Fox News’ Father Jonathan Morris is Quitting the Priesthood So He Can Have Sex

[Drich]

your assumption presupposes it has to be one or the other... 

But again sport when CHRIST was asked... which commands do we follow/which where the most important, the key is in his response.

34 The Pharisees learned that Jesus had made the Sadducees look so foolish that they stopped trying to argue with him. So the Pharisees had a meeting. 35 Then one of them, an expert in the Law of Moses, asked Jesus a question to test him. 36 He said, “Teacher, which command in the law is the most important?”

37 Jesus answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’[c] 38 This is the first and most important command. 39 And the second command is like the first: ‘Love your neighbor[d] the same as you love yourself.’[e] 40 All of the law and the writings of the prophets take their meaning from these two commands.”

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Paul's efforts Paul's book in of them selves are a testament to this....

What I'm saying is that (according to Acts) there existed Christians before Paul wrote his letters. It was possible for them to follow Christ without adhering to Paul's proclamations because they didn't exist yet. Even after the time of Acts there were non-Pauline Christians who followed only the Gospels and whatever other texts their particular sect held in high regard.

and what I said takes what you are saying into account.
In that Jesus and paul's messages did not conflict rather they taught two sides of one coin. in that Jesus laid the ground work and established "The way" (what followers of Christ where call before it became a religion) which was the transformation of a works based rule followed church to worship God with not just begrudging deeds or boxes o be checked off a list (look at how Jesus rails again the highest and most holy religious people in his day) but to worship God with all of your heart. That this is what God wants not someone going through religious rights or cermonies just to say he did it or to have other people marvel at how religious this person is because of the out side things he is doing.

That is again why Jesus condensed the law down to two commands he did not superceed the law but said in these two commands the whole law is full filled meaning if you follow these commands the whole law is satasified, not just the the thou shalt nots but the attonement bits as well. meaning we are no longer under the idea of following rules to be right before God rather we are under the love of God because we ourselves manifest and share this love and return it to God. I say love, but the word is agape' which is a respect based form of deep devotion. it is love but not in the halmark sense of the word. anytime love and God comes up agape' is meant.

Some sects were influenced by the Gnostics, others by Paul, and yet others by both the Gnostics and Paul.

the gnostics failed because they could not wrap their heads around the idea that God through christ is knowable and they did not believe in sin.. Something again Jesus taught at length. that is why gnosticism failed because they where teaching a completely different form of worship.

When it came time to canonize the Bible it was something of a historical fluke. The books that were held in high esteem at the time were included, the rest (including the entire body of Gnostic works) were excluded. Including Paul's epistles was probably a no-brainer. Even I must admit that his writings are (at times) poetic and inspiring. (If only they weren't punctuated by bigoted tirades...)

two things what you see as a tirades where cutting edge liberalism as in his treatment of women remember in that time they had no rights at all, and yet Paul demands right for women and establishes a role that demanded respect not only in the church but in the house hold. he empower women and slaves like no one else. for this he took much anger and flak even from his fellow apostoles. Check out peterwrittings check out the book of john none show any proclivity towards women outside of toeing the established lines of soceity which is a good thing now but even 50 years ago wasnot.

Regardless, the books made their way into the canon more or less arbitrarily. Had the canon been officiated a century before or after, you would find a significant difference in content.

but again despite anything written after Christ himself taught, you still have the establishment of "the way" through christ. Paul simply filled out the frame work Christ erected he filled in what it is meant to love God with all of your being he made examples and share stories of loving your neighbor as yourself he even demonstrated by taking the whip when he as a roman citizen did not have too. again Jesus himself sets fourth the frame work here.

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And do Christian's really take to heart the fact that Jesus raised those two commands above all others?

It is what makes Christianity distinctive from any other religion including OT judaism... There is no rule set that can earn you righteousness in God's eyes. There can only be atonement for sin and what makes you worthy for the lack of a better word for this atonement is love. love for God and love for each other.

It seems to me that if "loving God" and "loving thy neighbor" are the two highest commands, they are meant to supercede all other commands. (That means, when there is a conflict between those commands and other commands, the Laws of Love take precedence.)

Christi said those two commands FULL FILL the law. meaning if you follow the two commands all of the law is automatically followed not to just the doing but to the spirit in which the law was created. again this is not just about prohibitions as the law also includes how to atone for sin. this love also see the law complete in keeping you out of trouble but also makes you worthy for the atonement need for the trouble you have already been in.

So, even if there is a Mosaic law or (Pauline opinion) that deems homosexual acts immoral, there is a higher command to "love thy neighbor as thyself" that supersedes it.

Ah, no.. The primary law is to love your lord God. how do we do this? by in our hearts keeping his word/following the law. but say your sinful nature (which we all have one) is a slave to homosexual sin. Then according to paul in romans 7 see ourselves as 2 beings in conflict with one another. the sinful old self who is a slave to sin (the spirit of the body) and the new man in christ.(your soul) Now the sinful self/corrupted spirit may have control of the body and it may sin, but the new person in christ the soul must identify what the body has done and label it as sin, and not make excuse for it. it must hate this sin.. not the body not anyone else but the sin the body is a slave to.. for if you can hate the sin then pauls says it is not you/the soul who sins, but the corrupt and doomed body.

