What in the world?! I don't get this so if you could help me clear the waters some to reply to this argument I'd appreciate it. In Christ ~Janna~
I do not think there is a "clear definitive pattern" to the organization of the church. From reading the bible personally, and studying modern scholarship, I am 100% confident there was not a clear cut pattern or agreement during the early church.
Here is an example of a fundamental problem with a fundamental interpretation of the bible:
The author of Matthew had the objective of proving Jesus' Jewishness. He was going to make this happen and he wanted it to be divinely perfect in the genealogy. So, he lies! Yes lies! or God lies if you believe it the Word of God literally to be the handwriting of God. What is the lie. Well, he claimed there was 14 generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile, and fourteen from the exile to Christ. If you examine the genealogies in 1 Chronicles, you will see that it was not 14, 14, and 14. What does all this mean. It means that you are opening up a Pandora's Box of problems if you want to consistently maintain a literal/fundamental interpretation of the bible. Mind you, this is only the first chapter of the first book of the New Testament. How would you feel about studying these paradoxes? Probably would not want to. When I study the early church, I see division, heresy, Jewish/Christian relations (good and bad), and multifarious groups of Christians who did not have a set of unanimous orthodox beliefs we take for granted today.
Oh, that kind of stuff makes me mad, gives me a headache, and makes me want to scream. I am just sorry for people who are so ignorant, especially ones like this one who advertise it so blatantly. Sad.
What that person is seeing when he studies the early church are people who have decided to follow Christ. Since no one is perfect, he is seeing those people sinning and also how to correct that sin. If the NT was just a fairy tale of perfect people and congregations, what good would it be to us, who still sturggle to live perfectly 2000+ years later?
Sounds like he already made your point for you. Matthew wasn't trying to make a historically accurate family tree, like we might; he was trying to make a point to his Jewish readers: Jesus is the Christ because he is a descendant of David. This was a common practice in Hebrew, as well as other, cultures. They would sort of "hit the high points" in recounting a family line when trying to establish a connection between people or make a point. So instead of "Hiram begot Robert, Robert beget Andrew" they might say "Hiram beget Andrew." With a little study, if this guy wanted to know the truth, he could find it. Matthew was a product of his times; he was a Jew, so naturally he would write in a Jewish way. The NT writers were not taken over by the Holy Spirit who wrote for them; the Holy Spirit inspired them with God’s word and used the writer’s natural ability, even bad grammar that can be seen in Mark, and did not somehow separate them from the culture they were in. Another point is (and this is from my Dad, who is way more intelligent than I am, and, even though I trust him, I haven’t verified this for myself) that the Hebrew alphabet was used to represent numbers, and so, worked out, the 14, 14, 14 in Matthew coincides with the letters “d, v, d”, which are the consonance in the name David. This guy seems to be looking for an out, a way to say the Bible is wrong. We can not say, “This is how I would do it, so any other way is wrong!” How arrogant! Just like with any other historical document, we can not assume to project our culture or our standards of doing things on them to measure the correctness or incorrectness of style. Hopefully this helps JG! I miss you and hope to see you soon!
One thing I would agree with him on is that I don't believe that the Bible is the literal "handwritting of God." If we hold that veiw then this argument makes a whole lot of sense. The Bible is inspired, yes, but it did not come down from Heaven; it was WRITTEN by men, who were INSPIRED by God. That's why there are differences in style between Peter and Paul, and why the Gospels are different in the focus of their message. But, that does not and should not lead us to the conclusion that the Bible is not God's word AT ALL. A person would have to want to not believe pretty badly, or been influenced heavily by others, to make that leap!
Yes, you need to call me. And/or I'll call you again. I called you, my sis Anna, and Hannah on Saturday, and none of you answered or called me back. :( The "annas" in my life don't love me anymore.
P.S. I think the best part about the quote that you put up is that this person seems to think HE has discovered an irreconcilable Biblical contradiction that no one has noticed before. Pin the blue ribbon upon his chest.
hope you have recovered from the gallbladder surgery. Jana, do you live in Atlanta right now? Come up this week and we can talk about some of this. Remember it is his responsibility to prove where the Bible is erroneous NOT the other way around. I have never heard of this argument either. Sounds like an ignoramous!
katieharb@gmail.com...and no, we haven't found anyone to adopt Camilla yet. And now we definitely can't take her with us because they are charging us triple the regular deposit since we don't have jobs up there yet. And that doesn't even include the $200 pet deposit. We're desperate.
