OLAADEGBU:


The Bible is a collection of 66 books written by about 40 authors, in three different languages, on three different continents, over approximately 1600 years. The Bible claims to be inspired and inerrant. This means that came from God and that it is without error in everything it addresses (2 Tim. 3:16).

The Bible contains many different styles of writing such as poetry (Psalms), History (Genesis, Matthew), parables, prophecy, as well as fiction. In this latter instance we turn to the following account that didn't really happen, but is used as an illustration.

Ezekiel 23:1-4, "The word of the Lord came to me again saying, ² "Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother; ³ and they played the harlot in Egypt. They played the harlot in their youth; there their breasts were pressed, and there their virgin bosom was handled. ⁴ "And their names were Oholah the elder and Oholibah her sister. And they became Mine, and they bore sons and daughters. And as for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem is Oholibah."

The Bible is the source of the Christian religion in that it contains the words of God and how the Christian is to apply the words of God to his life. Basically, the Bible describes the origin of man in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:18-25) along with his fall into sin and out of fellowship with God (Gen. 3:1-19). It then describes how God called out a special people to Himself, the Israelites. He promised the Israelites a future Messiah who would restore mankind's relationship with God. Therefore, it is the inspired account of the work of God in history bringing to fruition His prophetic declarations concerning Jesus. Jesus was born of the Virgin, died on the cross, and paid for sins, just as was prophesied in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New. In short, the Bible points to Jesus, "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me," (John 5:39).

Furthermore, the Bible teaches us that forgiveness of sins is found in Jesus alone, "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved," (Acts 4:12). Yet, some say that it is nothing more than fairy tales. But this cannot be for it contains confirmation in archaeology regarding people, places, and events. In fact, archaeology routinely demonstrates the accuracy of the biblical records concerning locations and events recorded in the Bible. In addition, it contains great wisdom and truth that has changed the lives of millions as well as shaped nations.

To be continued...

Well explained. I also think that it is as you explained it here.

Xanderlex:

I'm sorry but you confused me more. Your first paragraph seems to buttress the first point of God judging us based on all our life work but your remaining statement confuses me

Sorry that I confused you. Firstly, are you a christian? I ask that because the first point to do is: to pray. Because God can explain things much better than any human beeing. My words are imperfect and may be I am wrong, but God can explain things completely and perfectly.
Therefore I encourage you to pray to God that He explains this issue to You. And He will! That is the great thing about christian faith: it is not a projection, not a delusion, not a construction or even a clever lie. God really answers prayers!

He will answer you. That is 100% sure. Therefore I basically do not need to try to explain it to you better.

But in order not to appear as lazy and that I simply want to avoid to reply it, I will try:

God will judge every being, one day. He loves but He is not an idiot to let pass everything. As much as he loves every human being, He also is holy. It is not an option for him to accept an evil world where the richer become richer and poorer become poorer, where people kill others, abuse others, injure others, oppress others and much more.
Stupid people might think: why does God not simply let humanity be as it is. It is not that bad. I think, only very ignorant people can think that. The world stinks to Heaven with evil deeds and evil actions.
It is not an option to God to accept that.
The problem is that people tend to think: ok, there are evil persons, but there are also many good people and I personally am a medium good one. May be I am not a perfect person, but I am not evil. Unfortunately this is probably the biggest delusion of mankind.
Every person is evil! The Bible tells so and every person willing to see himself clearly in a mirror, must see this as well. I saw it. I was an evil person, and this I say as someone who had a "nice" childhood, I did not kill anybody, I did not rob a bank or else. But I did many other evil things. And everybody did!

Therefore, if God judged every person by his/her actions and that's it, then no one(!) would go to Heaven.

That is of course also no good option for God. He judges everybody, the Heaven remains pure, He does not need to deal further with evil people, everything seems clear and pure, but - no human would be saved, alll would be judged and eternally dead. Not really a good solution.

Therefore God found a solution, because He loves us. The solution is that He sacrificed Jesus instead of us. Jesus was judged instead of us. We only need to accept this offer and believe in Jesus. Then Jesus' righteousness becomes our righteousness.

Therefore both is right at the same time: We will stand before God and we will be judged because of our actions, but only those who accepted God's offer of Jesus' sacrifice can pass this judgement and enter Heaven. Those who might have appeared as "good people" in this world but did not accept Jesus' sacrifice will be judged and condemned. This condemnation will not because of a "missing membership" to God, but because of his/her actions! On the other hand, those who trusted in Jesus, will be justified because their "actions" are the actions of Jesus, because His righteousness became ours by our Faith in Him. The justification or condemnation will be therefore solely according to our actions.

I am not sure if I could explain it better?

