I am surprised...

[Mountain Man]

Thank you for the reminder of why I'm so glad I left Christianity. The level of mental gymnastics and cafeteria Christianity required to make things fit what your particular flavor of Christianity believes, is utterly exhausting (especially when it comes to gymnastics to try to pick and choose which parts of the OT are relevant, despite your own founder stating that not one jot or tittle of the law would change until he returns at the end-times).

First of all, Jesus never said that the law would remain "until he returns at the end-times", he said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." So the law was fulfilled when the New Covenant was established through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Which is to say that while the law still exists, and it is still technically in effect, Jesus' sacrifice on the cross removed from us the obligation of living under it. It's like being under threat of jail because you have a large debt that you can not possibly pay, so someone pays it on your behalf. Did your benefactor abolish the law? No, he simply removed from you the burden of its consequences. As the saying goes, "Jesus paid a debt he didn't owe, because I owed a debt I couldn't pay."

Which brings us to my second point: the ritual purity practices of the Old Covenant, like refraining from consuming certain foods, or not wearing fabrics made from mixed materials, are no longer binding on us because Jesus fulfilled the purpose of those laws so that those who have faith in him are considered pure and no longer need to practice ritual purity. Of course there are other laws, specifically moral laws -- do not lie, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not commit homosexual acts, and so on -- that are still in effect and will always be in effect. This is usually when the skeptic sits up and says, "Waaaait a minute, how do you know which laws are ritual purity, and which are moral?" and the answer is one they hate: You need to take your brain out of park and actually study the Bible.

[CivilDiscourse]

It is the manner in which it is written. I might also contend that you "suck" at basic tenth grade comprehension skills.

That is your opinion. But, you quoted him, and replied with something that had nothing to do with his question.

[Gondwanaland]

First of all, Jesus never said that the law would remain "until he returns at the end-times", he said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." So the law was fulfilled when the New Covenant was established through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The bolded shows your gymnastics and ignoring of basic words. Thank you for proving my point.

Which is to say that while the law still exists, and it is still technically in effect, Jesus' sacrifice on the cross removed from us the obligation of living under it. It's like being under threat of jail because you have a large debt that you can not possibly pay, so someone pays it on your behalf. Did your benefactor abolish the law? No, he simply removed from you the burden of its consequences. As the saying goes, "Jesus paid a debt he didn't owe, because I owed a debt I couldn't pay."

See, there you are with even more mental gymnastics to pretend he didn't actually mean what he said. I believe a certain serpent did the same......

Which brings us to my second point: the ritual purity practices of the Old Covenant, like refraining from consuming certain foods, or not wearing fabrics made from mixed materials, are no longer binding on us because Jesus fulfilled the purpose of those laws so that those who have faith in him are considered pure and no longer need to practice ritual purity. Of course there are other laws, specifically moral laws -- do not lie, do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not commit homosexual acts, and so on -- that are still in effect and will always be in effect. This is usually when the skeptic sits up and says, "Waaaait a minute, how do you know which laws are ritual purity, and which are moral?" and the answer is one they hate: You need to take your brain out of park and actually study the Bible.

Ah yes, the old 'oh it doesn't count when it's about eating and wearing fabrics, it just counts for the stuff that happens to be what I don't like, not the stuff that would invonvenience me'.

This is a quite common way that Christians have come up with to avoid having to follow the law of the OT, while still being able to cherry pick the parts they want when they want to condemn someone else - I remember doing this all the time myself with just as much certainty, and just the same comeback - 'well if you don't agree with me that just means you didn't study the Bible good enough'. Thank you for continuing to prove my point.

[NorrinRadd]

NorrinRadd The Koine Greek doesn't allow for "having one spouse." This text addresses circumstances for a man who want's to be episkopos. It does not address the circumstances of a woman who wants to be an episkope.

1TIM 3:2
δει	δει　Prs actv Indctv 3rdSing　***	it is necessary	it is necessary, it is proper✧ought, should 　 δει
ουν	cnjnctn	so then	③ Signifies one or more conditions in combination ✧ Consequentially: "so then". ✧ Confirms that matters foreknown or foreshadowed occurred. ✧ As a concession "it is granted that ・ I grant that". ✧ In relative clauses, "even/just as" 　 ουν
τον	def art: acc masc sgl	the (+ dir obj)	MASC DEF ART ✧ SGL: nom ο; acc ΤΟΝ; dtv τω; gtv του ✧ Plural: nom οι; acc τους; dtv τοις; gtv των
επισκοπον	τον noun: acc masc sgl	‡ 　 supervisor (dir obj)	a person being in charge: bishop, overseer, superintendent, guardian, supervisor, inspector 　επισκοπος
ανεπιληπτον	adj τον: acc masc sgl	‡ 　 irreproachable (+ dir obj)	inculpable, blameless, irreproachable 　 ανεπιληπτος
ειναι	Pres・… ・Infntv	to be	PRINCIPLE PARTS: prs ειμι ftr εσομαι aor ημην 　 ειμι
μιας 1	της noun: gtv fem sgl	one (1)	a, an, any, a certain one, unique 　 εις
γυναικος	της noun: gtv fem sgl	of? ‡ 　 woman, wife	① 　 γυνη
ανδρα	τον noun: acc masc sgl	‡ 　 man, husband (dir obj)	adult male human, husband 　 ανηρ

