Let's be frenimies!

For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His son, how much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life! Romans 5:10

For he is destined to reign until God has put all enemies under his feet; and the last enemy to be abolished is death 1 Corinthians 15:25

I thought there was another New Testament verse referencing humanity as God's enemy, but I'm not able to locate it through Google.

I was struck by the first verse a couple days ago. I came across it in another location, and starting ruminating. Now, humanity as a whole, if born into a state of sin thanks to Original Sin, is born as God's enemy. To me, "enemy" isn't a casual word. This is someone who has the potential to cause serious harm to one's opponent, and also greatly dislikes the other person.

I can see where the Christian would say that all unsaved people meet the second criteria, as they'd (the conservative one, at any rate) say that all people are hostile to God by default, and it's only by accepting Jesus that one changes to a non-hostile state.

But the potential to cause serious harm? God's omnipotent. I can't even get my perfect-candidate-for-the-Darwin-Award cat to stop using my stairs as a scratching post. We simply don't have the power to cause any damage to an omnipotent being. Especially once the omniscience is thrown in, because not only is God all-powerful, He can foresee any futile attack in the first place.

Not only that, but this enemy list includes death. Any unsaved person is on the same list as death (though I would hope not on the same level). This is a serious enemy list.

Yet I also constantly come across the idea of humanity's level of importance compared to God. We are jars of clay, and jars of clay don't talk back to the Potter. God can do whatever He wants with us, just like an artist can with a painting he creates. We should be grateful, period, that God even deigns to notice us, given how more more superior He is to humanity, and how better. We should be flattered that God even wants us, as He doesn't need anything.

If humanity's that low on the totem pole, how can it possibly be a credible enemy? If it's that "nothing" compared to God, how can it be a viable threat? How can God even feel threatened in the first place? Especially if both humanity and death are enemies of God? Jars of clay aren't the Potter's enemies. If we have no power whatsoever, how can we be any sort of enemy, period?

Liar, Lunatic, Lord.

I'm sure we're all familiar with the Trilemma argument. Aside from some of the problems with it, like the fact that it assumes Jesus literally did/said everything attributed to him, and leaving out the possibility of legend, I'm wondering if it also suffers from another problem.

Does this argument drift into the ad hominem arena in order to to make it's point?

If person A were to make a statement about universal health care being a good thing, and I say person A is wrong about that because person A is an idiot, I have not addressed the claim. Rather, I've sideswiped the claim by focusing on Person A. But person A's supposed idiotic nature doesn't belong to the claim itself.

Part of the Trilemma argument is that we're told we can't simply call Jesus a great moral teacher because good moral teachers don't say what he said. But even if Jesus were crazy, how does that change the command to not judge? Or the Samaritan parable? Or even the golden rule? How does Jesus' mental status have any bearing on the morality of those statements? Crazy people can utter moral statements. So can liars.

No, we wouldn't use crazy people or liars in order to completely orchestrate a moral code (Well ... it might depend on the level of craziness, and how one defines crazy. Crazy could be walking into a war zone in order to teach people about love, yet we could draft a moral code around that).

But my problem is that if the Trilemma is used in order to address the claim "Jesus was just a great moral teacher," then I see the argument itself attacking Jesus, rather than addressing any of his moral statements. Saying that Jesus could be crazy or a liar doesn't show me why he also didn't teach people about morals.

I also realize the argument is meant to address statements such as Jesus saying he was the bread of life, or the resurrection and the life. But again -- these claims don't negate the moral statements themselves.

I mean, there's evidence pointing to Martin Luther King, Jr. having affairs, or plagerizing. But if those claims are true, does that negate that he spoke for peace and non-violence and the end of segretation? No, because the claims themselves are seperate from his character.

So does the Trilemma argument seperate the moral statements of Jesus from the character of Jesus, or lump the two together? If it lumps the two together, isn't that somewhat forcing the listener to reach a specific conclusion? If this claim is that strong, why should any force be necessary at all?

Who, or what, is a Christian?

I saw another post ask this question, and the usual responses followed: justified in the blood of Jesus, someone who holds the right beliefs (resurrection, correct atonement theory, correct belief of the nature of Jesus).

That's not how I would've answered.

When it's used in the New Testament, it means those who followed Jesus, or those who were disciples of Christ. It's reasonable to infer, therefore, that Christian basically means "Christ-like." "Christ" means the Messiah, or Anointed One. So to be Christian is literally to be "Anointed One-like."

I'm trying to think of an exemption to this, but usually when we say that someone is like another person, it's generally to describe characteristics or behavior. If I am like my friend or family member, it's because I would do what the friend/family member would do, or vice versa. So if we are to be Christ-like, then we would do what Christ did. Otherwise, we reduce "Christ-like" to believe as Jesus believed.

The Gospel of John focuses a lot of Jesus as the divine son of God, who Jesus was and his relation to the world and God, and to believe in the son is to receive eternal life/salvation. Inevitably, that gets used a lot in defining Christian.

Here's my problem: John is one of four books that details the life of Jesus. It's in the minority, and yet it gets used as a majority (I'm referring the books that deal with Jesus when he walked on this planet only right now). The other three books show that Jesus places a huge emphasis on action. The harsh words he had were for the religious elites -- those who clung to the correct beliefs at the expense of all else, including their fellow humans.

Let's take the Samaritan. By all accounts, the Samaritan was a heretic, a sinner, and definitely on the "outs" with God because he had the wrong beliefs. And yet that person was the most "Anointed-One like," because he behaved as an Anointed One should. When the three people would stand before God, who would receive the praise?

When we look at our neighbors today, and compare the behavior of some who call themselves Christian to others who call themselves agnostic ... I can't help but think the agnostics are going to receive the praise, because they truly behaved as though Anointed with the Spirit of God.

No, this is not a matter of "earning" salvation. Repentance and turning from sin can come in a variety of ways. If we work with someone who is an absolute jerk, and the understandable response would be to belittle this person, we are repenting through responding with calmness. We are repenting if we decide to see past the jerk-facade, and into the factors that influenced him as a child, or even still influence him. We repent by looking past the surface. We turn from sin when we refuse to hold onto our anger, or refuse to let "the jerk" influence our response, or refuse to let "the jerk" discolor our ability to love him or her.

So who is a Christian? Someone who is Christ-like. Someone who behaves as Jesus did, who sees as Jesus did.