We christians claim that the holy spirit is teaching us into all truth so why then do we have contradicting interpretations of scripture?

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mustaphadrink

Senior Member
Dec 13, 2013
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#41
There are many reasons why we do not have all Christians interpreting the Bible the same way:

1. False teachings crept into the churches even while the apostles were on earth. This is confirmed by the letters to the seven churches in Revelation.

2. The Early Church Fathers introduced many incorrect interpretations which were not corrected subsequently. These teachings became a part of "Holy Tradition" in the Orthodox and Catholic churches.

3. The Reformers failed to go back to Scripture in some doctrines, and adopted the same erroneous teachings as the Catholic Church.

4. The Reformation led to several denominations which held on to their particular man-made interpretations, and refused to change them.

5. Rationalistic and Naturalistic "scholars" and theologians during the 18th to 20th centuries began to attack the Bible, Gospel truth, and Bible truth, and many mainline denominations adopted the Social Gospel while rejecting the true Gospel and true Bible doctrines.

6. Other false prophets and false teachers arose in the 19th and 20th centuries, and introduced bizarre and/or heretical teachings, but gained many followers.

7. Fundamentalist churches began to water down their Gospel and doctrines, and gradually devolved into "Emergent Churches".

8. Well-known televangelists began to veer away from Gospel truth and Bible truth, and the Word of Faith Movement led many astray.

9. The Bible became less and less important, and alternative methods of preaching and teaching were introduced in many churches.

10. Churches became more and more apostate and began to ordain women and homosexuals. At the same time modern bible versions began to be used, and that also changed Bible doctrines and interpretation.

As you can see, the Enemy has been constantly sowing tares among the wheat, and the present state of Christendom is not totally biblical. Therefore there are conflicts and contradictions in books, periodicals, and Christian forums.

None of this means that the truth cannot be discerned by those who sincerely desire the truth, and look to the Holy Spirit for understanding and wisdom when handling the Word of God. But those will always be a minority.
Can you tell me more abut the emergent church?
 

Dino246

Senior Member
Jun 30, 2015
24,555
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#42
Before understanding the cross, I'd say that we first need to figure out why Abraham is our Father of Faith. First things first.
I'm not sure if you were trying to stir the pot, but your post exemplifies the OP question's issue.
 

Dino246

Senior Member
Jun 30, 2015
24,555
13,320
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#45
I don't think that scripture tells us that the holy spirit can give us information. We must look to the Lord for that.
Wow.

Mark 13:11 And when they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you at that time; for you are not the ones speaking, but it is the Holy Spirit.

Luke 2:26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.

Luke 12:12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

John 14:26 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

Acts 1:2 until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had given orders by the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom He had chosen.

Acts 1:16 “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.

Acts 13:2 While they were serving the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set Barnabas and Saul apart for Me for the work to which I have called them.”

Acts 16:6 They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, after being forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia;

Acts 20:23 except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that chains and afflictions await me.

Acts 21:11 And he came to us and took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands, and said, “This is what the Holy Spirit says: ‘In this way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and hand him over to the Gentiles.’”

Acts 28:25 And when they disagreed with one another, they began leaving after Paul said one parting statement: “The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers,

Hebrews 3:7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you hear His voice,
 

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
24,167
12,763
113
#46
Can you tell me more abut the emergent church?
Here is a good article on the emergent church, and here is how they summarize it:
What is the Emergent Church?
The emergent church is a recent event that now threatens to spread into the entire world and has even been infiltrating Bible-believing churches. This movement started in the late 20th and early 21st century and its popularity is skyrocketing. The emergent church is crossing many forbidden theological boundaries that have previously not been breached. The emergent members desire to live their faith as a “post modern” society and at times are hard to distinguish from the pluralistic, secular (worldly) society in which it exists. Most of its members are unsatisfied with what they term “organized religion” and the “institutional” church and are trying to reinvent the church from within.

The danger of this is that biblical models for church discipline, church government, the sacraments, and church offices are being ignored with the wider implications being the allowance for ongoing, unrepentant sin to exist within the Body of Christ, the church. This has serious implications because Paul and the other apostles taught that church discipline for openly sinning and unrepentant members hurts the Body of Christ and weakens the witness of the church...

One of the dangers of the emergent church’s theology is its teachings that we can not nail down exclusive truth regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality and other doctrines in the Bible. Even the inerrancy of the Word of God, the Bible, is not upheld at many (though not all) emergent churches.
https://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/what-is-the-emergent-church-what-do-they-believe/

There are other articles also available.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
55,247
25,715
113
#47
What have I ever posted that is not scripture based?
I have pointed out some of your non-Scriptural postings, and you have ranted and raged and gone off the deep end in response, so though you invited it in the first place, you really did not want to deal with the facts of the matter at all. For instance, if anyone were to do a search for "apple" with your name in the "By:" field, they would find well more than a dozen such postings, including one that says, quite contrary to what Scripture explicitly states, that: Eve ate the apple and sin entered the world. PS~ it remains that no apple is mentioned in Genesis, nor anywhere else in the Bible, that came from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Also, sin entered the world through one man, not Eve.
 

