[+Donny]

Jesus says "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me" in John 10:27, Peter calls Paul's words Scripture, and Paul quotes Luke 10:7 as Scripture. Paul also says that if anyone is of the spirit (1 Corinthians 14:37), he should recognize that Paul's words are commands from God. Every other Christian agrees on this, but you persist in your stubbornness. Thus, because you reject the Scriptures, you are not born of the Spirit, you are not one of Jesus' sheep, and you are not a Christian unless you repent of your sin and plead for mercy from God. Let me make this very clear: There is wrath stored up for you and every moment you rebel against the Lord and refuse His command to repent, you pile more on the fire. You are a sinner in great peril, deserving of worse than death, and the Lord of Hosts preserves your life day to day by nothing more than His will. Any moment, your life may be demanded of you, and if you do not repent, God will name you a fool just as the rich man in Luke 12. I say you are not a Christian because you have given the entire world evidence that you are not by rejecting the words of the Lord and, in your arrogance, deciding that you have the right to evaluate God's Word according to your own perverse categories and judgment. I say all this to you not to be mean, but because it would be cruel for me to pretend that you were not in danger. What a horrible cruelty to you it would be, if I didn’t proclaim the Good News of Christ to you as you rebel against Him! May it never be said that I did not tell you. Repent.

You are taking 1 Corinthians 14:37 out of context if you are going to apply it to all Scripture.
I'm not defending his views, but to question his salvation because of the views expressed here seems very questionable. Would you question Luther for excluding James? Or church fathers/Catholics for including Apocryphal works? Scripture doesn't promise an absolute, sure recognition of every single inspired work. It is a process. To say that because he doesn't recognize them now, his salvation should therefore be questioned, doesn't follow.
To clarify, I'm not saying that we won't recognize His word, but it is a process, and it is through the church as a whole. I have no problem with the fact that some in the Church, some regenerate, children of God, will not recognize large portions of God's word in this life. We are fallible, and He hasn't promised perfection in any category in this life for us.

[Ted Logan]

Donny, 1 Corinthians 14:37 sets up a precedent and a principle which is borne out through the rest of the Scriptures (again, John 10:27 makes the principle universal in application). Was Luther a Christian when he rejected James? The evidence seems to say yes. But Luther also repented of his rejection of James and came to accept it. My hope is that Dark Tofu will do the same.

[Travis]

Let us also remember that there is a huge difference between the early church fathers, who were still in the initial stages of the identification of the canon, Luther, who was stripping away all the heresies and lies of Roman Catholicism (and who, as Aaron noted, repented of his rejection of James) and an individual who, after the issue of the canon has been settled for hundreds and hundreds of years decides to go through and entirely on his own just throw out many of the books that the church (and even the Roman Catholic church) has always accepted as canonical (and which are even quoted in the New Testament as being canonical).

[Ridley's Own]

There's not going to be anymore discussion of a single poster's salvation status on this thread. Period. I'll delete posts and close the thread if it continues.

[Ted Logan]

Originally Posted by Dark Tofu

You mentioned that you were a pastor above. Is this how you act at church? Is it really necessary to condemn someone because they have different beliefs than you?

If they reject the Christian faith, then they must be told that they are hell-bound, because they are hell-bound. It would be a great cruelty not to say so. Jesus and the apostles certainly had no problem doing so.

You ask if I 'act this way at church.' If you came to me to have this discussion at the church, or anywhere else, I would tell you the same things. Generally speaking, people don't come into the church and begin proclaiming their rejection of the Scriptures and I have yet to encounter a situation similar to this one either in youth meetings or personal conversations with those under my charge.

Once again, I call upon you to repent of your sin and seek the Lord while He may be found. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart.

[Dark Tofu]

Why do you persist on claiming this is a sin?
Can't we just debate the points of what is scripture and what isn't.

I must add that you have been extraordinarily rude to me as well.

(P.S. I will eventually be getting to changing my defences so you might want to delete yours.)

[exo]

Originally Posted by Dark Tofu

Why do you persist on claiming this is a sin?
Can't we just debate the points of what is scripture and what isn't.

I must add that you have been extraordinarily rude to me as well.

(P.S. I will eventually be getting to changing my defences so you might want to delete yours.)

Dark, debating what is Scripture and what isn't was done hundreds of years ago. The job has been done.

Secondly, the problem with your argumentation is that your premises are false. This means that you cannot make any sound conclusions with those premises. IOW, if I say:

Every single individual martian is dumb.
Therefore, I can trick a martian into giving me one fafillion dollars.

Now, you come to me and present me with a martian that is quite intelligent. His IQ is 190. You've now just shown my premise to be false. I can now draw no conclusions from that premise. Essentially your premise is this:

Some of what we call the Bible is not the Word of God and some of what we call the Bible is the Word of God.
Then you list some of the conditions:

If it is a prophet speaking, it is the Word of God.
If it is XYZ, it is the Word of God.

But these conditional premises have been proven to be false through the use of the Word itself and what it calls Scripture.

[Dark Tofu]

When?

[J.W4Christ]

the ultimate reason i trust in the Bible as the Word of God is beacuse Holy Spirit convince me that it is the truth.. there may not be physical evidence but after reading the whole bible it is kinda hard not to believe that it is God breathe and inspired..

[Dark Tofu]

And quite a bit of it is. But tell me, what did Judas do after he realized he had betrayed Jesus. (Hint, look at Matthew and Acts)

[Narcil]

Originally Posted by Dark Tofu

And quite a bit of it is. But tell me, what did Judas do after he realized he had betrayed Jesus. (Hint, look at Matthew and Acts)

This is amazingly simple to answer and I believe it shows that you are accepting skeptical arguements without doing much searching for the truth.

Matthew 27:3-8:
When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. "I have sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood."

"What is that to us?" they replied. "That's your responsibility."

So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

The chief priests picked up the coins and said, "It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money." So they decided to use the money to buy the potter's field as a burial place for foreigners. That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

Acts 1:18-19:
(With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

Here is a chronological account of what happened, and a furthur explanation will follow:

The chief priests pay Judas 30 silver coins to lead them to Jesus. Judas does this, yet when Jesus is convicted and sentenced to death, he regrets what he has done. He goes to the chief priests, asking them to take back the money, as he (Judas) sinned to aquire it. They do not want it back. Judas throws the coins at them and runs out outside the city, and in his despair and regret, hangs himself. His body hangs in the sun for several days, decomposing, as during the sabbath no one is allowed to work or touch a dead body. When his body is finally cut down, it falls headlong onto the ground where, because of it's extend exposure to the sun and days of decomposition, it ruptures and spills his intestines out onto the ground. At this time the chief priest take the money and use it to buy the potter's field, where Judas hung himself.

Explanation of some points:
The only real point of disagreement that someone might make with this outline, is that in Matthew it says that the priest bought the field, while in Acts it says that Judas bought the field. Which is it?

It is both. Matthew is correct in saying that the priests bought the field, as they were the ones who actually conducted the transaction, while Luke is correct in relating that Judas bought the field in that it was by his actions that the transaction took place.

This is still a common enough literary practice even today, let alone from a near east idiom 2000 years ago, that no one should find this surprising.

[Narcil]

Originally Posted by Dark Tofu

And quite a bit of it is. But tell me, what did Judas do after he realized he had betrayed Jesus. (Hint, look at Matthew and Acts)

Something I want to add.

Here is an example of a contradiction:
Judas went out and hung himself. -- Judas went out and fell on his sword.

These acounts are not contradictory, as I outlined above, but complimentary. Luke is adding information to Matthews acount. Too much much similarity on the part of the Gospel writers and the skeptics would be crying "collusion!" Yet in this case, where there is no contradiction, but only added information, they appeal to contradiction as the accounts are not identical.

[BillSPrestonEsq]

Originally Posted by Narcil

Something I want to add.

Here is an example of a contradiction:
Judas went out and hung himself. -- Judas went out and fell on his sword.

These acounts are not contradictory, as I outlined above, but complimentary. Luke is adding information to Matthews acount. Too much much similarity on the part of the Gospel writers and the skeptics would be crying "collusion!" Yet in this case, where there is no contradiction, but only added information, they appeal to contradiction as the accounts are not identical.

I hate to be really gross, but when does a body explode on impact from the intestinal cavity? Its after it bloats.

Say Judas hanged himself in the middle eastern son, his body would quickly bloat. However, when anyone saw a Jew hanging from a tree... the proper thing to do would be to cut them down given that in the torah everyone who hung on a tree was cursed. ever seen a bloated cow explode? its guts come out and its really not a pretty sight. its not just decomposition, its the bloating.

[Narcil]

Originally Posted by Dark Tofu

And quite a bit of it is. But tell me, what did Judas do after he realized he had betrayed Jesus. (Hint, look at Matthew and Acts)

Another problem you are making is assuming that "inspired" means "mechanical dictation."

The diciples were inspired by God to write their accounts of their time with Jesus. Which they wrote out their own personal experiences with Him (or in the case of Luke, from interviews and research that he conducted into the facts of the matter). Each author finds different details more interesting than others and sees each event from a different perspective. This sometimes gives us different, but complementary information about certain events.

[Narcil]

Originally Posted by BillSPrestonEsq

I hate to be really gross, but when does a body explode on impact from the intestinal cavity? Its after it bloats.

Say Judas hanged himself in the middle eastern sun, his body would quickly bloat. However, when anyone saw a Jew hanging from a tree... the proper thing to do would be to cut them down given that in the torah everyone who hung on a tree was cursed. ever seen a bloated cow explode? its guts come out and its really not a pretty sight. its not just decomposition, its the bloating.

Absolutely!