wow Romans. mmmm September 16, 2009
Posted by highofseventyfive in theology.Tags: romans
add a comment
just read this, slowly, out loud (if you can). no really, read it. don’t skim. READ.
wow. its so concise. i love Romans. Why do we try to come up with gimmicky things to say? maybe i’ll just walk around standing on benches and reading this.
Romans 3:10-27 (New International Version)
10As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
12All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”[a]
13“Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”[b]
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”[c]
14“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”[d]
15“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16ruin and misery mark their ways,
17and the way of peace they do not know.”[e]
18“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”[f]
19Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
Righteousness Through Faith
21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,[g] through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
27Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith.
Who/What created morals? April 3, 2009
Posted by highofseventyfive in theology.Tags: evolution, God, law, morals, romans, selfishness, sin, waodani tribe
add a comment
i want to work something out on “paper” right now before i forget:
athiests and evolutionary scholars say that we are not born with morals that we get from God (because He doesn’t exist) They say that the origin of morals comes from evolution, our need to develop rules or whatever in order to further benefit our species and keep us from going extinct.
take the Waodani tribe in south america. they were extremely violent. everyone had someone in their family who was speared to death. they were killing themselves off, because they were so angry. they were quite literally down to a few remaining men, they would have killed themselves off.
is this evolution? does “we develop morals out of the best interest for the group?” explain this situation? or does this:
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.–r omans 1:28-32
i think it is fair to say that if we relied on evolution to keep us from killing each other, our selfishness has most certainly gotten in the way. in order to think of the safety and well being of others, you have to be able to put aside your own feelings and repress your own fulfillment. if i wanted to kill someone, i could. i would be sacrificing someone else’s life in order to fulfill mine. how does evolution reconcile morals and self-centeredness?
i don’t think it can. and what i think happened with the waodani tribe is this: their minds were clouded from listening to their moral compasses because of selfishness and lust. i think people who don’t know God can be very moral and have morals. because they are made in the image of God and have those natural longings for justice and love and nice things. when we have no reason to follow them though, is when we just do whatever we want. why should convince a guy not to kill someone? a worldly law? or a Godly law? obviously a worldy law hasn’t stopped people. its not reason enough to not kill.
we all have morals built into us, because we are made in the image of God. but when our sin and our selfishness cloud our desire to follow that ingrained set of morals, we kill and steal and do all sorts of awful things. GOD instilled those morals, practically for hte same reason evolutionists think we developed them: to survive.
think about it– God loves us. so he’s going to put some natural cravings for justice inside us so we don’t kill each other. duh. he wants the BEST for us. i think truly left up to our own devices we would be extinct because we also have sin nature. and unless we turn to God for fulfillment, we would follow our sin nature all the way, just like romans 1 says, and kill each other off.
thats my thought. i think it makes sense.
waodani tribe