Now because of this the body is slated for death as the wage of sin is death it will die for it's sin. but upon resurrection Christ will bring back or wake up the "new self the part of you who hated the sin and it will be paired with a incorruptible/non slave to sin body. Or upon resurrection if your 'new self' loved the old self sin and made excuse and gave your self excuse and or permission to sin this new self will also be guilty of the same sin and it will be destroyed

romans 7:
7 You might think I am saying that sin and the law are the same. That is not true. But the law was the only way I could learn what sin means. I would never have known it is wrong to want something that is not mine. But the law said, “You must not want what belongs to someone else.”[a] 8 And sin found a way to use that command and make me want all kinds of things that weren’t mine. So sin came to me because of the command. But without the law, sin has no power. 9 Before I knew the law, I was alive. But when I heard the law’s command, sin began to live, 10 and I died spiritually. The command was meant to bring life, but for me it brought death. 11 Sin found a way to fool me by using the command to make me die.

12 Now the law is holy, and the command is holy and right and good. 13 Does this mean that something that is good brought death to me? No, it was sin that used the good command to bring me death. This shows how terrible sin really is. It can use a good command to produce a result that shows sin at its very worst.

The War Inside Us
14 We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not. I am so human. Sin rules me as if I were its slave. 15 I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate. 16 And if I don’t want to do what I do, that means I agree that the law is good. 17 But I am not really the one doing the evil. It is sin living in me that does it. 18 Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is not spiritual. I want to do what is good, but I don’t do it. 19 I don’t do the good that I want to do. I do the evil that I don’t want to do. 20 So if I do what I don’t want to do, then I am not really the one doing it. It is the sin living in me that does it.

21 So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me. 22 In my mind I am happy with God’s law. 23 But I see another law working in my body. That law makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and that law makes me its prisoner. 24 What a miserable person I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? 25 I thank God for his salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.

To me, it seems like Christians should love gays as themselves (ie. bake cakes for them and treat them like valid human beings). Isn't the Law of Love greater than the law that condemns homosexual acts? It would be interesting to hear your take on that.

Gay people are no different than any other sinner. their sin is a sin of a sexual nature, which is the same across the board. meaning any man older than 20 is guilty of the same class of sin as any gay person. in accordance with the greatest command if a hetro man guilty of sexual sin can not forgive or mistreats another man for the same sin then his (hetro man) own salvation is at risk.

Jesus gives us the parable of the unmerciful servant.

21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, when someone[d] won’t stop doing wrong to me, how many times must I forgive them? Seven times?”

22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, you must forgive them more than seven times. You must continue to forgive them even if they do wrong to you seventy-seven times.[e]

23 “So God’s kingdom is like a king who decided to collect the money his servants owed him. 24 The king began to collect his money. One servant owed him several thousand pounds[f] of silver. 25 He was not able to pay the money to his master, the king. So the master ordered that he and everything he owned be sold, even his wife and children. The money would be used to pay the king what the servant owed.

26 “But the servant fell on his knees and begged, ‘Be patient with me. I will pay you everything I owe.’ 27 The master felt sorry for him. So he told the servant he did not have to pay. He let him go free.

28 “Later, that same servant found another servant who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him around the neck and said, ‘Pay me the money you owe me!’

29 “The other servant fell on his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me. I will pay you everything I owe.’

30 “But the first servant refused to be patient. He told the judge that the other servant owed him money, and that servant was put in jail until he could pay everything he owed. 31 All the other servants saw what happened. They felt very sorry for the man. So they went and told their master everything that happened.

32 “Then the master called his servant in and said, ‘You evil servant. You begged me to forgive your debt, and I said you did not have to pay anything! 33 So you should have given that other man who serves with you the same mercy I gave you.’ 34 The master was very angry, so he put the servant in jail to be punished. And he had to stay in jail until he could pay everything he owed.

35 “This king did the same as my heavenly Father will do to you. You must forgive your brother or sister with all your heart, or my heavenly Father will not forgive you.”

Our forgiveness is completely dependant on our ability to forgive others...

IE

LOVE your Neighbor As YOURSELF

Or Do unto others as you would have God do unto you...

Or Our Father who is in Heaven Hollowed be your name Your kingdom come Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our dail bread and forgive our debts/sins as or the same way in which we forgive others...

if you can treat a 'cigarette' as someone who is in your boat then God will inturn treat you with the same regard.

Meaning if you want to be forgiven for sexual sin forgive other who also want to be forgiven for sexual sin.

The whole of Christianity is based on atonement, and because you are shown mercy when you did not deserve it it is expected that you show mercy to others especially if they are literally guilty of the same order of sin. IE sin outside the confines of a sanctified marriage in thought or deed. There is no ranking outside of sexual sin being one of the worst sins. meaning who or what you put your shmeckle in (if it is not your wife) is all that is judged here.