It was suggested in an earlier post (#600) that people somehow have the power to generate Salvation. .
I will do everything in my power to ensure that I do go to Heaven.
If the "differences" of others are so unimportant that they ought to be overlooked, why does God EXCLUDE so many "different" people from His presence?
blemished people
blind people
lame people
blind people
lame people
people with different. shaped noses (specifically: flat)
daughters of clergymen who choose to work as prostitutes (additionally they are to be burnt alive)
people with broken feet
people with broken hands
daughters of clergymen who choose to work as prostitutes (additionally they are to be burnt alive)
people with broken feet
people with broken hands
DEFORMITIES AND PARASITES ALSO UNACCEPTABLE
people who are different. because they have crooked backs
people who are different. because they are dwarves
people with blemished eyes
people with scurvy
people with scabs
people with damaged testicles
people who are different. because they have crooked backs
people who are different. because they are dwarves
people with blemished eyes
people with scurvy
people with scabs
people with damaged testicles
God EXCLUDES these (and many other degenerate types) from His presence BECAUSE they are different.
That is God's commandment. Leviticus 21:1.ff
READ ABOUT IT HERE. You are the one challenging The Bible. The burden of proof lies with you. Saying "people shouldn't be discriminated against or excluded just because they are different" is not proof.….God explains who is prohibited.….There is no place for alternative points of view
That is God's commandment. Leviticus 21:1.ff
READ ABOUT IT HERE. You are the one challenging The Bible. The burden of proof lies with you. Saying "people shouldn't be discriminated against or excluded just because they are different" is not proof.….God explains who is prohibited.….There is no place for alternative points of view
honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy
pleasure they are and were created.
God's Love is Perfect. He created us for His pleasure but what gives God pleasure is not the same as what gives us pleasure and He has explained to us.—.because if we just thought up stuff for ourselves we'd come up with garbage.—.the sorts of people He'd welcome into His congregation. The topic had arisen in another thread that year. A dear friend was wondering about righteous cripples (#14) and I tried to find an example (#15) for him, although I didn't think there were. any righteous cripples because if they were righteous they wouldn't be cripples. But it's a moot point. Whatever their righteousness quotient turns out to be, they're not allowed in The Lord's assembly. Full Stop.
But the question might bear examination, and there was one instance of a lifelong impairment not resulting from sin. Jesus says this explicitly. It's just one facet of God's Perfect Love in action.
John 9:1-3 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
Clearly he was still smitten, but God smote him from birth (usually the result of sexual impropriety), throughout his childhood and as he was growing up enduring the taunts of other young men his own age who were able to seek wives, listening to the proud and happy laughter of young fathers in the company of their legitimate heirs (while he knew only shame and abandonment), hearing about the exploits and business successes of those from whom he sought alms and enduring the indignity of dogs urinating on him because of God's Perfect Love and to show us how His works might be made manifest not only in this wretched blind beggar but in the whole world!
Shout Glory! That is a great example of something created by God for His own pleasure which, from a human perspective, seems outrageous. The wretch could sit outside the building but was prohibited from entering it. Another wretch was crippled from birth and was also excluded:
Acts 3:1-8 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us. And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.
Once healed this crippled person enjoyed a change of status. Similarly, the blind beggar:
John 9:8 The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged?
Neither wretch was permitted to enter the Congregation of The Lord while they were deformed. It was only after they'd been made whole that they could enter, whether they'd been lame or blind.
But there is also spiritual blindness. Today's vatican mirrors the unbelief of ancient jewry just as much as the false "christianity" of demonic sects (Presbyterianism for example) and although Jesus addressed The Jews, His words condemn all false shepherds:
John 9:39-41 And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.
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