ContraRarian

One day, a dog owner went to the local pastor to announce the death of his dog and to request for a burial service. ‘I am afraid we don’t do services for animals in my church’, says the pastor, ‘but there’s a new church down the road, and only God knows what they believe in,’ he continued. ‘I reckon they could help. You can try your luck there.’ ’ Thanks, Pastor! I’ll go right away’, said the dog owner. ‘But’, he asked again innocently, ‘Pastor, do you think they’ll accept a donation of £250,000 as enough fee for the burial service? The pastor exclaimed, ‘sweet Jesus! Why didn’t you tell me your dog was a christian………..?

Guess what? The Bible is full of crap

ollyren:

Jesus knew who he was! “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.” - John 11:41
This…. is how we should operate! We have the same position as Christ, because we are IN Him. We have been redeemed. So start acting like it! Grab hold of who you are, enter into His throne room boldly! It will produce legit confidence in your daily life and walk.

The Gospel according to “John” was written anonymously, probably 60 or 70 years after the death of Jesus, by someone who never met him. 

So how do we know that the Bible accurately reports what Jesus says? We don’t.

Did Jesus care about sexual purity?

derekmswanson blogged this quote from Carl Lentz:

“For some reason Jesus could preach about sexual purity, yet prostitutes still felt loved enough to hang around him.”

But what did Jesus preach about sexual purity?

Burton L. Mack is John Wesley Professor emeritus in early Christianity at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. His analysis of the earliest Christian teachings tells a very different story from that you might be used to. ReligiousTolerance.org summarise Mack thus:

“What is remarkable… is that the original Christians appeared to be centered totally on concerns about their relationships with God and with other people, and their preparation for the imminent arrival of Kingdom of God on earth. Totally absent from their spiritual life are almost all of the factors that we associate with Christianity today. There is absolutely no mention of (in alphabetic order): adultery, angels, apostles, baptism, church, clergy, confirmation, crucifixion, demons, disciples, divorce, Eucharist, great commission to convert the world, healing, heaven, hell, incarnation, infancy stories, John the Baptist, Last Supper, life after death, Mary and Joseph and the rest of Jesus’ family, magi, miracles, Jewish laws concerning behavior, marriage, Messiah, restrictions on sexual behavior, resurrection, roles of men and women, Sabbath, salvation, Satan, second coming, signs of the end of the age, sin, speaking in tongues, temple, tomb, transfiguration, trial of Jesus, trinity, or the virgin birth.”

According to Mack, almost everything we associate with Christianity today was added to the teachings of Jesus in the decades and centuries after his death.

So how about Paul? His letters are the earliest surviving Christian documents. They too mention sexual purity - or do they?

William O. Walker, Jr., is Jennie Farris Railey King Professor Emeritus of Religion at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He argues that the calls for sexual and religious purity narrated in Romans 1.18–2.29 were not written by Paul, but were in fact added in the decades after Paul’s death.

So what did Jesus have to say about sexual purity? If we want to be honest, it’s fair to say that we just don’t know… Now, how many pastors and christians are prepared to admit that?