Rick Beckman

Timothy’s Burden a “Progressive Christian Blog”?

To my sur­prise, the Jesus was a Lib­er­al blog now dis­plays a link to Tim­o­th­y’s Bur­den in the side­bar under the head­er “Pro­gres­sive Chris­t­ian Blogs.” I am guess­ing that label comes from the few com­ments I have made at that blog in agree­ment with what the com­men­tary said.

But is this a “Pro­gres­sive Chris­t­ian Blog”?

The Wikipedia would seem to indi­cate that to be a pro­gres­sive Chris­t­ian is to be one who pro­motes social jus­tice and oth­er polit­i­cal (specif­i­cal­ly left-wing, appar­ent­ly) ideals.

If any­one could pro­vide me with a bit more, I’d be inter­est­ed in whether or not I real­ly fit that mold. Your com­ments are welcome.

(Though it would seem that since I oppose the mix­ture of church and state and believe in the unin­volve­ment of the Church from state affairs, I would­n’t be able to do much on the “social jus­tice” front…)

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24 responses to “Timothy’s Burden a “Progressive Christian Blog”?”

  1. Senior Avatar
    Senior

    Fun­ny thing about words like pro­gres­sive and con­ser­v­a­tive and lib­er­al, etc.

    Much of their mean­ing is drawn from the con­text of the time. Today’s polit­i­cal pro­gres­sive might espouse fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty while today’s con­ser­v­a­tives are spend­ing your future tax dol­lars. Once upon a time it was the reverse.

    In a sense you are pro­gres­sive because you advo­cate beliefs that are not all that wide­ly held (at least, not in the details).

    My Mer­ri­am-Web­ster says of the adjec­tive: “mak­ing use of or inter­est­ed in new ideas, find­ings or opportunites”

    The Bible isn’t new, but you do bring to it a rare (new) perspective.

    Senior

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  2. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    Nov­el­ty might be one def­i­n­i­tion, but it’s dif­fi­cult to dis­so­ci­ate “lib­er­al Chris­tian­i­ty” from “pro­gres­sive Christianity.”

    I can say with cer­tain­ty I do not fit the “Lib­er­al Chris­t­ian” mold.

    Reply
  3. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    Not too often I am said to have a “fair and open atti­tude,” Rick. Thank you for that. And thank you for the link. It is appreciated.

    Three years ago, I would have read my own blog (as it is today) and scoffed at it because of how much of a change I’ve made since then. I was very much the mil­i­tant fun­da­men­tal­ist in my attitude.

    Reply
  4. Rick Mathis Avatar
    Rick Mathis

    The Bible for me is per­haps the most pro­gres­sive book of all in that the vision of jus­tice is tru­ly Divine. I includ­ed you among my links to pro­gres­sive sites not so much because of any dog­ma or polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy on your part as much as your fair and open atti­tude in approach­ing issues. To me, there are peo­ple who iden­ti­fy them­selves as con­ser­v­a­tives who are real­ly far more lib­er­al than they real­ize. Like­wise, there are many so-called lib­er­als who are not that openminded.

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  5. yes2truth Avatar
    yes2truth

    Sirs,

    Jesus Christ was not polit­i­cal — peri­od, nor did He come to bring social jus­tice (what­ev­er that is) to this world.

    He came to bring Sal­va­tion to car­nal­ly mind­ed men and women who were in a state of rebel­lion towards their Creator.

    If you can show me in Scrip­ture where He com­mand­ed believ­ers to change this world pre­sum­ably via your ‘social jus­tice’ I will be most inter­est­ed to read it.

    y2t

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  6. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    y2t, I’m going to assume that you aren’t talk­ing to me (the author of this blog); I’ve made my opin­ion very known here and else­where that this world is not our home as Chris­tians so we should­n’t even vote, let alone oth­er­wise get involved in politics.

    By the way, your web­site sets off Google Tool­bar’s phish­ing sen­sor. You might con­sid­er get­ting a real webhost. :)

    Reply
  7. yes2truth Avatar
    yes2truth

    Rick,

    Thank you for the clar­i­fi­ca­tion but with so many ‘Chris­tians’ embroiled and deceived by pol­i­tics and politi­cians, let alone the non­sense they get from pul­pits, I do use provoca­tive lan­guage to find out what their true colours are, so to speak. Some­thing I have done on “Jesus is a lib­er­al” blog

    As for web sites and design I always take the route of least resis­tance i.e. easy to use and free. Freeservers do pro­vide these fea­tures; the adver­tis­ing is a pain, but I am not sure it is right that we should pay to spread The Word. Your advice will be appre­ci­at­ed as I am web host­ing ignorant.

