Makes You Go Hmmmmmm?

[MORTANIUS]

:scratch: QUESTION for all my fellow Lutherans just to give the old noggins a good mental work out.

If you had to pick between the following, which would you claim is the most valuable choice a person may make. Note that you may only select one and not merge the two.

1) Faith and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ

2) Knowledge and awareness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Explain your choice and what the drawback or positive aspects may include.

[C.F.W. Walther]

1) Faith and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ.

I make this choice because my objective has allways been a pro-active stance and not just passive. Havn't really realized that objective yet but the prison ministry and the inner city ministries and biker ministry were a start.

It's somewhat productive to sit here and discuss theology but it's not really what "you have done to the least of these you have done to Me" type of active faith. As I posted here some months ago about our slow descent into appathetic faith. The "excersise" of our faith not as works righteousness but as indictment of our love to God. I seem like the only thing that God asked us on the last day is this and ONLY this:

Matthew 25:33-40 (King James Version)

33And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.


Excerpts form "The Cost of Discipleship" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
"Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. "All for sin could not atone." Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin. That was the heresy of the enthusiasts, the Anabaptists and their kind…."

"Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ. It remains an abstract idea, a myth which has a place for the Fatherhood of God, but omits Christ as the living Son. … There is trust in God, but no following of Christ. He wants to follow, but feels obliged to insist on his own terms to the level of human understanding. The disciple places himself at the Master’s disposal, but at the same time retains the right to dictate his own terms. But then discipleship is no longer discipleship, but a program of our own to be arranged to suit ourselves, and to be judged in accordance with the standards of rational ethic."

[Jim47]

:scratch: QUESTION for all my fellow Lutherans just to give the old noggins a good mental work out.

If you had to pick between the following, which would you claim is the most valuable choice a person may make. Note that you may only select one and not merge the two.

1) Faith and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ

2) Knowledge and awareness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Explain your choice and what the drawback or positive aspects may include.



Knowledge and awareness gets you no where, for even the demons have that.


This is the only answer:
Eph 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
Eph 2:9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

[LilLamb219]

I was going to say what Jim said about knowledge and awareness not getting you anywhere. Faith matters more than any of those things...including obedience. I'd probably just choose faith over any of them and then obedience would come in 2nd...but I know I can't be perfectly obedient, which is why faith is important as faith grasps onto the forgiveness won at the cross.

[Qoheleth]

If you had to pick between the following, which would you claim is the most valuable choice a person may make. Note that you may only select one and not merge the two.

1) Faith and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ

2) Knowledge and awareness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Explain your choice and what the drawback or positive aspects may include.


Faith matters more than any of those things...including obedience.



13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13 )


I would choose to Love and to Repent, which is to constantly turn from sin to God.


Q

[MORTANIUS]

To all of you who replied I must say that such answers are beautiful reminders of what we must pay attention towards.

Often we get caught up in judicial-like Dogmatic arguments and what jurisdiction does what or that!

And very correct in stating that even the demons are aware of our Lord Jesus Christ, yet they do not love Him.

I hope someone else can now present a question to allow myself and others an opprotunity to think about what it is to be a good Christian.

May the Lord keep you all.

[LilLamb219]

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13 )


I would choose to Love and to Repent, which is to constantly turn from sin to God.

How could one truly love our Lord and God without first having FAITH?????

[Qoheleth]

How could one truly love our Lord and God without first having FAITH

I could ask the opposite.

In anycase, the scriptures say that Love is the greatest, not faith


Q

[MORTANIUS]

God is LOVE and perhaps this is why Q is stating it is foremost. As for us sinners, we do not posses this same LOVE that is God.

Hmmmm?

[Qoheleth]

God is LOVE and perhaps this is why Q is stating it is foremost. As for us sinners, we do not posses this same LOVE that is God.

Still, the verse is speaking of us having faith, hope and love, not God


Q

[MORTANIUS]

Still, the verse is speaking of us having faith, hope and love, not God


Q

Semantics! SEMANTICS! SEMANTICS!!! :P

But a good point lol :thumbsup: