What facinates me is the wisdom inherent in ancient writings. yep!!! | ||
Matthew 5:48
by purplesofa 44 Replies latest watchtower bible
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purplesofa
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purplesofa
while doing some research on The Ransom Sacrifice I found this:
http://corior.blogspot.com/2006/02/gods-justice-sin-imperfection-and.html
God's Justice: Sin, Imperfection, and the Ransom Sacrifice
Alan Feuerbacher
According to the Insight book, 7 under the subheading "Perfection," the basic idea of perfection is completeness. All notion of perfection, except in the case of God, is relative. To borrow a phrase, perfection is in the eye of the beholder. God is the ultimate beholder. Sin, on the other hand, is "missing the mark," or any action contrary to God's will, according to the Insight book, Vol. 2, under the subheading "Sin." The original Hebrew words translated as "perfect" and "sin" are different. Clearly the terms are related but mean different things. A creature such as Adam, whom God views as perfect in a stringent sense, can become a sinner by an act of sin. Likewise a creature whom God might view as perfect in a less stringent sense, such as any human today, is expected to be "perfect as [his] heavenly Father is perfect." The Bible speaks of different standards of perfection, but only one standard of sinlessness. So it is improper to talk about perfection without first making it clear what the standard is. This view is further confirmed by the discussions on page 151 of the March 1, 1974 Watchtower and pages 497-500 of the August 15, 1971 Watchtower. Also, the term "perfect," with respect to man's physical makeup, is rarely used in the New World Translation. 8 Only in James 3:2 and (possibly) Hebrews 7:11 is it used in this sense. All other uses of "perfect" and words derived from it are with respect to God or Jesus, or imply relative perfection, or are unrelated to a person. The term "imperfect" is not found. So using the two terms interchangeably is not correct. Sinlessness implies an absolute standard and perfection a relative one.
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hmike
The point is that it was not enough for him. He may have kept the letter of the law in it's simplest form, but his heart was not right, and the invitation of Jesus exposed that.
The part of your sentence which I have underlined nicely illustrates what I meant by "ethical suspicion": I for one don't read that in the text.
I think I understand your point and would agree with it. What can be said is that the man was not willing to pay the price Jesus quoted. It need not be a question of morals or ethics, but simply of making a wise or unwise choice, and our judgement of that is based on the value we ascribe to the options..."Is it worth the sacrifice?" To one it is, to another it is not. We all choose whether or not to make sacrifices for something we desire. The person who makes the choice is the only one who can answer, "Is it worth it?" although often not until much later. From the Bible's perspective, of course, forsaking eternal life or spiritual blessings in favor of temporal goods, comfort, or prestige is considered a poor choice.
Stepping back from the Matthean context, it might be worth remembering one important sentence from the Markan version (dropped by both Matthew and Luke): "Jesus looked at him and loved him"...
To me, this says that the young man was sincere in his request and answer. It does not have to mean he was accurate. I note that the man went away sad; he did not argue or go away cursing.
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quietlyleaving
that's a good article by Alan Feuerbacher.
At present in my course we are taking a historical look at early British Evangelicalism within the context of the shift from enlightenment to romanticism. I'm very struck by the similarities between early Methodism in the 18th century and today's Jehovah's Witnesses. John Wesley had a lot to say about perfection. He wrote a tract called "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection" but he emphasized that the perfection he preaches is to do with developing the mind of Christ and not to do with physical perfection.
But I have to admit that I feel more tolerant towards JWs generally as I'm understanding the whys and wherefores of their existance.
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justhuman
Regarding Adam...In the Greek text it does not say that he was perfect...It simply says that it was very good( lian kalos). So there is a lot of difference between being good and perfect. But WT since they got it all wrong and misleaded by saying Adam was perfect.
Adam is the Spiritual Father of the human race, and not the physical as WT and many other believe. I will not go through dates, since to believe that human history is only 6000 years old it will be naive, and against archeological evidence. God through Adam was going to bring human race in to a graduate perfect condition, but most of all a personal relation with our Creator. That is why in the Hebrew and the Greek texts of Genesis clarify the difference between good(kalos) and perfect(telios)
Then we have the fossils that palaiontologists are finding. We see that the earth has a graduate evolution, and this is a fact. In this graduate evolution we see that we have animals, that eating plants, and animals that are flesh eating. So it is against WT's theology if God created all the animals to eat plants, since we have animals that dissapeared long before the human spieces appears on earth that they eated flesh. So the question for a JW is why did God created those blood thirsty animmals?
But in Mathew the Hellenic word is clearly PERFECT(telios) and is reffering also to the divine qualities of God. Besides this it is said in Genesis when He said let us make man according our likeness and image.(kat oikonan(image), kai omiosi(likeness) imon)
For the Apostolic Orthodox Church humans are not only flesh and bones(like WT believes). Humans carry the Holly Spirit of God, and this spirit is our Soul that was God's gift to mankind through our Spiritual Father Adam. With our life on earth we can allow Jesus to enter in our lifes and live a holy life. The goal of a Christian is to reach Holyness, and have personal relation with Jesus.