So I don't get on here much, but I've had a hankering for submitting an entry on the past month of my life since a lot has happened. Where to begin???
~Tuesday, April 8: get gallbladder removed (in great pain a full week prior to... plus side? I lost weight! Oh yeah, and I can enjoy eating now)
~Saturday, April 12: turn 22 years old. Stay drugged all day because of the four holes in my stomach.
~Sunday, April 13: leave for the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas, NV. Five days after surgery mind you! I really wanted to go... and I couldn't get my money back.
(The following 5 days, kill the pain with hydracodone.)
Tuesday, April 15: Get accepted for two internships at CNN in Atlanta.
~Wednesday, April 16: Turn one down over the other. Meet my boss's boss @ the CNN tent outside of the convention center.
~Thursday, April 17, find out I'm getting my second niece and I'm going to be an Aunt for the third time in August!
~Return home and begin my search for somewhere to live in ATL. Know of anyone who needs to sublease IN Atlanta for cheap, or free??? Or someone who has an empty guest house, basement, backyard? Lemme know, or let them know about me:)
~ Final exams May 5-7
~First day @ CNN talent development internship, Monday, June 2nd.
~ Graduate from Western Carolina University with my Mother (!!!) in the beginning of August.
alright i'm trying to get back into Landurveying... work has been really slow in it here lately so i'm about to get a job as a grill man and fry man in a resturaunt!!! I found a mobile home here in Gainesville for $100.00 a week and on my first paycheck i'm going to moving into one of those trailers Lord willing because the deposit is really small and I don't have to put the eletricity in my name and I don't have to put the gas bill in my name and basically I just pay the landlord for the utilities and pay 400 a month for a decent old trailer! I mean it does look a little raged but not really that bad and there is a guy that works at the resturaunt that I am about to start working out who has one too and said he would help me fix it up!!! I am amazed that everything is working out so awesome for you!!! I know what your thinking though!!! God provides for those who love Him and keep His commandments!!! E-mail me sometime!!! Much love, Allen Thomas Buck
Not a whole lot. Just living and working here in Huntsville, AL with my lovely wife. It's exciting that you're getting the opportunity to learn from such a big name like CNN. I'm sure you'll be swell at it!
Congratulations! Your post looks a little like mine, with all the dates and stuff on it. :) I'll mention you to my sister Julie about someone to live with!
Well, our finals just started, and all of mine are on Thursday and Friday, so I haven't started! This summer I'm staying in BG doing my internship. It's no CNN, but I hope it'll go well! Miss you.
Janna, sorry about the gallbladder. Congratulations on graduating, and sounds like your mom is graduating too! Give her a hug for me. Look forward to seeing you hopefully on the 16th. Invite all you know and even those you dont!!!
So I'm pretty stinking excited that I got to see my niece for the first time last week, even if it was just for a night. She's got a head full of black wavy hair, healthy lungs, and the best parents in the world. If you want to see pictures of her (and of course I'll be adding more as I see her more) click on the link below. Let me know if you can't get in, and I'll {try} to figure out how to put pictures on here! I LOVE BABY ELLA!
hehe I remember you in the inbetween stage too:)
yea she's still planning on coming but it'll be a little later this year. I don't think she'll actually be moving to NC until late July/early August.
Janna! Got your message and that sounds great. Lets talk this week and discuss some things that would be good for Marshall right now. Send your love to your parents and brothers for me. We will have a blast on Friday as always!
~One day Michael came in complaining about a speed bump on the highway… I wonder who he ran over then.
~Ladies and gentlemen I have some bad news. Meredith was hit by a car... I took her to the hospital and the doctors tried to save her life. They did the best they could and she is going to be okay.
~Ryan got promoted to corporate where he is a little fish in a big pond. Whereas back here in Scranton I am still top dog in a fairly large pond. So who is the real boss? The dog or a fish???
~I love my employees! Even though I hit one of you with my car… for which I take full responsibility.
~Guess what! I have flaws. What are they? Oh I don’t know, I sing in the shower, sometimes I spend too much time volunteering, occasionally I’ll hit somebody with my car, so sue me! No don’t sue me, that’s the opposite of the point I’m trying to make.
~She looks awful!...She always looks like that. Not my fault... She looks asleep.. no, she’s in a coma... No.
~You know what I was thinking would be sort of fun? Was if you forgave me in front of everybody! … You know what they say in the Bible about forgiveness? Forgiveness is next to Godliness!
