Results 1 - 7 of 7
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Arguing Among Apostles?? | Gal 2:11 | DocTrinsograce | 224587 | ||
Dear Inquisitor, The odd notions of amicability in modern culture seem to preclude simply stating the truth. If you search the Scriptures you will find that they not only called a spade a spade, they named names(e.g. 1 Timothy 1:20; 2 Timothy 4:14; 3 John 12; Revelation 2:6). Relative to this particular incident in Galatians (v2:11; cf , these points come immediately to mind: 1. The Apostles would be the first to affirm that we are all fallible (Ecclesiastes 7:20). 2. Often our Lord must render correction more than once for any given failing. Yet He is patient and generous (James 1:5), correcting those He loves (Hebrews 12:6; Revelation 3:19). 3. The most powerful adjunct to our pedagogy is how we live (1 Thessalonians 1:6). 4. A leader's behavior is open to public scrutiny. Consequently, the correction of that behavior must be a public thing. This is a particularly the case in the church (Matthew 5:20; Titus 1:9). 5. Galatians 6:1 appears to contradict what Paul said in v2:11. However, note well that there is a distinction between ministers of the church and laity (see Matthew 18:15-19). When the laity deal with failing in one another, it would ordinarily begin in private discussion. 6. We serve a thrice holy Lord. The purity of the church is all of our business: "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:18-20 NASB) Contrast this with the handling of the things we see today (e.g., Roman Catholic sex abuse, Kenneth Copeland, Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Bakker, etc.) In Him, Doc |
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2 | Arguing Among Apostles?? | Gal 2:11 | Inquisitor | 224632 | ||
Your Point 5 is a very interesting one: Gal 6:1 Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Can you infer any further major points for our benefit in today's world? God's blessings to you, Inquisitor |
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3 | Arguing Among Apostles?? | Gal 2:11 | DocTrinsograce | 224635 | ||
Dear Inquisitor, You asked, "Can you infer any further major points for our benefit in today's world?" (sic) Yes. I can infer many things, but not so narrowly, nor ought I to dump those wholesale upon the forum. We start with a full and sound interpretation. When that is rightly done, the application naturally falls in place. We do greatly err in being a generation that treats the Bible as a "how-to" book. In Him, Doc PS I always teach my children the distinction between the words can, may, will, and ought. |
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4 | Arguing Among Apostles?? | Gal 2:11 | Inquisitor | 224656 | ||
Lionheart, Doc and 108cious, I sincerely appreciate all of your responses; they're all very good points to this rather interesting story. I was trying to go for something much bigger, at least in my humble opinion. Let me explain. I like to use my imagination to try and make these kinds of scenes in the Bible come alive. Now imagine in the Christian world at that time, the big and famous Peter, so called leader of the church in Jerusalem coming to Antioch. Then Paul approaches Peter (hopefully like it's been mentioned), and begins talking about this subject in subdued tones or maybe they talked about it previously. Anyway, it's obvious that Peter has a real problem switching over to this whole new idea of ALL of the full benefits of Christianity being extended to everyone, including Gentiles. And this is true in spite of God's Personal Revelation to Peter in Acts 10. Now we all know that both Peter and Paul are endowed with miraculous knowledge and powers of self control from the Holy Spirit. But it seems the HS is allowing the whole world to find out about this problem. In other words, the HS wanted Peter to find out on his own as he is famously a little bit stubborn about learning things. We know this from his past. Well where else could we could go for a Bible based commentary on this most unusual strategy from the Holy Spirit? Where else does He let the Apostles experience this kind of "learning on their own" and walk on their own? The biggest scene of which I can think is that of the famous letter issued in Acts 15. All of us know the scene pretty well. Paul has brought the situation to the elders in Jerusalem for resolution as he should. Judiazers (sp?) are messing up everything by insisting on Christians being circumcized in order to be truly pleasing to God. This is the first major crisis for these christian leaders to deal with on nation-wide scale. They know what they decide will set a precendent and will be followed for all time. What a powerful opportunity to come up with a gradiose creed, something what they experienced with the famous Law of Moses. And what do these great and noble leaders do? Well first they pray to God for guidance and then after much discussion, they issued a very humble letter with merely four restrictions. You know what they are or you can re-read Acts 15 for a reminder. But my point is, they humbled themselves and minimized this guidance, taking special pains to avoid ALL the business about circumcision. This point I'm making