But you started with v. 2, not v. 1. Verse one talks about "tis," "someone" or "anyone." It does not preclude women. If it meant only males, would it not use "aner," as in, e.g., 2:8?

After that, if Payne, Bartlett (who largely recapitulates and adapts Payne) and those of similar views are correct, there are no masculine nouns or pronouns except for "one-woman man," which should be treated as an idiomatic unit meaning "faithful spouse." According to them, it can refer either to a male or female; if one was speaking specifically and exclusively about females, one would use the construction in 5:9. If Paul had intended only males, wouldn't we expect the passage to include a few male nouns or pronouns to make that clear? But while virtually all English translations insert several such pronouns, my understanding is that they are unjustified by the Greek, and thus the CEB and CEV are more accurate.

[rogue06]

I think more recent scholarship regards it as the "passive" or "recipient" partner in homosexual intercourse.

Some versions like Berean Literal Bible, Amplified Bible and NSAB list both "effeminates" and "homosexuals." ASV and ESV has "nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men," KJV has "nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind" (with the NKJV having "nor homosexuals, nor sodomites"), NET has "passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals" and YLT has "nor effeminate, nor sodomites."

I should note that the Douay-Rheims puts "Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind" in verse 10.

[tabibito]

But you started with v. 2, not v. 1. Verse one talks about "tis," "someone" or "anyone." It does not preclude women. If it meant only males, would it not use "aner," as in, e.g., 2:8?

After that, if Payne, Bartlett (who largely recapitulates and adapts Payne) and those of similar views are correct, there are no masculine nouns or pronouns except for "one-woman man," which should be treated as an idiomatic unit meaning "faithful spouse." According to them, it can refer either to a male or female; if one was speaking specifically and exclusively about females, one would use the construction in 5:9. If Paul had intended only males, wouldn't we expect the passage to include a few male nouns or pronouns to make that clear? But while virtually all English translations insert several such pronouns, my understanding is that they are unjustified by the Greek, and thus the CEB and CEV are more accurate.

True enough - ει τις επισκοπης ορεγεται - doesn't necessarily indicate a man. So - do Payne and Bartlett provide any examples to back their claims of an idiomatic expression? If not, what you have is a bare assertion. If it is an idiomatic expression, it will find use in other writings, which they should refer to in support of their claims.

[Mountain Man]

The bolded shows your gymnastics and ignoring of basic words. Thank you for proving my point.
See, there you are with even more mental gymnastics to pretend he didn't actually mean what he said. I believe a certain serpent did the same......


Ah yes, the old 'oh it doesn't count when it's about eating and wearing fabrics, it just counts for the stuff that happens to be what I don't like, not the stuff that would invonvenience me'.

This is a quite common way that Christians have come up with to avoid having to follow the law of the OT, while still being able to cherry pick the parts they want when they want to condemn someone else - I remember doing this all the time myself with just as much certainty, and just the same comeback - 'well if you don't agree with me that just means you didn't study the Bible good enough'. Thank you for continuing to prove my point.

I suspected I was wasting my time trying to explain basic theology to you. Oh well. Perhaps it will benefit someone else.

[rogue06]

It's a case of moderates being scared off by extremists.

These are the liberal churches that are bleeding members, not your "extremist" churches. The churches that focus on traditional Christianity are losing members at a much slower rate and are often gaining members.

That isn't "moderates being scared off by extremists" but their being disenchanted with their church and simply leaving.

Consider, as an analogous case...

I've got a better idea, let's look at the facts before theorizing.

From something I wrote earlier this year concerning the shrinkage in more liberal churches compared to the growth in more conservative ones:

That's like saying God is very flexible in these things when all of those reports of priests molesting children came in so we should just go with the flow^[1]. Just because some churches are doing something or that something is happening in some churches doesn't mean that God approves. Just look at the condemnations heaped upon various churches in Revelation for example. That certainly shows that God isn't flexible when His churches are not following his will.

IIRC, the only two of the seven which weren't rebuked (the ones in Philadelphia/Alaşehir and Smyrna/Izmir) still exist. There's a lesson there. And it is a lesson confirmed by studies.