    What is phishing?

    y2t

    Reply
  8. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    If you want to know what phish­ing is, check out the Wikipedia. I have no idea why your site would be rec­og­nized as such, though.

    Also, as for spread­ing the gospel… The only way it’s free is if it’s ver­bal (the most effec­tive means); any oth­er way, and you get what you pay for. Mon­ey must be spent to pub­lish Bibles, print tracts, pro­vide elec­tric­i­ty (and band­width, and stor­age, and the com­put­ers them­selves) for web sites, etc.

    And tech­ni­cal­ly, Jesus could be con­sid­ered liberal–He taught many new polit­i­cal ideas that peo­ple had­n’t heard dur­ing His time. Keep in mind that most of His preach­ing was con­cern­ing the King­dom and not the Church.

    Reply
  9. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    All men (even Chris­tians) are liars and there­fore ser­vants of the Dev­il for he is the father of lies.

    Sor­ry, but that is the log­ic you use.

    Also being lib­er­al does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean being polit­i­cal. Jesus could have espoused a lib­er­al world­view with­out mess­ing with pol­i­tics. How­ev­er, to say He is above a polit­i­cal process is igno­rant at best. He is a King, He has a King­dom, there are rulers in this King­dom, there are Laws, etc.

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  10. yes2truth Avatar
    yes2truth

    There is no way Jesus was a lib­er­al nor was He polit­i­cal, tech­ni­cal­ly or otherwise.

    Jesus Christ is The Truth and The Truth is not pol­i­tics for all politi­cians are liars and there­fore ser­vants of the Dev­il for he is the father of lies. John 8.

    Jesus Christ is as far above pol­i­tics, as we are above pond life.

    y2t

    Reply
  11. yes2truth Avatar
    yes2truth

    All unsaved men are liars espe­cial­ly politi­cians, and lib­er­als can add cow­ardice to their ‘attrib­ut­es’ as well. That’s why they sit on the fence, they haven’t the guts to make deci­sions. Chris­tians are none of these things.

    Chris­tians if they are real Chris­tians are not liars as they are per­fect in His sight. Real Chris­tians are not sin­ners either, even though they may sin. Now either we are per­fect or we are imper­fect, there is no in between, if we are Born Again.

    1 John 3:3, He who keeps his hope in Him, puri­fies him­self even as He (Jesus Christ) is pure.

    1 John 3:6 Whoso­ev­er abideth in him sin­neth not: whoso­ev­er sin­neth hath not seen him, nei­ther known him.

    1 John 3:9 Whoso­ev­er is born of God doth not com­mit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he can­not sin, because he is born of God.

    Now Rick are you Born of God or not, for if you see your­self as a liar and there­by a ser­vant of the Dev­il there is no way that you are Born Again. It’s God or mam­mon there is noth­ing else.

    “Also being lib­er­al doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean being political.”

    You’re right, it’s worse because lib­er­al in terms of Chris­tian­i­ty means ‘spew’ nei­ther hot nor cold — Rev­e­la­tion 3.

    “How­ev­er, to say He is above a polit­i­cal process is igno­rant at best. He is a King, He has a King­dom, there are rulers in this King­dom, there are Laws, etc.”

    Here, you are think­ing like a man, not a Son of God. Grace abounds in The Lord’s King­dom, not rules. Fur­ther­more, all pow­er­ful kings do not need pol­i­tics as they rule in total­li­ty and there is no one who can ques­tion their deci­sions. A king or queen who can­not rule (like our queen) is sad­ly, worse than useless.

    In The Lord’s King­dom, those who are His will not need rules for His Law is writ­ten on their hearts.

    Reply
  12. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    So the Law writ­ten on our hearts does­n’t con­sti­tute rules? “Love your neigh­bor” isn’t a rule? What about the epis­tle to the church? There are hun­dreds of rules in them, despite the empha­sis on grace.

    When Christ rules, it will be a rule of right­eous­ness. Right­eous­ness requires obe­di­ence. Obe­di­ence requires some­thing to be obe­di­ent to. Again, Laws. God has always giv­en Laws to man. Adam was giv­en one. The patri­archs had theirs. Moses had ’em. The Apos­tles had them, and we have them.