Xanderlex:
As Christians, how does one go to heaven?
Are we judged by all our actions right from when we were born and God compares the good to all the bad we have done?
Or
At the point of death, what was our standing with God?
Kindly provide scriptural backings to buttress your point. Thanks

On the one hand we will simply be judged by all our actions (actions in a wider sense: physical actions, words, what we did and what we did not do, etc.) [Rev. 30:12 "And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done."]

On the other hand one can wonder how the relation is between beeing saved by Jesus and our actions. We know from 1Jo 5:12 "Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life." that the most important issue of our life is whether we are saved or not and this depends solely on our relationship to Jesus. If we "have the Son" then we are saved, and if not, then not. Or with other words: if we have faith in Jesus, then we are saved, and if not, then not.
So one can wonder: ok, I trust in Jesus, but what about my actions? Will I be judged by my faith or by my actions?
The answer is clear from the Bible: No person can be saved by his/her actions naturally. Every person is an evil person from his/her birth. [Rom. 3:10 "as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one"].
The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is the solution to this problem. Jesus took all our evil actions and died for us as a sacrifice. God only demands from us to trust in Jesus. When we do that, then he justifies us. [Ac 16:31 "And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”", and Rom. 5:1 "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."]

Still, everyone will stand before His throne, also we as Christians, and everyone will be held accountable for his/her life. But the major point will be if we are justified by our faith in Jesus, or if we have rejected this grace and may be hope to somehow smuggle ourselfes into Heaven or if we have said: "I do not believe in God and hence there is no God" and then be quite surprised.

Does this answer your question?

alxb

Who is interested to start a web-based bible study and prayer group?

I led several bible study groups in the past in an evangelical background. I live in Germany and I have the impression from God that I should offer a bible study group in Nigeria.

alxb

Who is interested to start a web-based bible study and prayer group?

I led several bible study groups in the past in an evangelical background. I live in Germany and I have the impression from God that I should offer a bible study group in Nigeria.

alxb

Next point:

2. Our identity as Christians.

What I believe:

Our identity as Christians is: we are God's children, a royal priesthood, God's servants, citizens of Heaven, heirs. (Rom. 8:16-17, Phil. 3:20, 1. Pet. 2:9)

What I do not believe any more:

In this world our identity is mainly given by two things: the job and may be a special hobby. In churches often unfortunately the identity is given by my position and my acceptance in the church.

I think it is very important to the Public.

Dear all,

This thread is mainly interesting for christians, but also for interested persons.

I would like to discuss several statements of christians faith with you. Why? Because in my impression the christian church adapted several ideas which are not christian, but entered somehow and distort the christian faith.
I know, there are millions of similar posts, blogs, threads, home pages in the web. There are countless persons who publish their views on why christianity is not as it should be or why a specific teaching is wrong etc... etc... Probably I am one of them. I cannot say. I personally think that I stick to the basic message which is written in the Bible. But, ok, this also everyone claims.

I think you have to judge for yourself. But If you have read until here, I am thankful, because most people already have switched off and assumed that I am one of these freaks, who want to offer a "new" or "corrected" gospel.

I would like to start with one statement and then -if you are interested- continue with further statements. All of them are of the style:

What I believe: against What I do not believe any more:

This is because I have the impression that God led me on a path of being cleansed. He showed me, where I believed something wrong in my life and replaced it by the truth from the Bible. Just to give you some examples and may be then you will see that I will not spread any strange teachings:

- I believe, that God does really love me. And this replaces the wrong old thinking that God loves me only as much as I move up in some hierarchy in the church.
- I believe now that my real identity as a christian is: I am a child of God, I belong to a royal priesthood, my citizenship is in heaven. This replaces my old wrong thinking: I am what I am in my job. My job defines me.
- I believe now that I am God's servant. This replaces the old wrong thinking that to be God's servant one has to study theology or attend a Bible school and only professional pastors or bishops etc. are His servants and the others are just "private" believers.
And similar points.

You might say: well, that is nothing special. I know all that. However, I think that it is these minor points which distort chritianity nowadays. I think that these minor points, which appear very subtle and stupid, that these have a bigger influence on christianity and on our faith than heavy false teachings.

OK, let's start with my first point:

1. Justification only by faith?

What I believe:
I believe that we are justified only by faith and that means by our trust and faith in Jesus. Justified means that God is on our side, that he if for us and not against us. He declares us justified.

What I do not believe any more:
We are theoretically, theologically justified, but in reality we are that what other people think about us. That means, if other persons think that I am small and worthless, then I am small and worthless.

Please write what you think about this.

If you have similar statements, please post them too. I also would like to comment on them.

But: please note, this is NOT a thread to discuss very different teachings which are completely off. Roughly the direction is "orthodox evangelical" teaching, but not excluding other christian denominations, e.g. Catholic, etc. . If you like, one could say: anything near the Nicean creed is fine.
That means, if you believe e.g. that Paul's letters are wrong, then this thread is not the proper place.

Alexander

By the way: I will not be able to check this forum every day. May be every 3-4 days or so.