Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
The fact that the sinner is perceived as a criminal deserving punishment and not as an ill person deserving help is also a catholic/protestant mentality most probable influenced by the greek philosophy.
Well basically you have two schools of interpretation that are opposites. The allegorical school and the historical-grammatical school which takes a more literal approach. You can research the difference, I personally prefer the literal approach unless the allegory is spelled out in Scripture.
The fact that the sinner is perceived as a criminal deserving punishment and not as an ill person deserving help is also a catholic/protestant mentality most probable influenced by the greek philosophy.
A sinner is ill, and he is deserving of punishment,
No way around this fact.
Jesus is not only called the great healer of souls. but the savior of mankind, by taking their punishment on his body (justification, redemption, propitiation are all legal terms)
I don't disagree, but the Christian form of ascetism you speak of has more sources than the Greek philosophers. If I remember correctly, Gnostics, Zoroastrians, and various pagan sects held similar beliefs. It seems to be a common trait among unregenerate man to view the corporeal as fundamentally evil, the ultimate good, or the ultimate manifestation of existence.
I didn't speak about the "christian form of asceticism", but about the practice of physical penitences. It is not the same thing. I think the gnostics also were influenced by platonicism and stoicism. The european culture is highly influenced by the Roman and Greeks, not by the gnostics.
In Christianity, the body not only it is not despised, but the christians held to the belief and hope that their bodies will be resurrected.
The fact that the sinner is perceived as a criminal deserving punishment and not as an ill person deserving help is also a catholic/protestant mentality most probable influenced by the greek philosophy.
Can the sinner not be both/and? Perhaps growing up in a fire and brimstone household has clouded my thought process in this regard, but God's need to punish wickedness is as prominent as His compassion for those mired in sin. Both are aspects of His sovereignty.
A sinner is ill, and he is deserving of punishment,
No way around this fact.
Jesus is not only called the great healer of souls. but the savior of mankind, by taking their punishment on his body (justification, redemption, propitiation are all legal terms)
Can the sinner not be both/and? Perhaps growing up in a fire and brimstone household has clouded my thought process in this regard, but God's need to punish wickedness is as prominent as His compassion for those mired in sin. Both are aspects of His sovereignty.
God needs to punish sin just as a doctor needs to proceed a hurtful (but saving!) operation. Your sin does not touch God's holiness. If you pray, if you fast, if you go to church etc., you do it because YOU need this, not God.
To be fair, that would depend on who you talk to, about the body being despised. Many point to the body as a temple, as Paul did, to support the idea that one must take care of their body.
And by resurrected, they mean the body after it has passed away, resurrected at the last judgment. It is HOPE for a better existence WITH a body.
The fact that the sinner is perceived as a criminal deserving punishment and not as an ill person deserving help is also a catholic/protestant mentality most probable influenced by the greek philosophy.
Is it possible Paul himself, who wrote this, was influenced? That's the point - the writers and later those who read them, drew ideas from other places. Perhaps subtly and even unconsciously. Psychology is starting show that when we have an original idea, it can be traced back to a previous understanding - that we may have forgotten, but made its way into our work.
After all, did Paul not debate with Greek philosophers? He had a direct source.
Certainly! now, the statements would be in the form of language, I think you would agree. And, language is affected by time and place, culture, etc... so, for example, when John writes 'logos' in the opening verse, that word has baggage, history... and some of that history is from the greek philosophers... so I've read...
Agreed. . .they are useless as a remedy for one's sin.
Only faith in the blood of Jesus Christ can save (Ro 3:25) one from God's wrath on the guilt of sin.
One must be justified (his penalty taken care of) before they can start to be spiritually healed (sanctified)
there will be no healing of any spiritual illness if one is not first declared judicially cleared of the penalty of sin.
And spiritual healing does not occur overnight, if it did, everyone who got saved would immediately be sinless, and never worry about anything ever again and they would continually be a person who is loving others 100% and never thinks of self.
Judicial aspect of salvation is forever the moment one is saved.
Medical, or spiritual healing part of salvation will not be complete until we enter heaven. it is a lifelong process which will not be realized in this lifetime.
Only if you don't believe Paul's testimony that what he wrote was received from Jesus Christ personally,
and don't believe 2Tim 3:16. . .keeping in mind that Peter grouped Paul's writings with
"the other Scriptures" (2Pe 3:16), showing that even in apostolic times the NT writings were considered
Scripture (1Tim 5:18 quotes the NT in Lk 10:7 as Scripture).
Certainly! now, the statements would be in the form of language, I think you would agree. And, language is affected by time and place, culture, etc... so, for example, when John writes 'logos' in the opening verse, that word has baggage, history... and some of that history is from the greek philosophers... so I've read...
The word "logos" is more expressive than you make it look. Saint John says that Jesus Christ is the divine logos in a world dominated by very sophisticated greek philosophy. All the wisdom of the greeks become pale in front of the great wisdom of God (wisdom and love expressed not through books, but through the divine Logos -Jesus Christ).
For God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son (not some philosophical books).