    Oh, and y2t, if we say we have no sin, we are lying. So if what you say is true and it is pos­si­ble to live a sin­less life, you are a liar. And again, accord­ing to your log­ic, you must be a ser­vant of the Dev­il. For your sake, I hope you’re wrong. :)

    We still have a sin nature. We still sin. The only dif­fer­ence is we will not be held account­able for it in the same way as a lost per­son will be. Our “inner man,” or spir­it, is born again and can­not sin, but our “out­er man” cer­tain­ly still can. And all our days we war against the flesh, as even the apos­tle Paul did. We will only be free from that bat­tle when our bod­ies are born again in resurrection.

    Also, lib­er­al does­n’t mean “wishy washy” (nei­ther hot or cold). It may not be what you agree with, but it does­n’t mean “on the fence” either.

    I appre­ci­ate the com­ments, and I encour­age you to con­tin­ue to read the Word of God and grow there­in. But if you’re only going to reply hate­ful­ly here, you’re real­ly wast­ing your time.

    Reply
  13. yes2truth Avatar
    yes2truth

    Now, what you have writ­ten here is Bib­li­cal and Spir­i­tu­al igno­rance on a grand scale and requires your repentance.

    The Law writ­ten on our hearts is love — for your infor­ma­tion. For he who loves his broth­er hath ful­filled the law. This means we are per­fect in God’s sight and any­one who ful­fills the law is per­fect. This also means there is no fur­ther rule keep­ing or obe­di­ence for those who are Born Again and broth­ers of The Lord.

    Right­eous­ness does not require obe­di­ence. The indwelling of the Holy Spir­it makes us right­eous, noth­ing else.

    I sug­gest you read prop­er­ly the Scrip­tures I quot­ed for they say the oppo­site of what you’re say­ing. Which I notice you com­plete­ly ignored.

    In Romans 7 Paul tells us TWICE that it is no longer HIM who sins but his body. This is telling us that it is no longer US the new man who sins but our bod­ies, which are wait­ing for death. Now, are you the new man or are you your body!!??

    Here is a ques­tion for you. If born again, we are now Friends and Broth­ers of Jesus Christ; what kind of friend or broth­er has to be obeyed?

    As for hate­ful I’m sor­ry to have to say it but your legal­ism and rule keep­ing is what is hate­ful, so hate­ful, it’s a blasphemy!

    y2t

    Reply
  14. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    Legal­ism? Ha. Fun­ny. Thanks for the laugh.

    Is it obe­di­ent to not present our bod­ies a liv­ing sacrifice?

    Is it obe­di­ent to not be hon­est and trustoworthy?

    Is it obe­di­ent to not do any of the things Christ told us to do?

    Rememe­ber, He may be Friend and Broth­er, but He is also Lord, and we are His ser­vants (just as Paul was).

    I am not say­ing we must do any­thing to be right­eous before God. You take me out of con­text. Dur­ing the Mil­len­ni­um, how­ev­er, the rule will be right­eous­ness. The Law will be His, and every­one will live accord­ing­ly or suf­fer pun­ish­ment, as He will rule with a rod of iron.

    This isn’t legal­ism; it’s Bible. I’m sor­ry that you seem so adverse to sub­mit­ting to Christ as Lord and King Eter­nal. But keep in mind I am not say­ing obe­di­ence is required for sal­va­tion. Please don’t accuse me of that.

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  15. yes2truth Avatar
    yes2truth

    You are now mock­ing and laugh­ing — why? I will tell you why, because you can­not accept that The Lord Jesus Christ did every­thing for you at the cross and in His Res­ur­rec­tion. The Phar­isees, who were kings of legal­ism, also mocked and laughed at The Lord Jesus Christ.

    Eph­esians 2:8 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of your­selves: it is the gift of God:” Notice, even the faith is not of our­selves which is where you peo­ple all go wrong because you think it is your faith that saves you and it is not, it is The Lord’s faith that saves us.

    Even­tu­al­ly you will run out of bad­ly trans­lat­ed scrip­tures to sup­port your man made doctrine.

    We are ‘ser­vants’ will­ing­ly and mature­ly, not obe­di­ent­ly. When Born Again, love is the issue, not obe­di­ence. If you are in a Spir­i­tu­al rela­tion­ship, obe­di­ence is unnec­es­sary. What­ev­er way you cut it, obe­di­ence is Old Covenant. Abra­ham obeyed because he was under the Old Covenant and because he obeyed it was cred­it­ed to him as right­eous­ness. It does not work like that under the New Covenant.

