Two hands can hold a lot of information.

I've been reading a lot of different blogs recently, and two things jumped out at me. Or maybe it's one thing, with two sides.

On the one hand, I've seen a lot of comments that essentially say the more one devotes to Christianity/Jesus/God, the more one is aware of one's need for a Savior. Your awareness of your sinful state is constantly re-enforced and revealed to you, and shows you more and more just how far aware you'll ever be from being like Jesus on your own.

On the other hand, there's the idea that the more one follows the path of Christianity, lets Jesus mold you/shape you/change you, the more Christ-like you become.

I've been trying to figure out if both ideas can be true at the same time, and I don't think they can be. If one is becoming more Christ-like -- the second option -- then wouldn't there be less of an awareness of one's sinful state, since there'd be less sin inhabiting a person, compared to the pre-Christian years? And, vice versa, if the journey with Jesus leads one more and more aware of one's sinful state, then one is in fact not becoming more Christ-like?

Legalize this!

If you read only the Synoptic Gospels for a while, Christianity starts to greatly resemble that dreaded legalism.

For this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, "Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything." And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, "Pay what you owe." Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, "Have patience with me, and I will pay you." But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and the went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, "You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?" And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

-- Matthew 18: 23-35

The biggest thing I get from this section is that it's not enough to simply accept the forgiveness of God. If you don't forgive others, you won't end up in a great place. Which comes very close to the idea that your actions can determine whether you truly receive salvation or not.

I also think the Western world has a habit of glossing over just how prevalent the concept of slavery was back then. Not only are most of the players in this parable referred to as slaves, the lord was legally entitled to sell the slave, as well as the slave's wife and children. And it's simply presented as a fact of life. We can say that obviously God wouldn't endorse slavery as it's morally wrong (or that it wasn't actually slavery as we knew but barely qualified to what we define slavery as today). Yet the concept of slavery is so entwined in this parable, even up to the aspect of people being sold.

I'm pretty sure the overall point of the parable is the idea that if one is forgiven by God for something huge, it's incredibly hypocritical to turn around and refuse to forgive another person when what the other person did was done on a much smaller scale. But there's also an idea here that a person can in fact do something to release themselves from the debt, whereas the penal atonement theory teaches that you can't do anything, and Jesus paid the debt for you (Granted, it could easily be desperation, since the first slave owed a huge sum that he could probably never pay. Nor did he actually have to, as the lord forgave the debt, period).

The torture aspect also made me do a double-take. Odd. I can glide over reading the word "hell," as I'm kind of immune to that word because it's a rather common one. But the lord here is compared to the Heavenly Father, and the lord is also someone who handed the bad slave over to be tortured because the lord was angry over the hypocrisy. I understand the anger. But the lord/Heavenly Father actively handing someone over to be tortured is interesting to mesh with the idea of "God doesn't send people to hell, people send people to hell."

You only thought you were a Christian.

I've come in contact with quite a few former Christians who are now atheists. In all instances, the atheists were very conservative evangelical/fundamentalists. The charge is often leveled against them that they were never true Christians in the first place. Part of what's included in that charge is something along the lines of the atheist had more faith in the factual knowledge of the Bible, or the faith was too dependent on the factual knowledge of the Bible, rather than God Himself. Because the faith was so rigid, and not properly dependent upon knowing God, the atheist lost his faith for that reason.

These atheists have family members who are still the conservative evangelical/fundamentalists that the atheists once were. So if the atheists were never Christians because they never knew God, and because the faith was too tied up in a rigid view of the Bible, doesn't that mean that the family members who are currently Christians aren't Christians as well?

Jesus vs. Old Age.

Would there have come a point at which Jesus would have stopped aging? Would he have reached old age, period?

Assuming for the moment that the Garden of Eden scenario really happened, and Adam and Eve were real people, would they have produced the way humanity does today? The normal course that we see today is that people are born, live, and then die of old age. Yet in the Garden, there was no death. So no would in the Garden -- assuming Adam and Even had offspring -- would have died of old age. I'm just wondering what the cut-off point was in terms of aging. Where would the body have said, "Age this far, and no farther?"

There's the idea that Jesus was without sin. Yet at the same time, he was born into this world and growing up in the same manner that all other people do. For all outward appearances, he would've died of old age at some point in time, thus receiving that wage that sin pays.

(Come to think of it, I vaguely remember some series like Left Behind touching on this, in that all the people who were Raptured to Heaven were then in bodies that were at the age of 33, and would be that age for eternity. It was somehow connected to the age of Jesus when he started preaching or was crucified).

Who wants to live forever?

We see in the New Testament a few areas where Jesus is shown to be offering eternal life -- those who believe in Jesus have it. Or Paul saying that the wages of sin are death, but the free gift of eternal life comes from Jesus (or is something God offers to us through Jesus).

Yet we also have the concept of heaven and hell. Both hold the concept of an eternal existence. You either are eternally in Paradise, or eternally in a place that is rather unpleasant. Technically speaking, doesn't one have this eternal life regardless of where one ends up?

After all, that is what life is: existence. So wouldn't we logically say that when if God is offering someone eternal life, He is offering them the opportunity to exist forever? And if someone refuses this chance, that person will not in fact live forever? They'll cease to exist?

Except based on the heaven/hell theology, the person ends up in hell, which means the person is still existing. Does this mean we end up with a situation where while it does say that Jesus offers eternal life, "eternal life" means something other than the standard definition? Because if someone came up to me and said that s/he is offering me the chance to live forever, the implication is that I don't already possess the capability to live forever.

An Uber-Literal moment.

I was reading a book that had some paragraphs discussing marriage in this life, and how it carries over into the resurrected life. The argument was that there would be no married people when the Christians are resurrected, and pulled from the example of Jesus saying that the woman who had the seven husbands would not be the wife of any of them in the life to come, for people are neither married nor given in marriage.

Then it made the mention that above all else, a Christian husband and a Christian wife are a brother and sister in Christ. Which, if I take to the literal extreme ... means that a brother and a sister have married.

It was a rather odd moment for me.

Love Bomb.

Whenever I see someone essentially say that they aren't going to evangelize to a person (preach about Jesus), but rather just express the love of Christ to the person, I end up interpreting that sentence in the following way:

"I, the Christian, am loving you in order to get something out of you."

Essentially, the love has an ulterior motive. The Christian is hoping that the way s/he lives their life, or interacts with unbelievers, will be done in such a way as to make the unbeliever want what the believer has.

I can't help but find that to be a manipulative motive for loving a person. The intention is to produce a very specific result: get the unbeliever interested enough to make the unbeliever convert.

I don't get the same reaction if someone says that they love humanity because God created people, or they love others because of how much God loved them, and so how can they not express that love to everyone else?

I'd even prefer in your face evangelizing to the "convert them through love" approach. At least the former is being forthwright about his/her intentions. And while I doubt that every single Christian who has done the latter approach sees it as a backdoor approach (or maybe they do), it's also incredibly ... it's almost deceptive, in a way. The Christian is still trying to convince the unbeliever to convert, on some level.