Are You A Pharisee? No? Are You SURE? :-) (page 2)

Deputy Dog

Martin

After that tirade, please forgive me for asking,but, How does your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees?

I see you saying you are glad you're not a sinner (Pharisee) like: Pat “Where’d I leave my humanity ?” Robertson and Jerry “Kill the fags!” Falwell, Linwood Tuttle, Tony Maloney, Ed Sentel, Annie McCoy.

Luk 18:11
The Pharisee stood up and prayed, 'God, I thank you that I'm not like other people! I'm not a robber or a dishonest person. I haven't committed adultery. I'm not even like this tax collector.

I know I'm poor in spirit how about you?

Mat 5:3

"Blessed are those who recognize they are spiritually helpless. The kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

Luk 18:13 "But the tax collector was standing at a distance. He wouldn't even look up to heaven. Instead, he became very upset, and he said, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'

So I ask you again. How does your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees?

Mat 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

ANewLeif

However, it is not Pharisaical to state whether a religion's dogma is Christian dogma. For instance, while a Zen Buddhist might also be a Christian, Zen Buddhist philosophy is not Christian. On the other hand, a good Muslim is not a Christian, the dogma precludes it.

In another thread Martin wrote, "AnEwLeif! Wow! I'm impressed! A brand new Pharisee has blossomed! I think if you try even harder you can find even more ways to shut the door to the Kingdom on many more people! What's your secret? Do you have Jesus in your hip pocket? Are you Omniscient? You must be. I think that's great. When I get my Pharisee Badge from Battle Creek Michigan I hope I can be even HALF as righteous and holy as you are. Judge Rutherford would be proud of you. Hell, I'M proud of you and I'm just an advanced piece of software being tested by the DOD."

I think Pharisee hunters like our friend Martin, here, often assume that every person who says someone is not a Christian also attaches a doctrine that non-Christians are destined for destruction and cannot have God's favor or any number of other dismal outcomes for the non-Christian. Such an assumption about the beliefs of others may not be Pharisaical, but it is certainly prejudiced. Hats off to you, Martin! You have proven that one need not be a Pharisee to be a judgemental pr**k.

ANL

golf2

Pharisee's are self-righteous persons !!!!!

Golf

Deputy Dog

ANL

In another thread Martin wrote, "AnEwLeif! Wow! I'm impressed! A brand new Pharisee has blossomed! I think if you try even harder you can find even more ways to shut the door to the Kingdom on many more people! What's your secret? Do you have Jesus in your hip pocket? Are you Omniscient? You must be. I think that's great. When I get my Pharisee Badge from Battle Creek Michigan I hope I can be even HALF as righteous and holy as you are. Judge Rutherford would be proud of you. Hell, I'M proud of you and I'm just an advanced piece of software being tested by the DOD."

I saw that, and that is one reason I'm responding to his thread. I would love to see how he thinks his righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees.

I wonder who he's trying to impress.

ANewLeif

Himself, d dog. Nobody writes that much about a subject they know so little of unless they love to read what they just wrote. He wants the freedom to judgmentally determine who can be judgmental and who cannot. He apparently has himself squarely in the "Can Be Judgmental" column.

ANL

Narkissos

ANL,

For instance, while a Zen Buddhist might also be a Christian, Zen Buddhist philosophy is not Christian. On the other hand, a good Muslim is not a Christian, the dogma precludes it.

I know it's a side point to your post but the last sentence made me wonder... why?

Islam and post-Nicene Christianity are mutually exclusive, but unless you have Christianity started at Nicaea where is the commonly accepted Christian "dogma" which would rule Islam (and not earlier Jewish Christians, Christian Gnostics, or Arians) out of Christianity? I know Christianity and Islam are traditionally regarded as separate religions but I doubt it is on a dogmatic basis.

DD,

Exceeding Pharisaic righteousness by proxy, in the Pauline way, would hardly match Matthew's expectation either, imo.

ANewLeif

Narkissos,

Islam teaches that Jesus was a great prophet, but just a man. It teaches that he was not the son of God; that he was not the Messiah. That is dogma and it directly contradicts the foundational dogma of Christianity.

I don't know how a religion that surfaced almost 200 years after the Nicene Creed could be weighed against any other version of Christianity, but I am willing to learn.

ANL

Deputy Dog

Nark

DD, Exceeding Pharisaic righteousness by proxy, in the Pauline way, would hardly match Matthew's expectation either, imo.

I believe Jesus and Paul give the same solution. The answer is in my first reply. I'll bet he misses it the same way you did.

Narkissos

ANL,

Unless you take the formal use or rejection of the phrase "Son of God," regardless of its meaning, as the shibboleth separating "Christians" from "non-Christians," that doesn't work too well imo. Some Jewish Christians in the early 2nd century would actually regard Jesus as little more than a prophet even though they may have called him "Son of God". They would not accept he was born from a virgin (whereas Islam does). While Jesus is not the last prophet in Islam he retains some superiority (for instance, he, not Muhammad, comes back at the end of times for judgement).

I think we lack an objective dogmatic basis (other than mere historical usage) to draw the border of Christianity as a whole. If you accept the Ebionites or Nazarenes as Christian, it becomes very difficult to explain dogmatically why Muslims are not.

ANewLeif

Thank you, Narkissos, for that clarification of your point.

I do not think the Nazarenes ever considered themselves Christians. They seem to have regarded themselves as Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, not as Christians who believed they had to retain Jewish traditions and uphold the Law of Moses. At least, that seems to be a reasonable summation of the viewpoint of Epiphanius.

As I understand things, since there is no clearly identifiable creed for the Ebionites it is difficult to categorize the Ebionites as having any particular set of beliefs to which they all adhered. Not that I believe this would be necessary for Christians, in any case, but I think while discussing a religion that claims to be the one and only path to salvation and claims that the Authorized Version's canon is the source of their claim, it is odd to inject a group that did not hold that view as a counterpoint. In the case of Islam, they hold the The Noble Qur'an to be the central authoritative text and the same argument applies. Islamists teach that any who do not adopt Islam, as the path to salvation, are destined for destruction.

It seems that in the case of both the Ebionites and the Nazarenes there was more belief held in common with Pharisees than with Christ. Many "Christian" religions today have the same problem, including Jehovah's Witnesses. Christ did not start a religion. Christ started a spiritual movement from which religions sprang.

I tend to single out Jehovah's Witnesses on this forum because ... that is what I thought this forum is for.

ANL

Are You A Pharisee? No? Are You SURE? :-)

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