Read back at the bible. Do not prostrate to idols
Going to pubs is still fine, but do draw the line between drinking and getting drunk. To some, its best not to go since they do not wish to be tempted into being drunk nor engulfed in too much smoke. Which is fine too. You do not go to hell just for this.

Eating food offered to idols has nothing to do with strong or little faith.
It NEVER leads you to sin. What goes in goes out.
What does lead you to sin is your heart's intent. (and of course, consuming food dangerous to your health)

Wat about on her song?

That church is greatly misguided.

No one prays to the cross. But its made in reference to God's victory over sin and death through the cross.

Christmas on Dec25th is nothing really on Jesus' birth, but rather as an evangelical means to commemorate Jesus' birth and use this to evangelize/Preach the gospel to the masses, as it was originally done to the Pagans, who were celebrating their winter solstice festivals on Dec 25th. I reckon the church you speak of has very little evangelism events too. Perhaps singing hymns without music. lol

Has anyone here read about Judaism view on Christianity? Any comments?

This post has been edited by soul2soul: Apr 20 2011, 08:44 AM

Brother, you no need to sleep meh? Replied my post at 5.04am!

Well, the initial motive i asked this question isn't that I do not understand, I just wanted to point out the confusing matters aroused among christians. I also want to say if eating offered food doesn't make you sin, then why are there christians arguing this? Apparently this has so much to do with sin, Paul also mentions about this that taking offered food has something to do according to the people of little faith or strong faith.

And, I don't think you need to clarify to me alone, or other forumers who are reading this, because there are MANY more christians are arguing about this. If Christ has been emphasizing the importance of faith, that salvation is gained by faith etc, then there won't be so many churches are trying to "theoreticalize" the teachings.

he memang no need sleep...

I think an important point to remember is: Christianity is about having a relationship with God, it's not about religion. We are saved by Jesus' blood and now, we are grateful to Him. How we show our gratefulness? By obeying His commands and doing His work on Earth. Everything we do must be motivated by His love and to show His love to the world. So issues on whether to eat sacrifical food, obey the speed limit, drinking, etc. is all about what the Holy Spirit has convicted you in your heart to do. Some make a stand by not drinking. Some obey the speed limit. Some are convicted not to eat food sacrificed to idols. It's about what God has led you to make a stand for.

I'm not sure what teachings you are talking about but in essence, any speaker in church service should be led by God to speak His word. The weekly services give us an opportunity to fellowship with fellow believers, experience the presense of God in a very tangible way, hear His word and strengthen one another for the week to come. Also, the setting allows God to move mightily in our hearts.

Said is easier than done.

Everyone also say the same thing. But when one christian said he is fine to drink some alcohol, how do other christians react? There is only condemnation, discouragement, make every effort to put you down, or deny the fact what you have "heard" of God saying during your quiet time is not from God and telling you "Oh no, God is not like that one... You have to do this do that etc".

Debbie, that's why we say our God is a living God, not a statue and definitely not a book. We have the writing of the Holy man of God and it was compiled into the Bible we have now. It' serves as our guide and reference point and tells us alot about the nature of God and the ways man before us please God, disobeyed God, was rewarded by God and was punished by God. It has also prophesies which we understand and which we don't.

Like I said, salvation restored our relationship with God. In Acts, all the believers were given the Holy Spirit, which essentially means God is living in us. Before Jesus, only 1 chosen person was given the Holy Spirit at any time, like King Saul and King David and they works wonders yet still displeased God in many ways. Now that same Spirit is in us exercising its wonder and authority, but we still falter. So I understand your worry about knowing what's right or wrong, I used to seek a fixed set of rules to live my life and thought that I'd just need to tick off all the conditions on some check list and go to heaven. But it doesn't work like that. That's going back to the time of the Law of Moses, where God gave these people a law to follow because they were so stubborn and didn't want to please God. Take some time and read Mathew 19, where Jesus teaches about divorce. We see that even though divorce was kind of allowed in the Law of Moses, it did not please God. Read Deuteronomy 24 to see what it says in the Law of Moses.

It's not a matter about both being correct. With food, eating whatever food doesn't make you a better or worse person and doesn't bring you closer or further from God. Consuming things that have already been offered to idols too doesn't mean anything really. However, we love God very much and we're not bring glory to him by eating things that have been sacrificed to idols infront of people. And if we have alot of others food, we can show our respect for him by not eating food offered to idols even if we're alone. But the Bible speaks out strong against any form or idol worship. And if someone who believe in God thinks that it's really wrong to eat this food when it's not, he might be affected if he seen another believer eating food offered to idols. That wouldn't bring glory to God and it's not helping our brothers in Christ. So it's not a good things to do that. See all these things weren't preach in the context of going to heaven or hell, it was preached in the context of living for God. That's why I don't like quoting scriptures cause it takes the whole context of the book or letter it's written in away. So why is there so much arguments among Christians? It's because we reject the power of God. We reject that God can guide us. We reject that God is a living God. We want to go back to the legalistic past which Jesus showed wasn't the way to please God.

So how do we please God? First is to know that God is real and he is really God, all powerful over everything. Know that God isn't just a text in some book or a set of rules like a computer program that is going to run on the final day and separate good and evil into heaven or hell. This kind of conviction requires the grace of God, seek it and God will give it to you. I guarantee you no argument will convince you that God truly exist and this is the right God. It's something you have to experience spiritually and you will be fully convinced. Then realize that you have been saved from sin by Jesus Christ. From there build up a relationship through prayer and Bible study. Bible study without prayer is dead, the Bible has only so much and isn't the book of answers to everything question on earth. Even wondered why some people are like so passionate about their faith? It's because they've come to love God. It takes time, but when you seek an active relationship with God and come to know him more and more, you'll love him. And because you love him you want to do everything to please him. You will feel joy and not guilt when you do something that pleases God. You will be sure and not doubtful when you do something to please him.

If anyone wants to established a set of rules to follow, it will come to no end. The scripture isn't meant to set up more rules to follow. How much clothes should be wear according to the scripture? If we wear an inch too short, is it a sin, or a cm too short or an mm too short? If one says we can't eat offered to idols, how do they decides what idols are? What happens if they don't know the food was offered to idols. If they call people to give up 1/10 of their earning to the Lord based on the Law or Moses, how are we going to calculate that. Should we use pre-tax income amount? What exactly constitutes income? How do we give it to the Lord? Through a local Church? Does donating to the Red Cross make it giving to God? I tell you there's no end and you'd really be using the fringes of logic to pull out scriptural justification for all these questions.

If someone thinks another Christian is doing something that displeases God, he can explain it to the other person according to his convictions. But he should out of the desire to please God and that the other person may please God, and not to set the rules straight for heaven or hell. Read the letter of the apostles and Paul, are they writing to set the set the rules down for heaven or hell or are they writing so that we can live a life set apart for God?

This post has been edited by mumeichan: Apr 20 2011, 12:05 PM

This illustrates my point. Drinking is definitely not wrong. Even Jesus drank. He even changed water into wine for a wedding feast, and that is probably the most well known miracle. But then Paul goes on to tell Timothy in 1 Timothy 3 that elders in the church shouldn't drink too much.

If other Christians feel that drinking is not OK and we know it, why do we drink? Are we helping the other brothers and sisters in Christ by drinking and showing them that drinking is OK? Read 1 Corinthians 14: 26-39. Paul is talking about how Church meetings should help the Church. Take note of verse 36, right after he says women should keep silent during church meetings. He says "Did God's teaching come from you? Or are you the only ones who have received that teaching? Read it in context of the whole of 1 Corinthians and you'll see that really no one us are the only people who understands God's teacher or the only person God's speaks too. So we can be vary of such majestic claims by anyone. And we can also stop thinking that we're the only right ones. I'm being corrected everyday by Christians and non-Christians and by people who have little and who have alot of faith. By people who have deep scriptural knowledge and by those who have shallow. True, people do condemn others all the time, but they're not the models we look up too, we look at God, at Jesus.

Also read 1 Corinthians 10:23-33 and 6:12-20. Paul teaches us how we should live our lives for God. He starts out by saying "I am allowed to do all things." But all things are not good for me to do.

This post has been edited by mumeichan: Apr 20 2011, 12:01 PM

If other Christians feel that drinking is not OK and we know it, why do we drink? Are we helping the other brothers and sisters in Christ by drinking and showing them that drinking is OK?
--> So as you said, we should look up to Jesus. Jesus drank, so it means we can also drink. Simple. So there's no need to say we are not helping other brothers and sisters in Christ when we drink.

No, you got me wrong. I mean we look up to Jesus. Jesus drank, and drinking was common at the time. But it don't mean it's a simple fast rule we can drink and we don't need to care about everything else. No one thought it was wrong at that time Jesus was drinking. But then read the parts in 1 Corinthians that I mentioned above. We can drink and we can do alot of things. But when we do these things, we should ask ourselves are we doing this for God? Is it bringing glory to God? Is it helping our brothers in Christ? Or we discouraging them? We have the mindset that we know it's OK to drink so we drink and we can prove everyone wrong. It might not be a sin to drink, but if it serves no purpose for God, we shouldn't indulge in it. If it's detrimental to the faith of our brothers in Christ don't. Why don't, because we don't want to. Not because it's a black and white rule. In others words



Another after thought, this doesn't just pertain to the things our society passes some moral judgment on. Is folding origamis a sin? I don't think anyone, secular or not would think folding origamis is a sin. Now should we fold origamis? Ok yea let's fold origamis, nothing wrong with that. It's kinda fun or some people, some people can make really beautiful crafts out of it. Now let's say I want to devote my whole life to origami, I'll do nothing but fold origamis all day, making new creations all the time. So when I decide to do this, I should first think, am I doing it for my pleasure or for God's pleasure? Am I helping anyone in the faith with this? Is this the way I'm fulfilling my call to be a witness for Christ? Am I thinking about Jesus when I make this decision? Is that anything from doing origami all day that I might use for God's purpose?

This post has been edited by mumeichan: Apr 20 2011, 12:29 PM

dey unker i used to be a hindu before i became rational. and part of hinduism is about prostating to idols. so are you saying that 1 billion+ people are wrong?

Those 1 billion plus people are not worshiping our God. If they don't believe in Christianity in the first place, there's no use to use our standards to judge them right and wrong. The right and wrong is between a person and God. So now you are a rational. So while you were a Hindu you were irrational right? So you're saying those 1 billion + people are irrational?

This post has been edited by mumeichan: Apr 20 2011, 12:55 PM

but you christians only believe in your one god. even in the 10 commandents, it says that thou shalt only believe in one god.

yes im saying that whoever believes in god or religion, be it christianity or hinduism are irrational and misguided by a fear of a meaningless life

If we really want to think if what we do would glorify God, then we all should avoid in doing many many things eg. ake public transport instead of personal car to decrease air pollution. Do you take public transport to college and to work? Even if you posting this during your working hours, or during the time when you should be working on your own college study, is does not help brothers and sisters in Christ, it is not glorifying God. This is also the same as you are asked to follow the no-ending-laws. You can put them down in a piece of paper to track how much you have repented but are you happy? You are struggling to be happy which boils down to be list of laws!

A church's pastors whom I know personal did drink wine during a dinner and that dinner was also attended by other non-christians and new christians. So would you go up to them and tell these pastors do not drink? Would this arouse conflicts and unhappy circumstances during the dinner? This is just an example only.

What i'm trying to say is that why and what is the point if we just look into other people's flaws? Keep what is right to yourselves and don't force others to do it, live in peace with everyone.

ur right they sing hymns

Actually I do, I cycle two miles a day back and forth and around school. I even cycle to the supermarket to do groceries. However I'm doing it to save money that can be better spent on other things. I'm not convicted to decrease pollution but I'm sure others are. It's 3 am now almost 4am where I am and I'm posting this because you were asking question and I hoped to share some of my view and some passages in the bible that related to your question. Besides, it's really not up to you or anyone else to judge what I am doing as glorifying God or not, because as I said it's a relationship between me and God. I said we should glorify God and you pick on something I am doing and say it's not glorifying God. Whether am am trying to glorify God or not depends on my intentions right? And we were on the topic on how to decide what is right or wrong. My reply was essentially that if we love God, we try to glorify him. We're not ticking off a checklist if right and wrong or the right way to glorify or the wrong way etc. Glorifying God doesn't mean making everyone happy. Jesus and the apostles didn't make everyone happy. In fact they made alot of people angry and invited alot of persecution for the themselves. Glory is given to God by his standards, not ours.

Anyone can find at least something wrong with anything by using some arbitrary, secular or not. As good example is what you just did. To me I was trying to help you understand Christianity better and that was my way of serving God. You saw it as using my time that I should be studying and that's not glorifying God. All the "many things" that you said we should not do are things based on arbitrary standards. What should be decrease pollution? That answer to that lies upon many arguments and standard or morality. My answer was that one should seek out a relationship with God and be guided by the Holy Spirit as to what he should do and should not do. Lets God personally guide the person. What matters in the end is how God judges and now how the world judges a person by any worldly standard.