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
24,167
12,763
113
#48
Before understanding the cross, I'd say that we first need to figure out why Abraham is our Father of Faith. First things first.
The cross must always come first. Paul said he preached Christ and Him crucified. Saving faith can only be placed on the Lamb of God who was sacrificed on that cross. Even Abraham said prophetically to Isaac "My son, God will provide Himself a Lamb for a burnt offering". Christ was indeed that whole burnt offering.
 

2ndTimothyGroup

Well-known member
Feb 20, 2021
5,206
1,830
113
#49
The cross must always come first. Paul said he preached Christ and Him crucified. Saving faith can only be placed on the Lamb of God who was sacrificed on that cross. Even Abraham said prophetically to Isaac "My son, God will provide Himself a Lamb for a burnt offering". Christ was indeed that whole burnt offering.
Yeah, no. The the death of Jesus pays our debt. So why was Abraham our Father of Faith? What was Jesus doing BEFORE He went to the cross?

Keep studying.
 

ResidentAlien

Well-known member
Apr 21, 2021
7,501
3,116
113
#50
Here is a good article on the emergent church, and here is how they summarize it:
What is the Emergent Church?
The emergent church is a recent event that now threatens to spread into the entire world and has even been infiltrating Bible-believing churches. This movement started in the late 20th and early 21st century and its popularity is skyrocketing. The emergent church is crossing many forbidden theological boundaries that have previously not been breached. The emergent members desire to live their faith as a “post modern” society and at times are hard to distinguish from the pluralistic, secular (worldly) society in which it exists. Most of its members are unsatisfied with what they term “organized religion” and the “institutional” church and are trying to reinvent the church from within.

The danger of this is that biblical models for church discipline, church government, the sacraments, and church offices are being ignored with the wider implications being the allowance for ongoing, unrepentant sin to exist within the Body of Christ, the church. This has serious implications because Paul and the other apostles taught that church discipline for openly sinning and unrepentant members hurts the Body of Christ and weakens the witness of the church...

One of the dangers of the emergent church’s theology is its teachings that we can not nail down exclusive truth regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality and other doctrines in the Bible. Even the inerrancy of the Word of God, the Bible, is not upheld at many (though not all) emergent churches.
https://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/what-is-the-emergent-church-what-do-they-believe/

There are other articles also available.
Good answer. The Emergent Church and post-modernism basically want to make the Bible irrelevant. They want a God of their own making, not the true God.
 

Dino246

Senior Member
Jun 30, 2015
24,555
13,320
113
#52
Yeah, no. The the death of Jesus pays our debt. So why was Abraham our Father of Faith? What was Jesus doing BEFORE He went to the cross?

Keep studying.
So you would spend time telling people about Abraham before telling them about Jesus? Whom do you worship? Who is the Creator? Who died on the cross? Who was resurrected? Who is coming again to judge the living and the dead?

Frankly sir, there is no need to "keep studying" a concept that is fundamentally out of whack.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,530
13,094
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#53
I have pointed out some of your non-Scriptural postings, and you have ranted and raged and gone off the deep end in response, so though you invited it in the first place, you really did not want to deal with the facts of the matter at all. For instance, if anyone were to do a search for "apple" with your name in the "By:" field, they would find well more than a dozen such postings, including one that says, quite contrary to what Scripture explicitly states, that: Eve ate the apple and sin entered the world. PS~ it remains that no apple is mentioned in Genesis, nor anywhere else in the Bible, that came from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Also, sin entered the world through one man, not Eve.
as an aside, i think the actual scriptural evidence points to it being a fig. it is the only thing there is a record of Christ cursing, and it is the leaf they made tunics from in their shame. whether this is the case i can't say dogmatically, but God did include the detail of fig leaves, and we should not presume that "fig leaves" is arbitrary. we know it's a pertinent & important & necessary detail, by virtue of it being there in the text -- and we agree that the text is the word of God, right?

more to the OP topic, if we do not agree that the scripture is true, is trustworthy & accurate, and if we do not agree that the details that are included are all included for a purpose, if we think that any of the scripture is arbitrary or unnecessary, then that is one way that we may all arrive at different conclusions about theology.
((enter the KJV-only argument)) -- if we do not all have the same scripture, or we do not all believe the scripture, or all of the scripture, then it's possible we won't draw the same conclusions from it.

but we've seen that people with the same scripture reach different conclusions, even about the same passages. ultimately how we agree is through Christ, through His Spirit which teaches us of Him -- He interprets scripture to us, and does so in revealing the things of Christ to us. so when we find ourselves in disagreement, we are at a point where one view honors Christ and one does not, and i think that if we always choose the Christ-centered and Christ-honoring view, we will always be unified: because the work of the Spirit is honoring Christ and speaking of Christ and conforming us to the image of Christ: Christ-centered, Christ-honoring.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,530
13,094
113
#54
So you would spend time telling people about Abraham before telling them about Jesus? Whom do you worship? Who is the Creator? Who died on the cross? Who was resurrected? Who is coming again to judge the living and the dead?

Frankly sir, there is no need to "keep studying" a concept that is fundamentally out of whack.
aye, so, what i would say that we should study about Abraham, is how Abraham testifies to us about Christ. Christ our Lord should be ultimately the focus and foundation and goal of everything we think about and talk about and study and do, concerning our common faith

:)
 

2ndTimothyGroup

Well-known member
Feb 20, 2021
5,206
1,830
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#55
aye, so, what i would say that we should study about Abraham, is how Abraham testifies to us about Christ. Christ our Lord should be ultimately the focus and foundation and goal of everything we think about and talk about and study and do, concerning our common faith

:)
The Circumcision of Christ was instituted with Abraham. That's why he is our Father of Faith, and that's why we must know and understand Him. If we do not understand Spiritual Circumcision, we do not understand the Bible. Spiritual Circumcision should be easy to see all the way back in Genesis 3, verses 22 through 24.

Come on, "Church." Let's wake up! It's time that we start to understand our Faith so that the world will stop looking at us like total . . . utter . . . morons.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
36,530
13,094
113
#56
The Circumcision of Christ was instituted with Abraham. That's why he is our Father of Faith, and that's why we must know and understand Him. If we do not understand Spiritual Circumcision, we do not understand the Bible. Spiritual Circumcision should be easy to see all the way back in Genesis 3, verses 22 through 24.

Come on, "Church." Let's wake up! It's time that we start to understand our Faith so that the world will stop looking at us like total . . . utter . . . morons.
circumcision was given to Abraham as a sign of the covenant God made with him -- and it speaks of Christ crucified. this goes back at least to the removal of the fig-shame-coverings of Adam and Eve and their replacement with tunics of skin, which i'm going to say is a lamb, with the shedding of its blood in order to take it and cover the man and the woman with it. God laid down the life of The Lamb to cover the shame of Adam & his wife; Christ crucified, circumcision.
 

2ndTimothyGroup

Well-known member
Feb 20, 2021
5,206
1,830
113
#57
circumcision was given to Abraham as a sign of the covenant God made with him -- and it speaks of Christ crucified. this goes back at least to the removal of the fig-shame-coverings of Adam and Eve and their replacement with tunics of skin, which i'm going to say is a lamb, with the shedding of its blood in order to take it and cover the man and the woman with it. God laid down the life of The Lamb to cover the shame of Adam & his wife; Christ crucified, circumcision.
It's more than a sign of a covenant, but THE Covenant. And this is a Covenant of Spiritual Circumcision. Circumcision is a reflection of what happened to Abraham, which is that his Heart was Spiritually Circumcised.

Romans 4:11 NKJV - "And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also . . ."

What are we talking about? Let Ezekiel explain what Paul is referencing in Romans 4:11.

Ezekiel 36:25-27 NKJV - "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them."

What Ezekiel recorded as Scripture under the Direction of God Himself (first mentioned in Ezekiel 11) is what Paul is talking about in Romans 4:11 above. This is the Promise of God . . . without the Promise of Spiritual Circumcision, there is no promise of the Spiritual Land of Milk and Honey. Without Spiritual Circumcision, there is no heaven for the person who has not receive Christ's Holy Operation of Faith.

The True Church knows these things. We must know these things!
 

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
24,167
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#59
circumcision was given to Abraham as a sign of the covenant God made with him -- and it speaks of Christ crucified.
Circumcision speaks of the eradication of "the flesh" (the sin nature). And it is applied to the circumcision of "the heart" through the New Birth.

For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. (Rom 2:28.29)
 

tourist

Senior Member
Mar 13, 2014
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Tennessee
#60
We christians claim that the holy spirit is teaching us into all truth so why then do we have contradicting interpretations of scripture?
Claims that the Holy Spirit is teaching us is not necessarily actually having the Holy Spirit teaching us. @Magenta reply makes a lot of sense as we are not on the same spiritual level of understanding in every single spiritual facet which could, in fact, be endless.