Hello Andrew, There is a lot here. I have made just some brief responses as to how I see things. I am happy to pick up on one or two matters and discuss in more detail.
"Andrew Swenson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >The God that I have begun to get to know is not a God which I would describe >as tolerant, the OT show's time and time again how God doesn't tolerate the >actions of the Isrealites when they turn away from being in relationship >with him. I think the writers of the OT misunderstood the nature of God. For example, I do not believe God ever commanded the Israelites to go to war against the the other nations, let alone attempt genocide. >Jesus himself while loving many sinners, is shown in the Gospel's to be very >intolerant of sin and the actions of sinners, for instance the number of >times he berated the religious establishment for their hipocrasy The only people I see Jesus being intolerant of are those who were intolerant of others. But this raises the question of how can you stand up against intolerance without becoming intolerant yourself? I don't know the answer to this one??? Anyone else have thoughts on this?? >If God was a tolerant God, why would Jesus need to have been sacrificed? >Surely God would have been able to tolerate our sin and enter into >relationship with us anyway. Jesus did not need to be sacrificed. I think your last sentence comes close to my views. God's grace means God has *always* forgiven sins and embraced us in a relationship regardless of what we do or who we are. It was the scandal and heresy of this idea that put Jesus into conflict with the religous hierarchy resulting in his murder. >This train of thought then got me thinking that maybe there is an even >bigger question behind your question about how we use the bible, a question >of how do we see God? Yes. I think the two are related but I think the bible issue comes first. Until we put aside the bible as the sole/primary revelation of God (and as Allan asks - what justification is there for this?), we are not really free to understand God differently. As I said, I am happy to pick up on one or two points and discuss them in more detail. Cheers, Jonathan __________________________________________________________________ Switch to Netscape Internet Service. As low as $9.95 a month -- Sign up today at http://isp.netscape.com/register Netscape. Just the Net You Need. New! Netscape Toolbar for Internet Explorer Search from anywhere on the Web and block those annoying pop-ups. Download now at http://channels.netscape.com/ns/search/install.jsp ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