I don't know what no-ending-laws I am following. I also don't see how putting down anything on a piece of paper is going to track how much I repented. I don't think there's a quantity or depth to repentance. I'm am happy because I've come to know God. I also don't see how I'm certainly struggling to be happy or how that translates into a list of laws either.

I've a feeling you're not bothered to read what I wrote or the passages I pointed out. If the Church pastor knows that drinking wine is going to invite condemnation to himself and the church, then it would not be wise to drink it. And if such a thing did happen in the Church I attend or the local Christian community I am in, I will talk to the person. I can't and I won't force anything down the person nor am I judging the person. He can hear me and whatever he does it's his own decision. If he feels there is nothing wrong with it in the end, that's his conclusion. I can't read a person's mind or measure his faith and I can't know whether he does what he does or God for not. That is between him and God. And this applies for any other situation as well.

You can read the Bible yourself and you'll see that we are to live a life to glorify God. As to how and what glorifies God, I nor anyone else possesses the rulebook for that because it's a matter of the relationship with the believer and God. God knows what he wants, so we should be talking to God. So it's pointless if you throw out an example and ask if that is glorifying God. I'm telling you to ask God.

Even if there wasn't God, humans aren't capable of living in peace with everyone. Even by completely secular means, there is no way world could become a place where everyone keeps what's right for himself and not force it unto others. This is because what's right for someone can end up wrong another person. Social dynamics dictate that no such egalitarian system can exist.

Fundamentally I believe that as Christians, we want to let the world know about Jesus. But we can't change people into Christians, it has to come from their own conviction and God's grace.

As to looking for faults withing the practice of Christianity, looking for faults isn't something we should be doing. But if we see a fellow believe going astray, we would want to guide him back. That's doesn't mean we're forcing our view unto him, which I say it's wrong. There's no way we can force something which is a matter of faith onto another person. That would just lead to external compliance.

Finally as usual I'm not interested to argue over our viewpoints. I replied to some of our post because you seemed to be looking for answers to Christianity for yourself and I shared come of the things I know and some of my thoughts on looking for answers yourself. I'm surprised at the last sentence because I thought you were asking about the conditions of going to heaven and hell and not about find flaws in people or living in peace with everyone. You don't have to agree with all the things I said. It's your prerogative in the end to find the answers yourself. If you want to seek God, you can keep an open mind, seek God, read the Bible and you can pray. You can read all the philosophies of the world and all the other religious books too. You can ask people to share their experience and knowledge with you. But if your pursuit is not to find God, but to come in with a set ideal and and find every part that disagrees with you, Christianity or not, you'll just end up arguing with people over things you disagree and nothing comes out of that. You won't find God if you're looking for an explaining or interpretation of Christianity that will suit all your ideals. I can say it doesn't suit all my ideals either. If you don't agree with the way God does something, I can't help you with that. God decided it to be that way.

This post has been edited by mumeichan: Apr 20 2011, 04:11 PM

First of all, I'm not trying to argue or what, i did finish reading each and every of your reply. I even asked similar questions to many churches and pastors and they either skip my questions or not answering completely, that's why I appreciate this little column which allows me to ask and get the answers instantly.

At first I asked about heaven and hell as I don't know how to justify and if there's a complete and clear cut answer, there won't be as what Ps. Philip said, he saw religious people in the hell and you should know these people "thought" their relationship with God was right when they are still alive, they thought what they do is right etc, but in the end they are cast into hell. Another example is also a testi telling someone didn't lend money to his neighbor to settle a funeral for the wive and he also cast down to hell. I know we can't believe what the internet says but how can you ask me not believing what Ps. Philip says? Do you know he was invited to FGA church for sermons? Do you know he had sermons in Putra Stadium? If his testi to hell isn't from God then why is the churches inviting him for sermons? I don't mean to rebuke you or judge you to find an ideal christianity for my own, sorry if my statements put you down or annoyed you. I really need to gorge the answer I want.

At times I would like to give up my faith, when someone not looking for fortune nor anything on earth, just a simple family but in the end the family broken (i'm not from broken family though , just making an example), so he turns to God, then all the christians or pastors giving different answers or reject to answer, with those answers received, he got confused with God's justification of righteousness and judgement. I'm not sure if you have been through this kind of situation.