includes the fact the HS allowed us mankind (christians really) to make up our minds about how the church was to proceed and handle these kinds of problems. In other words, they held up these gentlemen (Apostles) with miraculous powers like we hold up our children and then let them learn to walk on their own. God, Jesus and HS were all in this together and let us mankind do our own thing and thanks be to God, these Apostles were humble enough to minimize their spirit and chose solid Godly guidance from centuries past. That's the wonderful point I'm trying to showcase. What a wonderful development: God wants all of us to graduate from His Micro-management as in the OT and see ourselves as mature children of God. He wants us to keep trying our best to imitate His Son and His Lifestyle, His Way of Thinking with "What would Jesus do." Now back to Galatians. Yes indeed Doc and 108cious make a good point. 108cious, I think I finally get the point of your name: It's tenicious...correct? Yes, in Gal 6:1, we are to follow Paul's instruction in correcting our fellow man or christian. We have to assume Paul did follow this procedure with Peter; it's just not recorded as we didn't need to know, according to God. So Peter and most probably ALL the Jewish christians had a very difficult time with this business of allowing Gentiles into the Family of God with ALL the benefits. Much like our country is having difficulties with prejudices in many different quandrants of our nation. Mankind has always had this problem but we're working on it, right? To the best of our ability. AND let's not forget that Paul and Peter are reconciled as brothers. Peter even acknowledges Paul's superior handling of God's Word. 2 Pet 3:14 Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; 15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. Well, I appreciate your allowing me to share. God bless, Inquisitor |
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5 | Arguing Among Apostles?? | Gal 2:11 | DocTrinsograce | 224671 | ||
Dear Inquisitor, "Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility; They speak a vision of their own imagination, Not from the mouth of the LORD.'" (Jeremiah 23:16 NASB) If we imagine a thing, let it be consistent with the entire Word of God. If it is not, at lease we should be careful not to spread it about. Son, our forum is about the study of the Word. Let us focus on expositing the Scripture, rather than speculating outside what has been revealed. In Him, Doc |
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6 | Arguing Among Apostles?? | Gal 2:11 | Inquisitor | 224677 | ||
Dad (tongue-in-cheek), I'm not certain but it seems you're trying to imply that my post was "speculating outside what has been revealed." Would you care to elaborate and pinpoint which particular statement is in conflict? I try very hard with all of my posts to this Forum to keep my statements within the bounderies of God's Word, or at least His Intent. Surely you don't think our Lord forbids us to use our imagination when He leaves out some of the details in His stories. I'm hoping to walk away from this thread of dicsussion with some encouragement. Do you have any such words for me? God bless you, Inquisitor |
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7 | Arguing Among Apostles?? | Gal 2:11 | stjohn | 224702 | ||
Dear Inquisitor, From time to time while reading along at this forum, I'm not only reminded that the guidelines "TOU" of this forum are quite clear, and that our posts should be as free from speculation as is posable, something a dear departed brother once said says it so well and indeed says it better then I can; so, knowing that he doesn't mind, because I asked him if I could quote this, here it is for your and anyone else who may be reading along edification. John “I lay no claim whatever to any expertise on matters involving High Theology or anything of the kind, so I'm fairly well limited when it comes to trying to connect the dots. And that is good! It forces me to attempt to speak only where the Bible speaks and to keep my mouth shut where the Bible is silent. I have enough trouble learning and digesting what the Bible clearly reveals, and so it leaves me no time to speculate and ruminate on the things which our loving and all-wise Father chose not to elaborate. God's eternal and unchanging word will be around long after I'm gone. Few indeed are they who care about my opinions now and fewer still will remember them after I've gone. So my candid view about questions such as call for speculations is this: If God did not choose to reveal details, is it our business to worry very much about them? I really don't believe that God expects us to fill in the blanks ourselves nor needs man to take over where He left off, do you? Just how important is it to know about such things? The narrative has endured and imparted the message it was intended to impart for centuries as it is, without being gussied up with all these minute frills and details. Let's be content to learn from it all that it clearly reveals without tarnishing the sacred record by adding our worthless speculation and groundless guesses.” –Hank Hallmark |
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