RE: Fox News’ Father Jonathan Morris is Quitting the Priesthood So He Can Have Sex
May 28, 2019 at 2:37 pm
(This post was last modified: May 28, 2019 at 4:44 pm by vulcanlogician.)
(May 28, 2019 at 9:33 am)Drich Wrote: 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. Some sects were influenced by the Gnostics, others by Paul, and yet others by both the Gnostics and Paul.
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...)
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.
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And do Christian's really take to heart the fact that Jesus raised those two commands above all others? 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.) 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. 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.
