Somewhere along the line, "Church" became a weekly event rather than a gathering of people who did life together.
Todd StockerTags: church gathering life-together
Hypocrisy versus authenticity among men is not always so black and white, and as is righteousness, humility is often self-proclaimed. The Church is most definitely supposed to be a hospital for the spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically sick, hurting, and broken individual, yet ironically, many of its critics are those who ran away and permanently denounced its members after they visited and felt that they were sneezed on.
Criss JamiTags: humility grace church authenticity mercy sin forgiveness hypocrisy sickness apologetics critics righteousness
People who fit don’t seek. The seekers are those that don’t fit.
Shannon L. AlderTags: life truth happiness acceptance philosophy peace god religion faith joy church fitting-in believe prayer answers unhappiness seeking finding-yourself searching pastors god-s-plan searching-for-truth fitting findig-something-to-believe
The humble were the elect of God. Did not the priests teach so, in their gemmed, kingly robes, from their towering pulpits?
Tanith LeeIs the Lord’s Supper only for Christians? Whenever I ask this question I immediately remember the character of those that partook of the Last Supper with Jesus. They were certainly Jews, some better Jews than others, but Jesus shared this meal knowingly even with Judas. Or again consider the Emmaus Road encounter. Jesus shares this meal with those who had given up on his being the One to redeem Israel, who were leaving Jerusalem downcast and disappointed, and who were oblivious to the fact that it was Jesus who was speaking and sharing with them! There has to be a balance in the liturgy to help the congregation make a decision if they themselves are ready to partake of this Meal in a worthy manner (hence the 'ye who do truly and earnestly repent' clause), while at the same time joyfully welcoming all who are willing and ready and able to do so.
Ben Witherington IIITags: church communion eucharist sacrament the-lord-s-supper
Yet people are still showing up to lift their hands after all these years even though the church is flawed and broken and beautiful and has a shameful, ugly side to it that I'll bet it wishes it didn't have and repeatedly tries to hide.
Just like me.
Just like you.
Just like always.
Tags: christianity church thought-provoking true
Gnosticism is undeniably pre-Christian, with both Jewish and gentile roots. The wisdom of Solomon already contained Gnostic elements and prototypes for the Jesus of the Gospels...God stops being the Lord of righteous deed and becomes the Good One...A clear pre-Christian Gnosticism can be distilled from the epistles of Paul. Paul is recklessly misunderstood by those who try to read anything Historical Jesus-ish into it. The conversion of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles is a mere forgery from various Tanakh passages... [The epistles] are from Christian mystics of the middle of the second century. Paul is thus the strongest witness against the Historical Jesus hypothesis...John's Gnostic origin is more evident than that of the synoptics. Its acceptance proves that even the Church wasn't concerned with historical facts at all.
Arthur DrewsTags: wisdom church facts jewish paul gentile christian-mystics solomon christian-history mystics gnosticism gnostic christ-myth christ-myth-theory epistles historicity-of-jesus christian-gnosticism conversion-of-paul epistles-of-paul gnostic-gospels gospel-of-john grosticicm historical-facts historicity-of-paul synoptic-gospels tanakh
Hard by the church stood the public house; so often the two are closely conjoined, honorably sharing both joys and sorrows.
Jeremias GotthelfElection has nothing to do with the eternal salvation of individuals but refers instead to God's way of saving nations. It was a major mistake of the Reformation to have decided to follow Augustine in this matter, taking election to refer to grace and salvation. It manages to make bad news out of good news. It casts a deep shadow over the character of God. At it worst, it can lead to awful consequences in terms of pride, arrogance, superiority, and intolerance as the ideology of election takes hold. It causes the church to become, not a sign of the unity of humanity in the love of God, but the sign of favorites in the midst of the enemies of God.
Clark H. PinnockTags: church superiority election love-of-god good-news
There are congregations on nearly every corner. I'm not sure we need more churches. What we need is a church. I say one church is better than fifty. I have tried to remove the plural form churches from my vocabulary, training myself to think of the church as Christ did, and as the early Christians did. The metaphors for her are always singular – a body, a bride. I heard one gospel preacher say it like this, as he really wound up and broke a sweat: "We've got to unite ourselves as one body. Because Jesus is coming back, and he's coming back for a bride not a harem.
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