I know many of you would ask me to read the book of Job, I read the entire book already. Job's children and properties all gone, children at least all in heaven already, unlike some christians seeing their parents or grandparents died without receiving Christ; property can be earned again through few years of hard work, or stay living in simple life; Job even can talk to God face to face, but now if someone claim that doing task A is something what God asks then the other christians disagree and say "no lah, God is not like this etc". I know you are asking me to ask God myself cos He is the only who control everything and He is a living God, but I tell you I tried but in the end my point of views disapproved by christians and I don't like it, because of these again, making me confused and I can only live once, I can't help to be responsible the destiny that I'm going if I don't follow the majority; but if I'm following the majority, that's not something that I am comfortable with.

It's ok mumeichan, thanks for your time anyway. I'm quite tired actually. Maybe now is not the time for me clear my doubts yet, right? Maybe I would only get my doubts answered years later.

Let all my questions put an end here then.

Peace.

It will be very few (no one knows). But it is not about "enter the kingdom of God" .... it's not about salvation.

This is why the call for overcomers in Rev 2 is very clear.

In other words, the church will fail in this age. Only the small group of overcomers will be the representative, the Zion, that will have the reality of the church today.

This post has been edited by pehkay: Apr 20 2011, 05:56 PM

Just walk according to the spirit.

It is not a matter of outward right or wrong; rather, it is a matter of our living Him in the spirit, in the one mingled spirit. This is what God wants today, and this is today’s Christian life. The Christian life is neither religious nor moral; it is neither natural nor cultural. The Christian life is a life that is lived out of the two spirits becoming one spirit. When we speak, we speak out of this mingled spirit. When we do things, we do them out of this mingled spirit. Our going or not going to a certain place also comes out of this mingled spirit. This is to walk according to the spirit.

Although we do not stress morality, Paul said that when we walk according to the spirit, we spontaneously fulfill the righteous requirements of the law (Rom. 8:4). Although we do not pay much attention to so-called ethics, when we walk according to the spirit, our ethics will be the highest. The husband will love his wife even more, and the wife will subject herself to her husband even more. Because at this point, it is not we who are in subjection or we who love; rather, it is the Lord who lives out of us as our subjection and our love.

This is God’s living in us, and this is also our living out God. These two spirits becoming one spirit is the greatest mystery in the universe; it is something incomprehensible to the human mind (Rom 8:16). However, we praise and thank the Lord that because God took these two great steps—becoming flesh in order to accomplish redemption for us and resurrecting from the dead in order to dispense Himself into us to be our life—we all have become Christians who have the mingled spirit and who live with the Lord.

Their views are irrelevant since they deny Jesus as the messiah, and are hopelessly waiting for one to come. They do not accept the Messiah as the Servant King.
Throughout their history, the Jews have been known to be leading their own self astray. Even after Mose leading them out of Egypt and witnessing first hand the miracles of God, they still build themselves a golden bull to prostrate after. cis!

Woke up at 4am due to the thunderstorm

People like to argue over everything. Some as a means of digging out facts, some just for the sake of arguing, while others are just being extremists.
Those of little faith who may doubt abt the whole food-for-idols fiasco might be stumbled, but if they were made aware of such deeds, then its ok to consume. After all, idols do not mean anything significant to us. God in us is stronger.

There are also many other churches that are of questionable practices, cultic etc too. Some are too extremist while some are too lenient etc. Always fall back to what Jesus teach us.

Anything that you do that does not glorify God, should be refrained as much as possible. If blind indulgence (ie gluttony) is what it is, then its a sin too!
Drinking wine, if its for health purposes or just light leisure, then its not sinful. But to drink to the point and intent to get INTOXICATED and DRUNK, thus making your conduct and behavior being ungoldly, then it is a SIN because your drunkeness cannot glorify God...and you might end up doing silly things. So if you cannot control, then its best to PREEEMPT.

Millions of people have commited suicide globally for many years. Millions cant be wrong. Heck, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. So why dont you try it?
As mention, Jesus is the ONLY way to God. He is the truth the life and the way. NO ONE ELSE and NO OTHER WAY but through Christ.

Quite a fallacy

Belief in a religion does not equate to fear of meaningless life, nor the disbelief mean one's life is meaningless. If this is true, then you concur your godless life is meaningless?