[TruthTalk] illusion? theory? theology? FAITH

[Judy Taylor]

From: "Wm. Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Welcome to my illusion. I mean theory. Oh I mean theology. Or whatever it is. Welcome,   Isn't it funny how things come full circle? We're back to asking Where the heck do we get this stuff. That's what intrigued me from the biginning. Joe says, the Bible!      NO! says Smo, MINE COMES FROM THE BIBLE! YOU'RE GOING TO THAT HELL PLACE TO BE WITH DEAR OL' AUNT BESSY!  Well then, that settles it.   -- But is anyone fed? Are you satified?   JT: Did you say all that to say that there are lots of different opinions as to what the Bible says Bill?   This is what prompted me to write to David in the first place, not to tell him that history says he's right, and so therefore it must be the truth; but to assure him that there is historical presidence from which to draw. He's not all wet, in other words. This is also what the early church was defending against heretics who wanted so say that Jesus could not have a human mind. Why? because it didn't fit with their Greek mindset that said that evil was in matter by virtue of matter being matter. Thus anything physical is evil; therefore the only part of Jesus which was divine was his mind, which could therefore not be human. Athanasius (that dead guy who authored the Nicene Creed) said, NO! that is mythology! Jesus had to have a human mind, too, because that is where evil is at it's strongest. If Jesus did not have a human mind, then he did not heal us there. We're still in our sin.   JT: Hey I know nothing of all that Greek stuff Bill. I say Jesus did not have the same fallen nature as the rest of us because this is the teaching of scripture. He came forth from God (by his own testimony) and was holy from the time of his birth.  Why is it so difficult to believe that God is able to create a holy child in the womb of Mary? this in no way detracts from the fact that he was born of the woman.   And so the battle raged. Eventually the Church went along with Athanasius, and Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Naziansus, and myriad others, to reaffirm and uphold this biblical truth. It was only when a hundred years later that the Artemis worship of Ephesus had blossomed into the worship of Mary that the Church bagan to capitulate on this teaching. What a said day it was when the Church finally let go of Christ's humanity, because when it did it threw his Divinity so far away from us that we cannot see him any longer. All we're left with is an angry God, standing behind the back of Jesus, saying, I'm going to get you, just like I got dear ol' aunt Bessy.   JT: Speak for yourself Mr. Bill. My God is not like this at all.  He is a loving heavenly Father who is not willing for any to perish; ATST the ONLY way we can come to Him is by faith in His Word (not ours) and this is not scripture modified through the grid of Church history and it is not the experience of Aunt Bessy or anyone else we may consider to be saintly.  There is just one way to come and this is by faith which means that we subject our carnal reasoning to His Word rather than subject His Word to our carnal religious reasonings.   We are saved by FAITH which comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17)   Judyt