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Post by gnosticbishop on Oct 8, 2014 18:27:53 GMT
Are you created in God's image?
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." ¯ Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect
Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Scriptures tell us to be like God and emulate all he does as we are to follow in his footsteps.
If you are a Christian, are you capable of following your God?
Would you be able and willing to do some of the things the bible shows God doing?
Are you created in God’s image?
Regards DL
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Post by wraggy on Oct 9, 2014 5:26:32 GMT
What does it mean to be "created in God's image"?
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Post by peteri on Oct 9, 2014 17:18:43 GMT
What does it mean to be "created in God's image"? It means to be a child of God, or to be capable of becoming a child of God. New Testament people understand this to mean that they are created to be like Jesus. In the very local context of the first chapter of Genesis, it means that God has given charge over all plants, fish, beasts, birds and creeping things to humankind. But in the next section with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life, the author hints that being in God's image means rather more than this. Both kinds of fruit open to humanity a certain way of being like God, and it is clear that humanity picked the wrong way of being like God, and the choice that they made bars them from eating of the fruit of life. I don't think the author of this part of Genesis meant an actual garden with trees and fruits, and even if he did he also meant them to be symbols of what he thought had gone wrong with humanity and what he thought humans had been made for. I read these passages through the lens of the New Testament which teaches that Christ has opened up the way of life to those who are willing to be like him. Peter.
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Post by gnosticbishop on Oct 10, 2014 16:53:32 GMT
What does it mean to be "created in God's image"? Please see the reply I give Peteri.
For now, please have a look at theses as they may help.
The thinking show is the Gnostic Christian’s goal as taught by Jesus but know that any belief can be internalized. www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbesfXXw&feature=player_embedded
This method and mind set is how you become I am and brethren to Jesus. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdSVl_HOo8Y
When you can name your God, I am, and mean yourself, then you will begin to know the only God you will ever find.
Regards DL
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Post by gnosticbishop on Oct 10, 2014 17:03:53 GMT
What does it mean to be "created in God's image"? It means to be a child of God, or to be capable of becoming a child of God. New Testament people understand this to mean that they are created to be like Jesus. In the very local context of the first chapter of Genesis, it means that God has given charge over all plants, fish, beasts, birds and creeping things to humankind. But in the next section with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life, the author hints that being in God's image means rather more than this. Both kinds of fruit open to humanity a certain way of being like God, and it is clear that humanity picked the wrong way of being like God, and the choice that they made bars them from eating of the fruit of life. I don't think the author of this part of Genesis meant an actual garden with trees and fruits, and even if he did he also meant them to be symbols of what he thought had gone wrong with humanity and what he thought humans had been made for. I read these passages through the lens of the New Testament which teaches that Christ has opened up the way of life to those who are willing to be like him. Peter.
I agree with your first 2 chapters but not the rest.
I do not think man was ever intended to eat of the tree of life and you will note that nowhere in scriptures is it’s lose bemoaned.
We came out of Eden being as Gods and knowing all that he knows. God’s own words in this myth. They have become as Gods.
We are then denied the ability to have that knowledge live forever as it would make man stagnate at whatever level of knowledge he had then, or even now if we extrapolate the story to where we are all Adams.
The archetypal God in this myth does not want man to idolize his own knowledge as that would stifle progress. We are to perpetually raise the bar.
I bet you never thought of it that way.
Can you see it?
Regards DL
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