LDS beliefs and the Bible - Page 88

Fish-Hunter · #**871** 05-22-2008, 07:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeepShadow

I'm giving you and Orontes space to discuss...and evaluating your behavior to see if my opinion is going to change.

Thanks...we all know it is impossible for us to change each other's belief system, right? Only God can change someone's understanding while we discuss and debate. Therefore, we should be able to discuss with gentleness and respect as commanded in the scriptures.

DeepShadow · #**872** 05-22-2008, 07:54 PM

Naturally.

Orontes · #**873** 05-23-2008, 02:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orontes

Actually, we already have something on the table: Romans 7:19-25 to Romans 8 1:2. You said: "Please allow me time to digest what you are sharing. Thanks again for all of your hard work on this thread. It deserves to be read and responded to." You also said: "I still plan to answer Orontes in detail when time allows." and then this: "I will try to get to your post after the game, or Thursday morning. I promise I will take your posting seriously and try to understand your point of view before responding." Now, if you can't put together a sober response, that is fine. I simply expect some notable stance one way of the other. It could be as simple as "I agree" or "I don't know anything about that" or you can challenge. If you opt for the later, I expect the detailed serious response you spoke of.

Once this is dealt with if you want to discuss Romans 1 or Genesis 3 that is fine. Given I already gave you multiple opportunities to engage over Romans 1:16-17 and you repeatedly refused and have agreed to focus on Romans 7:19-25 to Romans 8 1:2., it awaits your considered response.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish-Hunter

I think we still have a communicaton problem. I only read and responded to the one thread that I read today. Therefore, I am not following your thoughts because I did not take the time to read your other postings. I am appealing to you to start over if you want to discuss the gospel of God's grace. Within the gospel of God's grace, it makes sense to start with Genesis 3 and Romans 1 and 2 before discussing the great good news of God. This is my suggestion if you want to continue. Otherwise, I will request that FFH, Deep Shadow, Clown or any other LDS members would like to discuss what I have wrote on this particular post. BTW..what do you do for a living? You are quite forceful in your postings. I think we should bring the tension down a few notches, agreed?

My thoughts are on Romans 7:19-25 through Romans 8: 1-2. This is the subject all the quotes from you over the past few days I noted refer to. They are from your posts: 850, 852, 856. I have now posted on this same topic multiple times. This is not complicated fair. There is a topic on the table. You have agreed to its discussion (see noted post numbers). Therefore, commit to a position: agree, claim you don't know or disagree. If you disagree give a considered and detailed response. If you don't understand something please ask.

Note: There is no tension on my part, simply a weariness from all the mulberry bush dancing. If you feel you understand the Bible and that understanding differs from my presentation, then demonstrate that understanding. Simply moving to a new subject when something is already put forward is unacceptable (all the more so since I already offered to discuss Romans 1:16-17 multiple times and you refused). Once this topic is dealt with then we can discuss whatever is your fancy.

So, here is the post again:

The passage: Romans 7: 19-25 through Romans 8: 1-2

19For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

20Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 21I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. 1There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

The above is a great scripture. Now, my guess is that were I to ask one like yourself the meaning I would get something like: the above demonstrates the fallen and miserable state of man. Paul speaks as a victim of his own sinful nature: constantly born down by the evils of the flesh. This wretched man can only hope for the redeemer Christ to pull him from his despair. And thus we can see it is not anything Paul, as a fallen man can do (and thus we reject the pride of any works based approach), but only through Christ that any hope is possible. Am I close?

The exegesis:

I have noted you state a few times that context is important. I agree. Context does not simply mean the verses that surround a chosen passage or even the book or the Bible proper, but actually entails the entire socio-cultural milieu any piece of literature was written in. The Greco-Roman World is the context. Paul as a Hellenized Jew was fully able to communicate to a Greek speaking audience on their own terms. A simple example would be his referencing the Greek poet Aratus when speaking to the Aeropagus on Mars Hill (Book of Acts). In Romans a similar tact is taken.

If I asked 'what is going on in verse 19?' My guess is the reply from yourself would be something connected to the notion of Original Sin and man's sinful falleness. This would be an anachronistic reading of the text that is only possible by one divorced from the linguistic-cultural context of the passage. I'll illustrate: if I asked what does "to be or not to be" mean? Some might give a response on existential angst. Most would tie it to Shakespeare. Some may even tie it to Hamlet. The above phrasing from verse 19 would have a similar impact on a Greek speaking audience. The phrase is a medean turn. What does that mean? It refers to Medea from Greek Tragedy.* The phrase is most commonly found in Euripides's "Medea':

"I am being overcome by evils. I know that what I am about to do is evil but passion is stronger than my reasoned reflection "

It can also be found in the larger literature of contemporary's and near contemporary's of Paul. For example. Epictetus:

"What he wants to do he doesn't do, and what he doesn't want he does."