~Do I need to be liked? Absolutely not! … It’s not like this compulsive need to be liked...like my need to be praised!
~Have any problems? .... Well you left your tv on, and your cat is dead.
~She’s in a better place! Alright! … actually, the place that she’s in is the freezer… because of the odor.
~It's up to me to get rid of the curse that hit Meredith with my car… I’m not superstitious, I’m just a little stitious.
~Kelly, you are Hindu, so you believe in Buddha… That’s Buddhists… Are you sure?... No.
~You spend your whole life trying to get people to like you and then you run over one person with your car and its not even one of the popular ones, and everybody gets angry.
~I thought they'd be good together, like PB & J… Pam Beesly and Jim! What a waste…. What a waste!
~Maybe we should skip the ceremony and just set up a college fund for Meredith's son… Have you ever met that kid? He’s not going to college.
~Michael! 5K means 5 kilometers, not 5,000 miles!
~Myth: Rabies kills 3 people every year. Fact: Rabies kills 4 people every year!
~You have nothing to worry about… I put Imodium in Toby’s coffee before the race… wait Imodium or ex lax?
~Cat heaven is a beautiful place, but you don’t get there if you’re euthanized!
I felt like the office could have been much better if half of it had been cut out. I hope these long episodes end quickly...they have too much time to be gross and perverted.
So I'm not in summer school, although I should have probably tried harder to get into some summer classes, I'll just wing it and see how things pan out in the fall. I'm ~Lord willing~ going to graduate in the spring of '08, and coincidentally, my Mama will be too! So we'll be the two GURTLER's ever to graduate from Western Carolina University... together. I thought that was pretty neat. So in the meantime, I'm working two jobs- one @ the same restaurant I've been hostessing at for the past year, and the other at the Fitness Station: FREE WORKOUTS! As if I ever do... but I'm getting used to it. I see Jacob about once a month, and this long distance thing is going surprisingly well. I won't go into much details for those who hate gush-ee-ness, but he's @ WKU, and I'm @ WCU, and I'm planning on moving up there in a year. I guess that's it for now. I miss almost all of you more than you know, and the rest of you I miss even more than that;)
Yay - so glad for an update! Sounds like you're really busy and I'm so happy for your workout situation! (I've been trying, obviously not hard enough, to get back into a routine!) Are you on Josh's evite list? wwe'll have to make sure you are. Next night will be Friday 15th, and hopefully you'll meet some noobies! Look forward to seeing ya!
hey! how cool to graduate with your mom :-) glad your long distance relationship is going well. i know that it can be pretty hard. jana and i have emailed back and forth a little bit, but not much. i need to email her again.
Hello Janna! This is Lawanda (Vanfossen) Kress. You most likely don't remember me, but I remember you when was a cute lil girl!! Sounds wonderful, you and your mom graduating together! Tell her and your dad and brothers I said "HI!"
hi janna :) It's pretty crazy cool to graduate with your mom. My mom and I almost pulled it off.....she ended up beating me. She graduated in March and I'll (cross my fingers) graduate in November.
Hello fellow CHRISTIANS just wanted to remind you of the REAVES BASH!!! coming in 9days. Its a weekend party from the 29th at noon or so through Sunday the 1st. Its come and go as you please. Women and Men are encouraged to stay and spend the night/s. I, Jacob will be supervising that!!!(jk) My parents will be there. Looking for anyone in the ages of 20-30ish Married or Not. There will be fun and games and singing and food and probably a trip to the Amacalola falls in North GA. Our Address for Mapquest is 4845 Wright bridge rd, Cumming, GA 30040. Bring Friends cause its a big deal probably 50-100 people from FL,Western K, Auburn and others! Let me know how many your bringing! Questions Call Jacob 7204041671 Bring your sleeping bags. u might get a couch, bed or floor. I think I'm sleepin in the bathtub
nah just bring everyone that will come and show up as soon as possible. Fri night is when the action starts. Lemme know if you need anything. 720-404-1671. Aparently alot of Josh's study people will be there.
So essentially, everyone who isn't even in our family got to go yesterday while I was stuck HERE??!!! I was so sad when Mama told me that the gang was there. They MUST be there next year...or I'll cry.
We get there late Wednesday night, hike up the mountain Thursday, spend the night up there, hike back down Friday, and stay in our cabin in Wear's Valley Friday night and Saturday. We leave late Saturday afternoon.
