophesied. And yes it’s going to get worst. It’s going to get so bad Jesus said;
Matthew 24:21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
Matthew 24:22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
The question is why? The answer you’ll get it’s because of sin and that satisfies most person’s quest for the understanding but I hope that you are seeking a deeper understanding.
Proverbs 4:7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
We have been sowing through our belief in good and evil and we are continually reaping a bountiful harvest of the fruit of good and evil.
The time is now when we “men of faith” should stop judging by what we see.
John 7:24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
Righteous judgement is holding fast to the Truth that God is the only power and presence.
John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
We must stop giving power to the flesh over the Spirit.
The Lord said;
Matthew 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
He is telling us here that we abdicate authority to the things of the earth when we deny the power of heaven, but when we acknowledge the power of heaven we gain authority over the things of the earth.
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John T
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04/06/2011 17:18 |
I don't think you're making any sense at all -- so if there is nothing but good, then how can you call these acts evil?
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TRWord
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04/07/2011 06:19 |
Hi Kelly
I’m glad that you are back I missed your input
You said; “I'm not really smart enough to wade in here,”
The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden should be interpreted through the spirit and not the intellect. Interpreted with our intellect we become transfixed on the tree because this is the only part of the thought that is easily understood. The two trees represented two options that Adam had. One option led to life and the other led to sin and death. The option that Adam took is describe as a “knowledge;” a wrong conclusion.
The “knowledge of good and evil” separated man from the Father and set man down a path of sin because separation from God is the cause of sin. This is why we needed Jesus Christ to reconcile us back to the Father because only by being “One with the Father” the cause of sin is removed. The knowledge of good and evil caused the belief in two powers one for good “God” and another for evil “the devil.” The devil however is not an entity. The devil is the tempter. The tempter is anything that cause us to perceive the existence of something other than God. It can be appearances in the physical world or it can be our human ego as Jesus demonstrated in (Matthew 4:1-11)
Faith is believing that which we cannot see the omnipotence of God.
Revelation 19:6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
Revelation 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
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Ted C
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04/07/2011 13:24 |
TR, I think you're simply saying that man has volition to do either good or bad things, based on what comes out of our hearts.
How is this revolutionary?
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Bibleman
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04/07/2011 21:15 |
^^^^ :) ^^^^
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