Having a "Personal Relationship With Christ"

strathmeyer said:
Why wouldn't it end when they died?
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Because of this statement in scripture right here...

Matthew 28: 18- 20

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Did you happen to get that last part, lo I am w/ you always.....
To me this does indeed illistrate it well, all believers do in fact have a relationship with Christ.
 
Kathy, how do you distinguish between what Christ says and what you imagine he says? After all, He wasn't addressing you directly in that passage. Let's assume you don't imagine Him saying anything very silly or evil--if that happened, you'd know right away it wasn't legitimate. So how do you know you?
 
ChristineR said:
Kathy, how do you distinguish between what Christ says and what you imagine he says? After all, He wasn't addressing you directly in that passage. Let's assume you don't imagine Him saying anything very silly or evil--if that happened, you'd know right away it wasn't legitimate. So how do you know you?
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Hi Christine, when I read scripture I take every word that Jesus says to heart. I guess one must be born again before they realize what this hidden manna is. When one receives Christ we can take Him at His word!
Gods word has the power to transform and renew people to live a spirit filled life. I can't really explain how it happens, but it does.

As I meditated on this scripture today....

Ephesians 4:17-24 The Christian's Walk

So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.


This makes me realize that most of you I have been trying to share with are not able to hear what God may be trying to say, but I can honestly tell you I know His word never goes out into the world void.
 
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ruach1 said:
Well, maybe they might rebuild their downed aircraft, rename it "The Phoenix," and fly it to the nearest safe haven. :filmstrip

But what does this have to do with the OP?
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Nooooo! ;) I just saw (parts) of that movie. Interesting, but not extremely convincing or entertaining.

I'll definitely agree with those who have espoused the idea that this 'PrwC' is a transformation of philosophy on arriving at personal conviction possibly derived from the Renaissance. But is it also plausible, and I'm asking not dictating, that this has some correspondence to the notion of 'accepting the Holy Spirit' or the more heretical notions that each individual has a 'shard of the divine' that must be awakened? In other words, when you 'receive the Holy Spirit' or 'awaken the Divine Shard', you are now one with whatever it is you are one with - comprising a personal relationship since you now have this sort of 'link to God'. Maybe there is a philosophical/theological derivation?

Robert
 
kurious_kathy said:
when I read scripture I take every word that Jesus says to heart.
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ummm no, you don't actually. When you read scripture you take every word that someone edited, that someone else translated, that someone ELSE translated, that someone else SAYS Jesus said to heart. Bit of a difference wouldn't you say? Jesus didn't write the scriptures, it's all hearsay. Would you take that as evidence for anything else?
 
Ausmerican said:
ummm no, you don't actually. When you read scripture you take every word that someone edited, that someone else translated, that someone ELSE translated, that someone else SAYS Jesus said to heart. Bit of a difference wouldn't you say? Jesus didn't write the scriptures, it's all hearsay. Would you take that as evidence for anything else?
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Exquisitely well stated! And to boot, you interpret what you read that was ... so on and so on ... to comply with your understanding of words, persistence of context, and preconceived notions!

Unless the languages is precise and incorruptible, literality is something to be avoided.
 
Ausmerican said:
ummm no, you don't actually. When you read scripture you take every word that someone edited, that someone else translated, that someone ELSE translated, that someone else SAYS Jesus said to heart. Bit of a difference wouldn't you say? Jesus didn't write the scriptures, it's all hearsay. Would you take that as evidence for anything else?
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There have been many scholars and theologians who have studied Greek and Hebrew and translated the word of God so it is easy for us to understand in our language today, this is very true. But that doesn't mean it's wrong!
If God can create the heavens and the earth, don't you think He can see to it that His word has been well preserved? I certainly do!!

But if you want to look into it a bit more here another great article by Hank on Reliability of the Bible Manuscripts...http://www.equip.org/free/CP1001.htm
 
But it wasn't. And there are myriad documented cases where preservation was lost or mishandled, to the extent that we can no longer guarantee that even small portions of the NT would agree with the original authors' writings.

Might I mention that we do not have the 'original' transcripts to most of the bible - we have a hodgepodge of documents of various ages, some being duplications therein and still disagreeing in sections.

I suggest a read of "Misquoting Jesus" as well as a consideration of the Apocrypha and other skirting documents related to biblical exegesis. You'll find 'reliability' to be much lower than 'Hank' purports. ;)

Robert
 
kurious_kathy said:
Ephesians 4:17-24 The Christian's Walk

So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
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Translation:

"You didn't get where you are today by thinking, so for fecks sake don't start now! Don't listen to those JREF freaks, they can't handle the truth. D'ya know I heard they are born with horns on their heads that they have to get removed when they're babies. Or else grow their hair really big..
You're better than them. They smell really bad. What have I told you about hanging round with them? Is that cigarette smoke I smell?!"

:vk:
 
ETA: In some sense, what Hank says is true. Through biblical scholarship, many of the errors have been found. But unlike the example, in some cases we don't have the original, we don't have the copies of the original, heck, we don't have any copies except for those first introduced into the canon (maybe thousands of copies later).

In addition to that, the corrections that biblical scholars have deduced are generally ignored as they change contexts (as dogmatically or historically accepted), sometimes in insignificant ways, but sometimes in earthshaking, faith-shattering ways.

Thus, the bible that you are reading, even if corrections have been made, probably still omits a good deal of them because of the problems that they incur.
 
kurious_kathy said:
There have been many scholars and theologians who have studied Greek and Hebrew and translated the word of God so it is easy for us to understand in our language today, this is very true. But that doesn't mean it's wrong!]
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You dont get what I am saying. They didn't translate "the word of God." They translated the words of some guys who say they talked to God and tis is what he said. If you met someone tomorrow who told you THEY just talked to God. would you take their word for it too?
 
Kathy, I am born again. Nothing happened. Jesus didn't speak to me before I was born again, nor after. Now I can certainly think about what Jesus would have wanted me to do and what he would have said to me, but I can't hear a thing. And no one has ever tried to hear harder than me. Either your brain is somehow wired so that you can "hear" your own thoughts as if they were messages directly from Jesus, or Jesus has chosen not to speak to me.

When you consider this, I ask you to think of this scenario. Persons (such as yourself) who are able to hear Jesus listen to Jesus' advice and compare notes. If Jesus is talking to them both independently, wouldn't you expect the advice to be harmonius, if not identical? Jesus wouldn't tell one to be a Catholic and another to be a Mormon, and yet a third to be a Muslim would he?
 
kurious_kathy said:
This makes me realize that most of you I have been trying to share with are not able to hear what God may be trying to say, but I can honestly tell you I know His word never goes out into the world void.
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We can't hear what God may be trying to say? The Creator of Heaven and Earth can't speak loud enough for us to hear Him? Truly you worship a weak and feeble god!
 
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