After a 2015 Pew Research Center finding that overall membership in Christian churches is steadily declining, a Canadian study of Protestant churches in 2016 (the results of which were published in the peer-reviewed journal, Review of Religious Research) found that conservative churches are still thriving, while less orthodox churches -- those with more liberal teachings -- are seeing their congregations dwindle away^[2].

This is in accord with the research of the historian Thomas C. Reeves who looked at the decline in membership in Protestant Churches from a historical perspective and also found that the exception were among the more evangelical and fundamentalist denominations which were increasing the size of their memberships. He published his findings in his 1996 book, suitable titled The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity.

Likewise in 2001, demographers Hout, Greeley, and Wilde, reported in a departmental paper for the University of Pennsylvania called The Demographic Imperative in Religious Change in the United States that one of the primary reasons for the decline in "mainline" church membership and the simultaneous growth in conservative Protestant denominations is the switching of believers to conservative denominations.

So excuse me if I disagree with the idea espoused by you and the Episcopalian bishop John Shelby Spong (published in his book Why Christianity Must Change or Die over a quarter of a century ago) which states that in order for congregations to grow they need to embrace more liberal interpretation of the Bible and transform along with changing times. That has been a recipe for disaster. Instead we need to stick with the fundamental (from which the word fundamentalist arises and what it actually means and not what scoffers and unbelievers have made it into in popular culture).

No, if Christians are concerned with saving souls by growing the church they need to abandon the unsavory attempts to "keep up with the times" of the secular world and "move in the other direction"






1. And it was tacitly allowing gays into the priesthood that was responsible for the majority of that abuse. For instance this chart from the 2002 John Jay Report (The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States) found that 81% of the victims of priestly sexual abuse were male. 81%. That fact is why the internal 2005 investigation, Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders conducted by the Congregation for Catholic Education, (one of the top-level offices of the Catholic Church), focused on homosexual candidates since vast majority of abuse victims were teenage boys.

2. That explains why Pew also found that membership in more theologically liberal churches (so-called "mainline" churches) only amounted to 14.7% of all US adults compared to 25.4% who belonged to more theologically conservative churches

I'll note that this was also confirmed by a study conducted by Dean M. Kelley, who had been commissioned by the National Council of Churches, to determine why conservative churches were growing, even as the more liberal churches were declining. He laid out the reasons in his 1972 book, Why Conservative Churches are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion, saying that "amid the current neglect and hostility toward organized religion in general" conservative churches were growing by doing what liberal churches were abandoning -- namely "holding to seemingly outmoded theology and making strict demands on their members." And by "demands" he means "in terms of doctrine and behavior."

Kelly criticized the liberal churches for being more concerned about trying to maintain "a good image in the world" than filling the role they were intended for. Quite bluntly he declared that "These expectations are a recipe for the failure of the religious enterprise, and arise from a mistaken view of what success in religion is and how it should be fostered and measured."

The point is that when a church starts to become more of a social club, people start to ask themselves why not just go to the gym, golf course, or even a bar instead. When we follow Spong's advice and seek to water down Scripture in some attempt at making it more appetizing to the secular world we are abandoning our mission. What then is even the point of going to church if the Bible is simply a book of spiritual and moral lessons? The evidence continues to demonstrate that if you want to staunch the flow in the loss in membership then you need to concentrate on the basics and return to preaching and following sound, orthodox doctrine.

Scripture Verse: II Timothy 2:15

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth

© Copyright Original Source

[rogue06]

I see absolutely zero relevance in this verse.

It's a statement about something God did, not a command to humans about what they are allowed to do or not do. It reminds me of the saying "if God had meant men to fly he would have given them wings", the stupidity of which is implicitly a point about the complete fallacy of trying to reason from what God created to rules about human conduct. God created humans naked, but I don't see any Christians getting upset at the concept of wearing clothes.

It doesn't exactly allow for an ever-widening spectrum of "genders."

And maybe you missed the part about God providing clothing after the Fall (Genesis 3:21), so bringing that up was rather peculiar and certainly not helpful for you.

[Cow Poke]

Not sure. I don't feel comfortable saying too much because like I said, I'm not really that familiar with the specifics. ...

I sure do wish that kind of answer were more prevalent on Tweb.

[rogue06]

And as I said to HA, not everyone who calls themselves "Christian" is one in their following scripture. Many people will take verses out of context or add or subtract to God's word to make it fit their narrative.

However, I won't bother to discuss it further.

We've seen this is the case throughout history. At one point or another the majority of Christians have sought to distort a great number of things that go against the teachings of the Bible. That never made it either right or a legitimate Christian view then, nor does it now.