    I notice you did not answer my ques­tion hon­est­ly but tried to explain it away in sup­port of your erro­neous view of Sal­va­tion and Grace. So here is anoth­er ques­tion or two: when a good wife is wash­ing, cook­ing, mak­ing the bed, rais­ing her chil­dren and iron­ing etc. etc., is she obey­ing her hus­band or lov­ing him. What is her moti­va­tion for all this hard work and effort!!??

    I have not tak­en you out of con­text because you are still telling me that Born Again believ­ers must obey. They do not need to obey because they love The Lord and desire to do his will in a state of will­ing­ness out of love for Him. This is not obe­di­ence, it is love for Him in action. Want­i­ng to do some­thing is the com­plete oppo­site of hav­ing to do some­thing. This is liv­ing under Grace and not under the Law.

    The only time we obey is when we are com­mand­ed to repent, be bap­tised and con­fess our sins. At this point in time we are com­ing out of the world from our unsaved con­di­tion. This is a one off and takes place when we called by the Father to His Son, repet­i­tive con­fes­sion of sins is not Biblical.

    To be hon­est the whole of your last post was total con­fu­sion and self contradictory.

    y2t

    Reply
  16. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    Let me get this straight… I believe whole­heart­ed­ly in a sola fide and sola gra­tia salvation–one which stands apart from any works that I could pos­si­bly do–, I spread that same gospel and I have even told you I believe in it… And then you come here and try to claim I am teach­ing some kind of sal­va­tion by works?

    Thanks but no thanks. If you want to false­ly accuse me (by the way, that is an activ­i­ty of Satan, the accuser of the brethren, NOT of some­one who loves Christ), then just leave. Stop try­ing to put divi­sion between us because in so doing you are mock­ing Christ. You have clear­ly shown that you have no idea what I believe so please stop act­ing like you do.

    Thanks, and bye.

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  17. yes2truth Avatar
    yes2truth

    As you wish to end this dia­logue, then so be it, but not with­out me stat­ing that by using latin terms you imme­di­ate­ly tell me that you are of Rome — The Whore of Baby­lon. These terms are coun­ter­feit reli­gious terms used by peo­ple (Bible intel­lec­tu­als) who are deceived and deceive oth­ers with their non-gospel. This is how they turn The Truth into reli­gion and make it mean­ing­less, “How­beit in vain do they wor­ship me teach­ing for doc­trines the com­mand­ments (tra­di­tions) of men.”

    You have to repent of this non­sense or you will be count­ed amongst those who come to The Lord when they are res­ur­rect­ed and say to Him “Lord we did this and that in your name and all man­ner of won­der­ful works and He will say: go away from me for I nev­er knew you” These peo­ple are not the unsaved, they are sup­posed Chris­tians, most­ly Roman Catholics and East­ern Ortho­dox, but there are many in Protes­tant (off­shoots of Rome) Demon-ina­tions (divi­sions) that fit their descrip­tion too.

    Now Rick, are going to remain one of them or repent? You have had now had your wit­ness and your warning.

    If you con­tin­ue to reject it, con­sid­er it done that I am dust­ing off my shoes.

    y2t

    Reply
  18. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    Sola Scrip­tura — I believe in the suf­fi­cien­cy of Scrip­ture for all doc­tri­nal and spir­i­tu­al teach­ing, that it alone can make me wise unto salvation.

    Sola Fide — I believe that sal­va­tion is by faith alone, not of works lest any man should boast.

    Sola Gra­tia — I believe that it is sole­ly by God’s grace that we are saved, and that from His wrath.

    Solo Chris­to — Sal­va­tion through Jesus Christ alone.

    Soli Deo Glo­ria — For the glo­ry of God alone.

    You must have a hid­den knowl­edge that I don’t have, but the Roman Catholic Church does­n’t adhere to those. I don’t know how you can hon­est­ly say that sim­ply by using Latin that I am some­how in league with the Roman Catholic Church.

    All I ask is that you stop false­ly accus­ing me. I don’t need to repent of believ­ing in Scrip­ture alone or Christ alone or faith alone or grace alone or the glo­ry of God alone. If you think I do, fine, but I’m nev­er going to.

    Also, the Roman Catholic Church can­not be the Whore of Baby­lon; the Whore is respon­si­ble for all false reli­gions through­out his­to­ry, but the Roman Catholic Church has­n’t exist­ed for all of his­to­ry. It may be a part of the whole, but it isn’t the whole Whore itself.

    God bless.

    Reply
  19. yes2truth Avatar
    yes2truth

    I don’t have hid­den knowl­edge, The Father hides noth­ing from those He calls to His Son. The only peo­ple to have hid­den the Truth, through the ages, are papists. They hid the Truth in very lan­guage you have used.

