That just sounds like "You can't be a good person. You can't save yourself. Surrender to the authority of the church, because only we can save you" 🙄
We bring the kingdom of heaven to earth by living in accordance with basic moral principles. The price of admission is just in choosing reality over delusion, truth over social approval or status.
good works won't save you Jeff. Faith in Christ in what saves and brings on good works.
That's a slightly better way to put things. But what does it actually mean to have "faith in Christ"...?
It seems to me like a whole lot of words often get thrown around without a whole lot of understanding.
Romans 10:9-10 New King James Version (NKJV)
that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Can you translate that to plain english? Because I suspect how I would translate that & how you would are very different things.
That is plain English. If you believe in your heart than God raised Jesus from the dead and confess it with your mouth. Do you believe this?
I try to stay away from mental masturbation and prefer to keep things simple.
I don't think there is much about the Bible that is simple unfortunately. And people who do tend to get everything wrong IMO. Rapture believers being the most obvious.
Simple for me.
So you think a man really lived in the belly of a whale? All animals really marched 2 by 2 onto a giant boat?
Do you think Jesus is going to come down out of heaven & take people away from the earth in some sort of magical end times event?
Can you define the word "sin" ? Or "love" ?
There are thousands of cartoonish story elements that can either be deep & meaningful (if you are willing to think & do the work necessary to understand them), or they can be completely flat & silly if you take them literally.
Pi is 3, as the Good Lord teaches
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Kings+7:23&version=KJV
I believe in the great flood because Jesus referenced it. It is up to you if you take the Bible literally or not in those cases. Some people do, some don't. Don't let my belief shape yours if it bothers you.