[Cow Poke]

Mmm... ok. From the various relevant NT passages, I consider elder, shepherd, and overseer/bishop/supervisor/guardian to be so closely related that if they are not synonyms, they are basically conjoined triplets.

1Tim 3:1 This saying is reliable: if anyone has a goal to be a supervisor in the church, they want a good thing.
1Tim 3:2 So the church’s supervisor must be without fault. They should be faithful to their spouse, sober, modest, and honest. They should show hospitality and be skilled at teaching.
1Tim 3:3 They shouldn’t be addicted to alcohol or a bully. Instead they should be gentle, peaceable, and not greedy.
1Tim 3:4 They should manage their own household well—they should see that their children are obedient with complete respect,
1Tim 3:5 because if they don’t know how to manage their own household, how can they take care of God’s church?
1Tim 3:6 They shouldn’t be new believers so that they won’t become proud and fall under the devil’s spell.
1Tim 3:7 They should also have a good reputation with those outside the church so that they won’t be embarrassed and fall into the devil’s trap.

Hmm. Doesn't seem to be there. Let's try Titus.

Titus 1:5 The reason I left you behind in Crete was to organize whatever needs to be done and to appoint elders in each city, as I told you.
Titus 1:6 Elders should be without fault. They should be faithful to their spouse, and have faithful children who can’t be accused of self-indulgence or rebelliousness.
Titus 1:7 This is because supervisors should be without fault as God’s managers: they shouldn’t be stubborn, irritable, addicted to alcohol, a bully, or greedy.
Titus 1:8 Instead, they should show hospitality, love what is good, and be reasonable, ethical, godly, and self-controlled.
Titus 1:9 They must pay attention to the reliable message as it has been taught to them so that they can encourage people with healthy instruction and refute those who speak against it.

Huh. Not there either. Maybe a different translation.

1Tim 3:1 It is true that anyone who desires to be a church official wants to be something worthwhile.
1Tim 3:2 That's why officials must have a good reputation and be faithful in marriage. They must be self-controlled, sensible, well-behaved, friendly to strangers, and able to teach.
1Tim 3:3 They must not be heavy drinkers or troublemakers. Instead, they must be kind and gentle and not love money.
1Tim 3:4 Church officials must be in control of their own families, and they must see that their children are obedient and always respectful.
1Tim 3:5 If they don't know how to control their own families, how can they look after God's people?
1Tim 3:6 They must not be new followers of the Lord. If they are, they might become proud and be doomed along with the devil.
1Tim 3:7 Finally, they must be well-respected by people who are not followers. Then they won't be trapped and disgraced by the devil.

Titus 1:5 I left you in Crete to do what had been left undone and to appoint leaders for the churches in each town. As I told you,
Titus 1:6 they must have a good reputation and be faithful in marriage. Their children must be followers of the Lord and not have a reputation for being wild and disobedient.
Titus 1:7 Church officials are in charge of God's work, and so they must also have a good reputation. They must not be bossy, quick-tempered, heavy drinkers, bullies, or dishonest in business.
Titus 1:8 Instead, they must be friendly to strangers and enjoy doing good things. They must also be sensible, fair, pure, and self-controlled.
Titus 1:9 They must stick to the true message they were taught, so that their good teaching can help others and correct everyone who opposes it.

Nope. Oh well.

Not sure what you're thinking is "not there". The "husband of one wife"?

1 Tim 3:2 -- A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

Most translate that "a one woman man".

As for my comment about specifically mentioning "elder" - I was being a bit facetious, in that I also believe there's not much difference at all between bishop and elder, and pastor....

The qualification for "elder" also includes the ability to teach, which is, interestingly enough, not required of "deacon".

[rogue06]

Oh, I'm most certain that many believers here conduct the same mental gymnastics as yourself to try to ignore the Old Testament (but only when it suits you, as we see with Rogue quoting it and your agreement with it up and until other verses nearby were brought up)

[Cow Poke]

It was an extension to the question. If some Baptists do not consider themselves to be of the protestant persuasion I merely enquired under what denominational group he, and by extension Baptists who thought as he did, would classify their beliefs. He replied "Christian" but that does not really answer my question given the doctrinal differences between various Christian denominations.

My loyalty is to Christ (I am a Christ-ian), not to a particular denomination. I am currently a Baptist because, at the moment, that's the closest I have found to the Bible.

and, yes, that is my opinion.

[Gondwanaland]

I suspected I was wasting my time trying to explain basic theology to you. Oh well. Perhaps it will benefit someone else.

You didn't need to explain it, I already lived through it and went through the training to impart it to others. I already know all the leaps of logic, picked-and-cgosen verses, ignoring of basic words and the rest of the mental gymnastics involved in Christian theology to be able to take what you want and handwave away anything that would inconvenience you to have to follow. Been there, done that, grew up and left those childish things behind.