    Why are you using it? Put your­self in the lis­ten­ers shoes, all those mil­lions of une­d­u­cat­ed peo­ple out there who speak only their native tongue. By using it, all you are doing is show­ing me you know some of the most use­less lan­guage that has be cre­at­ed by man. A lan­guage for vain intel­lec­tu­als and delud­ed monks liv­ing in iso­la­tion. Are you one of them or not?

    If you under­stood Daniel 2 you would know that Rome is part of the Whore of Baby­lon and will be swept away like chaff when Jesus Christ returns. Read it and learn!

    y2t

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  20. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    Ah, so now Rome is only part of the Whore? See, ’cause ear­li­er you said it was the Whore. Which is it?

    And why should I be con­cerned that peo­ple in their native tongues can­not read a few Latin phras­es on my blog? Chances are, they can’t read the Eng­lish part either. Also, Eng­lish is a lan­guage devel­oped by man as well, not just Latin; but I see you use Eng­lish as well, so stop judg­ing me.

    I don’t know why you have a vendet­ta against Rome that you want to take out on me when I have nev­er even attend­ed a Roman Catholic ser­vice. I don’t know why you care to crti­cize every­thing I say when on your site you state that Paul very plain­ly dis­liked debate. And I don’t know why you con­tin­ue to act the way you do know­ing that I con­fess Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

    Reply
  21. yes2truth Avatar
    yes2truth

    I am not attack­ing you, I am attack­ing what you are say­ing. I came here to cor­rect your blas­phe­my of call­ing Jesus Christ a lib­er­al. In doing that I have rocked your boat of world­li­ness and reli­gion. Now instead of accept­ing the teach­ing I have giv­en you, you have con­tin­ued to defend the inde­fen­si­ble. This is not debating.

    I will use your use of Latin terms as an exam­ple. Their use is just reli­gious van­i­ty and it is prob­a­bly not your fault that you use them because you have prob­a­bly been taught by anoth­er blas­phe­mer who thinks Jesus Christ is a liberal.

    If you knew your Church his­to­ry you would know that good men suf­fered death and per­se­cu­tion for trans­lat­ing The Bible out of the Dev­il’s lan­guage (Latin) and into Eng­lish. Now, you stop and think about that the next time you use it. Your argu­ment against what I said, is fal­la­cious, as Eng­lish is a native tongue and Latin is not. Eng­lish is also the lan­guage of the ‘glob­al vil­lage’ as it is now called, but then you knew that much.

    I explained what or who the Whore of Baby­lon is: it is Roman Catholi­cism, East­ern Ortho­doxy and all the oth­er off-shoots includ­ing Protes­tantism, for Protes­tantism is just that, a Protest and a weak protest at that. Many Protes­tants now active­ly seek uni­ty with their whor­ing moth­er in Rome.

    The Lord says in Rev­e­la­tion 18:4–5 And I heard anoth­er voice from heav­en, say­ing, Come out of her, my peo­ple, that ye be not par­tak­ers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 5 For her sins have reached unto heav­en, and God hath remem­bered her iniquities.

    y2t

    y2t

    Reply
  22. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    I will ask you to please not use the word “reli­gious” and many oth­er words here, for Eng­lish bor­rowed such words from Latin and there­fore you are “talk­ing the Dev­il’s lan­guage” in using them. Thanks.

    How­ev­er, Jesus was a liberal–He loved every­one and died for every­one (“the world”) so that “whoso­ev­er will” may be rec­on­ciled to God. He treat­ed the sick and the poor with dig­ni­ty and com­pas­sion, which is a very lib­er­al thing to do, espe­cial­ly when the con­ser­v­a­tive norm of His day would have ignored such peo­ple. That is what I mean by “lib­er­al.” There is noth­ing polit­i­cal about, nor does the term require a rejec­tion of fun­da­men­tal Bible truths.

    And yes, I real­ize that the Catholic Church did ter­ri­ble things while speak­ing Latin. You know what? The Greeks did ter­ri­ble things speak­ing Greek, and God chose that for the New Tes­ta­ment. The Hebrews also–from whom we get the Old Tes­ta­ment language–are guilty of repeat­ed­ly reject­ing God and even­tu­al­ly reject­ing and cru­ci­fy­ing their Mes­si­ah. Why pick just on Latin?