Ovid's Medea:

I see the better and approve it, but I follow the worse"

Verse 24's phrase Paul's uses is almost an exact phrasing of his contemporary Seneca who wrote in his Medea Trajedy:

"O wretched woman that I am!" The phrase is "talaiporos ego anthropos".

What is going on here? Why would Paul refer to a figure from Greek myth and why this specific phrasing? The reason is because the figure of Medea and the phrasing was commonly used in the Greco-Roman world to illustrate akrasia which refers to weakness of the will or lack of self mastery. Attaining self mastery was a central principle in Greek and Roman Thought. This is why writers in Athens would often sing the praise of their mortal enemies the Spartans (often seen as those most able at self mastery). It is one of the reasons why Stoicism became the dominant ethos of the Roman world. It is also why Greco-Romans might become interested in Jewish Thought. The Law of Moses was portrayed as a vehicle for self mastery (Philo is a simple example of this). What Paul is skillfully doing in the passage is both showing how it is pathe that leads to wrong doing (hamartein), but also he is engaging in a trope when he turns the notion back on his audience. "Medea" was used as an illustration of the dangers of the foreign: the evils that can occur when the other is let within. The Romans/Greeks were very aware of the barbarorum and sought to maintain the divide. Paul's use turns the Romans/Greeks into the other vis-a-vis the Law of Moses. They are compared to the foreign Medea, the ones who have gone against the good and corrupted themselves. Once this is established, Paul then is able to show it is not adherence to a foreign law of Moses that will bring self mastery, but rather through Christ via the spirit.

The Conclusion

Now what you should notice is there is none of the stark divide between a grace vs. works dynamic which is a complete misreading of Paul's rhetoric. This also means that the very question of a "gospel of grace" is a failure to understand the text and ties into a larger mistaken Justification Theology that makes stark distinction between the saved and the other. This is common with Evangelical readings because they approach Paul as a believer and then begin to mine the text as a believer, rather than understanding who the text was actually written for and the rhetoric employed. The problem is then compounded by the base unfamiliarity with Greco-Roman Thought. The rub is basically that for the Greco-Roman, as for the Mormon, Paul's work was/is concerned with bringing the person into a relation with Deity, not drawing arbitrary justification lines in the sand and declaring who is or isn't worthy.

Fish-Hunter · #**874** 05-23-2008, 07:43 AM

I posted the scriptures for mutual edification only. It is a tension breaker. Put your confidence in Christ alone because it is impossible for God to lie. Hold on to His precious promises given to those united to Christ by faith. Trust in Him alone, and put no confidence in the flesh.

Stand Firm

But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. - 2 Thes 2

1 Peter 1
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Praise to God for a Living Hope

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

Rom 8

More Than Conquerors

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:

"For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Philippians 3 - No Confidence in the Flesh

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Pressing on Toward the Goal

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Fish-Hunter · #**875** 05-23-2008, 08:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orontes

The Conclusion

Now what you should notice is there is none of the stark divide between a grace vs. works dynamic which is a complete misreading of Paul's rhetoric. This also means that the very question of a "gospel of grace" is a failure to understand the text and ties into a larger mistaken Justification Theology that makes stark distinction between the saved and the other. This is common with Evangelical readings because they approach Paul as a believer and then begin to mine the text as a believer, rather than understanding who the text was actually written for and the rhetoric employed. The problem is then compounded by the base unfamiliarity with Greco-Roman Thought. The rub is basically that for the Greco-Roman, as for the Mormon, Paul's work was/is concerned with bringing the person into a relation with Deity, not drawing arbitrary justification lines in the sand and declaring who is or isn't worthy.

Good morning Orontes,

I still think we are jumping way ahead of ourselves, assuming that we understand each other's belief system. I'm not sure if you understand where I am coming from, and I know I don't completely understand where you are coming from. We all have a history and presuppositions...right or wrong. We need to start from the very beginning.

Here is my proposal. Since many of you were Mormon missionaries, let's just imagine a group of you on this site are visiting my home as Mormon missionaries. You know nothing about me, except that I'm a nice guy inviting you into my house to listen to your message. So here goes, you knock on the door, and I invite you into to my house and serve you milk and cookies. (I'm sorry about the Starbucks comment earlier; I forgot that Mormons do not drink coffee. It was an honest mistake...I used to go to Bible studies at Starbucks) I encourage Orontes and several others to participate since door to door ministries alway have more than one missionary.

I am asking the Mormon group.."what is the hope that you have?"

The group of Mormon missionaries are now on my couch and you start....

1 Peter 3:15:
But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,