From: ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Rich men and Heaven
Date: 12 Oct 92 19:25:54 GMT
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc
Organization: Apple

In article <70908@hydra.gatech.EDU>, rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard
Pitts) wrote:
> In article <ksand-081092215236@wintermute.apple.com> ksand@apple.com (Kent Sandvik) writes:
> |I looked,and Jesus *didn't* say it was a parable of himself. You could
> |check yourself. If you insist this is the case, then this is your
> |own private speculation, *not* based on the Bible. Feel free to speculate,
> |but don't misuse the Bible, thanks.
> 
> Again, in your opinion, what was the purpose of the parable????

You know, I'm not keen on speculation. If the Bible doesn't tell
me exactly what the parable's purpose was, it's not my job to let
my imagination figure out that it was referring to a 'noble man',
rich men in general, the elite of Israel, Jesus himself, God,
Adam, Abraham, Paul, Peter, the sinner, the church of Christ,
and so on...
 

> |So what has this to do with the earlier statements you made that showed
> |that Jesus would come back???
> 
> It had to do with him being the noble man in the parable.  He was God
> made flesh - (God would be considered noble, correct?)  Much less in 
> Luke 2:10-11 (the parable was in Luke 19) the angel said that the baby
> just born in the city of David (Jerusalem) was Christ (the Anointed One,
> the Messiah, the Savior) the Lord - again another point to Jesus being
> a noble man. Here are some more verses to Jesus being the king:

Sigh, these are the things I oppose. Imagination used to create all kinds
of hypertext links from one place in the Bible to another. Even worse,
to use what Jesus said to justify all kinds of strange doctrines. No wonder
we have so many original Christian sects...

> |It seems you need to make all kinds of wishful connections and 
> |assumtions, and twist the word of Jesus to suit your doctrines,
> |which I find is a sad situation....
> 
> Could it be I have the Spirit and understand some of these things?
> I didn't use to have the understanding and enlightenment I have now.
> When I submitted my will to that of God and allowed the Holy Spirit
> to have control of my life, the scriptures opened up to me!

Could it be I use common sense and look beyond the filters or faith?
I could say I allowed my tiny brain to operate fully with no external
interaction, and I now see the world in a totally different view than
when I was controlled by external doctrines. Anyway, if the truth is 
obvious, even people that don't have the Spirit would accept Christianity.
As it is today it seems the use of Spirit is the only way to blindly
accept a lot of the controversial doctrines. We are not dealing exactly
with common sense here.

> |It also seems when there's not relevant information, Paul is the one
> |that clarifies and justifies all kinds of problematic cases. This is
> |also an intersting observation, and it clearly shows that my own
> |theory that Paul is the originator of modern Christianity -- not Jesus,
> |is maybe valid.
> 
> Why did Paul preach Jesus as Lord and himself (Paul) as a servant?
> Why did a zealous attacker of Christianity turn to Christianity, himself?

In my humble opinion Paul was the first and actually the worst twister
of Jesus' words. As for zealous attacker, ever heard about bad conscience,
why do paranoid murders suddenly become like sheep? It's a known
psychological case, nothing new under the sun. Still, I would never
believe somebody with visions about Jesus, with no real evidence
whatsoever.
That's why I didn't believe my father's cousin who had such similar
visions.

Regards,
Kent
It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that
virginity could be a virtue.  -- Voltaire
-------------------
Kent Sandvik (UUCP: ....!apple!ksand; INTERNET: ksand@apple.com)
DISCLAIMER: Private activities on the Net.