gmanyo
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- Joined
- Jun 8, 2010
- Messages
- 275
- MBTI Type
- ENTP
I can dig that. I disagree on some points, but I don't want to delve into it right now. I do think that helping the poor and loving the loveless and healing the sick etc. is a huge part of Christianity.I think I was referring to the mindset where people have dismissed wrongdoings in this life and suffering in this life because they will soon be going to heaven, to the exclusion of investing in the Now. The whole concept of heaven is certainly not part of Jewish culture in the Old Testament, and Jesus specifically said that the Kingdom of God is at hand as soon as you believe... immediately you are part of God's kingdom, and God's kingdom is wherever members of the Body are within the world. Perhaps people are motivated by the fear of others going to hell, but there's still a sense of not waiting for the future but investing in the Now in order to engage others. You feed the hungry, you heal the sick, you love the loveless, etc., all in the now, rather than sitting around and waiting for heaven. Jesus worked tirelessly in the Now, he wasn't just someone who preached the future and talked about life after death, he brought life more abundantly in the present.
Maybe that's what it means now, but I feel that the word the Bible uses is not at all that. In fact, I think in many places in the Bible, it simply means 'believe' most of the time (source: http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G4102&t=NIV ). I also don't think the Bible implies belief without evidence.I used to believe that faith didn't mean believing something without proof, but my opinion has changed over the last twenty years -- it exactly means believing something without the ability to "prove" it. If you can prove it, it is no longer faith. But I think we agree on the "blindly" part; faith is not blind at all, it incorporates experience and hope together in order to place one's trust in things that cannot be seen or proven but that still seem believable to the person involved. You feel that the faith is worth taking a risk on because you've come to believe it is true -- or that even if the possibility exists that it might not be true, it's still worth giving your life for.