    I agree that the Whore is any reli­gion which fits the descrip­tion giv­en in Rev­e­la­tion, and I ful­ly agree that we be not par­tak­ers of her sins. But a lan­guage is no more sin­ful than a sword or a pen­cil; the sin is in how they are used. I could use a pen­cil to praise God, while anoth­er pen­cils a porno­graph­ic com­ic book. Does that make me wrong for using “the dev­il’s pen­cil”? No.

    And I am hap­pi­ly a Protes­tant. I protest the teach­ings of the Catholic Church and many oth­er Protes­tant Church­es as well. Just because the Ref­or­ma­tion did­n’t go as far as you would have liked, does­n’t mean it was­n’t a great help, nor should the orig­i­nal event be judged by how Protes­tants are act­ing nowa­days in going back to that which they were sep­a­rat­ed from.

    Reply
  23. yes2truth Avatar
    yes2truth

    Here again you per­sist in your Spir­i­tu­al and Bib­li­cal ignorance.

    Jesus Christ loved — He did not do lib­er­al acts. Love is not lib­er­al­ism. Lib­er­al­ism is of man and you are con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing Jesus’ name with your vile reasoning.

    I will tell you some­thing, your last reply arrived in my junk mail box. I think The Lord is telling me to stop wast­ing time on you. So I will, for what you say is junk.

    I will bin, with all my oth­er junk mail, any fur­ther com­mu­ni­ca­tion from you with­out opening.

    Reply
  24. Rick Beckman Avatar
    Rick Beckman

    I will bin, with all my oth­er junk mail, any fur­ther com­mu­ni­ca­tion from you with­out opening.

    Hmm, then I’m prob­a­bly wast­ing my time…

    Here again you per­sist in your Spir­i­tu­al and Bib­li­cal ignorance.

    Let me get this out of the way: I love you. I love you because even at my worst God loved me enough to die for me and He calls me to love my neigh­bors with that self­same love.

    If you get this reply, then I humbly ask that you show me the chap­ter and verse that I appear to be igno­rant of. Dis­agree­ing with your opin­ion makes no dif­fer­ence to me, to be hon­est; but if I am dis­agree­ing in even the small­est point with the Bible, I will read­i­ly change for the Lord’s sake.

    I will tell you some­thing, your last reply arrived in my junk mail box. I think The Lord is telling me to stop wast­ing time on you. So I will, for what you say is junk.

    Vis­it­ing your web­site sets off Google Tool­bar’s “Web Forgery: Get Me Out of Here!” warn­ing; if you want to play spir­i­tu­al games with tech­nol­o­gy, you might give your site some atten­tion before wor­ry­ing about what gets thrown in your junk mail box.

    Jesus Christ loved — He did not do lib­er­al acts. Love is not lib­er­al­ism. Lib­er­al­ism is of man and you are con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing Jesus’ name with your vile reasoning.

    I’m not sure you quite under­stand what being a lib­er­al means. I’m not talk­ing about “lib­er­al” the­ol­o­gy, I’m talk­ing about being a tru­ly lib­er­al per­son… It means to be gen­er­ous, to be open-heart­ed, boun­ti­ful, abound­ing in bless­ings toward oth­ers, full of love and graciousness.

    I’m antic­i­pat­ing you call­ing me bib­li­cal­ly igno­rant, so I come pre­pared with verses:

    “The lib­er­al soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also him­self.” — Proverbs 11:25. The gen­er­ous soul will be blessed; he that gives water to the thirsty will him­self be giv­en water.

    “The vile per­son shall be no more called lib­er­al, nor the churl said to be boun­ti­ful.” — Isa­iah 32:5. Here lib­er­al is con­trast­ed with vile; so, despite what you are imply­ing, they are not the same thing. God said so.

    “The instru­ments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. But the lib­er­al deviseth lib­er­al things; and by lib­er­al things shall he stand.” — Isa­iah 32:7,8. Here again the lib­er­al per­son is con­trast­ed with those who are wicked and would “destroy the poor with lying words.”

    “Whiles by the exper­i­ment of this min­is­tra­tion they glo­ri­fy God for your pro­fessed sub­jec­tion unto the gospel of Christ, and for your lib­er­al dis­tri­b­u­tion unto them, and unto all men.” — 2 Corinthi­ans 9:13. The Corinthi­an church was lib­er­al with its giv­ing and gen­eros­i­ty unto “all men,” and God was glo­ri­fied for it!

    If I am to be a Bible-believ­ing Chris­t­ian, I am to be a lib­er­al. It is as sim­ple as that.

    Reply

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Rick Beckman