Title: Questions & Answers
Speakers: Godfrey, Lawson, Nichols, Parsons, and Thomas
Length: 47 minutes 34 seconds
Questions & Answers with Godfrey, Lawson, Nichols, Parsons, and Thomas
You are either a Christian and you believe God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit and believe the Bible, or you don’t.
Thoughts?
i think we believe in Bible, cannot believe in culture
Culture is different from Bible. We can know culture, then we can communicate with other culture people.
This is an interesting video. This clearly shows how great scholars themselves are not very clear about where to draw lines. I do agree that some of them try to defend the gospel for what it is whereas some try to cross lines.
I think what you @Sunami_Carpenter mean when you say the “culture” - is it a worldly way of living opposed to the spirit of God. Definitely Christians are ambassadors of God on earth standing for the heavenly way of life and opposing any other way of living. But we do it gently as all men are God’s creation and what’s wrong about them is sin which derives its origin from Satan.
But I think times need interpretations that is relevant to that particular time. It is good to quote verses from the bible, but more importantly it is even more important to interpret it according to our times - so that people may understand the implications of the verse for today. An increased amount of caution and discretion is needed as we try to interpret it not crossing the lines ourselves.
I would say @Moses_C that when it comes to any culture other than the only one I know (American) that those within that culture certainly know far more about their culture than I do, and probably far more than most (though not all) Americans know about most cultures other than American culture. Americans tend to be xenophobic.
That being said, I can say that American culture has all but destroyed true Christianity (meaning Bible believing Christianity) here in the U.S.A. So it always worries us Bible believing Christians when culture tries to dictate changes to our Bible or our Christianity. We have watched it demolish most churches, this “culture” push on Christians.
That does not mean that it is going on in all or any other cultures. I feel I can only really make a comment on this, and that is, that “worldly” people (meaning anyone not saved by Jesus Christ) are born rebels against God and will do all they can to rid the earth of Christianity. I know I did before I was saved by Him. I know many others who though they would not admit they actually hate God, it’s obvious by their reactions to Bible believing Christians that they do hate God. This is due to our fallen world and our sinful natures.
@Moses_C I like most of what you write. You are grounded in the Word, you understand it’s meaning. And, like the rest of us, you and we are under intense pressure from our culture to live by their rules.
One of the parts of scripture I find the most helpful in times like these is the one that says what to do when pressed as we are.
1 Thessalonians 2:4 New International Version (NIV)
4 On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts.
Yet, you point out truth when you say we …
That is true and necessary, as we are called to love all people. Sometimes love does things that don’t look good on the surface though, and since our culture is obsessed with surface, it often is blind to what is good underneath a surface “bad”.
Example: Little Junior runs into the road and his Daddy yells at him. When Daddy gets Little Junior on the sidewalk again he scolds him and warns him of the danger if he runs into any road without stopping and looking both ways.
In my example above, most of us can see why Little Junior’s Daddy scolds him. His Daddy doesn’t want him to die!
What is the difference between our love for people and our desire that they not eternally be punished in hell (which we have so gloriously, through no effort of our own, been saved from) and warn them about it?
Yet if we go by people’s responses, we will shy away and be timid about sharing this terrible news, without which, the Gospel makes no sense.
For me I have to get my courage from God.