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%REPENTANCE RETURN OBEDIENCE LAW COMMANDS REQUIRE+970921
%PRESCRIPTIONS PROSCRIPTIONS DESCRIPTIONS EVIL SIN+970921
%TRUTH CHRISTIAN GOSPEL SALVATION CONFLICT 970921
Different Christians have different conceptions of
the nature of the Christian Gospel. The following
descriptions are suggestive of the possible conceptions
which different Christians might affirm in whole or in
part. The descriptions point to the diversity of
conceptions and to the fact that people who take different
conceptions very seriously may find it exceedingly
difficult to respect each other's conceptions of what the
Christian Gospel entails:
1. The Christian Gospel is an invitation to people
who have violated good laws to confess their failures to
respect and obey good laws, to be forgiven of past
failures to respect and obey good laws, to return to the
fold of those who seek to respect and obey good laws, to
be healed of the consequences of past disobedience, and to
be enfolded in the fellowship of obedient believers.
2. The Christian Gospel is God's invitation to
people who have found that they cannot save themselves,
fix themselves, fix others, fix their relationships,
and/or run their own and/or other people's lives in terms
of any set of plans or procedures which they know about.
God invites all to come together as humble children of God
seeking to be true to themselves and each other --- giving
and accepting free gifts of the freedom to be safely
vulnerable in open and honest dialogue about their
mistakes, failures, hurts, misunderstandings, and other
alienative behaviors.
3. The Christian Gospel is God's invitation to
people who have lived in terms of laws, prescriptions,
proscriptions, commandments and disciplines; inviting them
to transcend coercive/manipulative relationships --- which
such legalistic terms so often encourage --- and to
fulfill the goals of such legalistic efforts through the
guidance and power of God's Love revealed through and
modeled in the birth, life, death and resurrection of
Jesus of Nazareth.
4. The Christian Gospel is the embodiment of God's
Absolute Truth recorded infallibly in holy scriptures and
properly interpreted through the doctrines, dogmas and
teachings of the True Christian Churches which proclaim
God's Truth without fail.
5. The Christian Gospel is God's Gift to God's Elect
who have been chosen and predestined in keeping with God's
Will --- for reasons which transcend all human knowledge
and understanding. Those who have been chosen are to
accept God's Gift with thanksgiving and praise, and be
obedient in order to avoid letting God's Gift slip through
their hands, lest they slip into hell and damnation.
6. The Christian Gospel tells how God will reward
those who live blameless lives in keeping with God's Will,
demonstrating to the sinful world how God wills that
people live lives worthy of God's praise and rewards. Many
are called but few respond faithfully to the call, and so
few will receive the heavenly rewards for faithful
obedience and service.
7. The Christian Gospel includes the sum total of
all the commandments and teachings found in the Old
Testament and the New Testament. Jesus came to call all
people to rededicate themselves to God's revelations found
in the Old Testament -- and Jesus died on the Cross to
make it possible for imperfect humans to become perfectly
obedient, even as he was obedient unto death.
8. The Christian Gospel is God's call to all of his
children to find their fulfillment as servant disciples,
giving generously of their time, talents and money to meet
the needs of those who are needy, powerless and unable to
take proper care of themselves. The key to salvation is
sacrificial giving and service.
9. The Christian Gospel is God's call to us to live
pure spiritual lives unspoiled and unsoiled by the
imperfections engendered by earthy desires, interests,
preoccupations and entanglements. God calls us through
Christ to be new spiritual beings, achieving salvation
through our faith in the the true teachings of Jesus the
Christ.
10. The Christian Gospel found in the New and Old
Testaments contains all truths which are needed to live
glorious lives in modern times because all such truths are
eternal; unchanging because they transcend the realm of
all that change on earth.
People who are ultimately concerned with the parts of
or the whole of one or more of the above descriptions of
the Christian Gospel are bound to find it difficult, if
not impossible, to find common ground with each other.
They are likely to find that their different ultimate
concerns are mutually exclusive --- so they exclude each
other from the realms of possible open and honest dialogue
about their own experiences and perceptions as
participants within human relationships which involve
those nearest and dearest to them.
(c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in
www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty
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