Very good apologetics for honest seekers (page 11)

Shining One

>>Cog said this: D)you said "If Christianity is true, you are eternally damned; if it is not true you are eventually just dead." --this is just a narrow-minded, twisted interpretation of Pascal's Wager.

Nothing narrow minded about it. Your argument is not with me, it is with Jesus: "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father excepr through me; I am the bread of life; I am the light of the world; I am the resurrection and the life; You have seen me, you have seen the Father; before Abraham was born, I am; if you do not believe I am (He) you will die in your sins."
A true Christian cannot believe any other way and be honest with the faith. Those who accept the idea that, "there are many ways to heaven" are obviously not Christians by the definition Himself! Now do you see that the claims of Jesus of Nazareth lead directly to the comments made by C.S. Lewis?
Rex

Shining One

For Cog:

The reality of Christ in His dual nature:
John 1.14 (MSG) The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

John 8.13-19 (MSG) 12Jesus once again addressed them: "I am the world's Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in."
13The Pharisees objected, "All we have is your word on this. We need more than this to go on."
14Jesus replied, "You're right that you only have my word. But you can depend on it being true. I know where I've come from and where I go next. You don't know where I'm from or where I'm headed. 15You decide according to what you can see and touch. I don't make judgments like that. 16But even if I did, my judgment would be true because I wouldn't make it out of the narrowness of my experience but in the largeness of the One who sent me, the Father. 17That fulfills the conditions set down in God's Law: that you can count on the testimony of two witnesses. 18And that is what you have: You have my word and you have the word of the Father who sent me."
19They said, "Where is this so-called Father of yours?"
Jesus said, "You're looking right at me and you don't see me. How do you expect to see the Father? If you knew me, you would at the same time know the Father."

John 8.52-58 (MSG) 52At this point the Jews said, "Now we know you're crazy. Abraham died. The prophets died. And you show up saying, "If you practice what I'm telling you, you'll never have to face death, not even a taste.' 53Are you greater than Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you think you are!"
54Jesus said, "If I turned the spotlight on myself, it wouldn't amount to anything. But my Father, the same One you say is your Father, put me here at this time and place of splendor. 55You haven't recognized him in this. But I have. If I, in false modesty, said I didn't know what was going on, I would be as much of a liar as you are. But I do know, and I am doing what he says. 56Abraham--your "father'--with jubilant faith looked down the corridors of history and saw my day coming. He saw it and cheered."
57The Jews said, "You're not even fifty years old--and Abraham saw you?"
58"Believe me," said Jesus, "I am who I am long before Abraham was anything."

That last one seals it: in context and not a pretext, Jesus did in fact proclaim Himself to be equal to God. The resurrection proves that statement and upon that 'rock' is the church built: Jesus is the "conerstone" and no amount of distraction using alternative word studies has any valid point. He did use the verses in Exodus 3.14 (MSG):
14God said to Moses, "I-AM-WHO-I-AM. Tell the People of Israel, "I-AM sent me to you.'"
Rex

Cygnus

Just my opinion, but talking to Rex now is much like trying speaking sense to a leopard.

Rex, great learning (!) has driven to you madness!

myelaine

I felt I wanted to say this... this morning....

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods," because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean." For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but to tell or to hear some new thing.

Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with the inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you. (Acts17:16-23)

love michelle

myelaine

Does any one care to interpret?

michelle

Shining One

Hi Terry,
If you don't want to deal with it then why are you here debating it? Also, why do you persist in taking the moral high ground, since it only displays your own pride and arrogance. You remind me of Yuri Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut who first orbited the earth. When he got back he exclaimed that he had 'seen no god, therefore there is no god'(or something along those lines)! I also don't believe that, "I'm so tortured over what I have been through, God is so evil, wah wah wah" line you use all the time. I posted apologetics: you disagree; big deal; who cares?
Rex