The Bible was written before 70 AD and here is why..

a reply to: graphuto

No... sacrifice

Not from blood of animals or men...

It must come from within... not from without...

Remember there is no greater sacrifice then those who would lay down their lives for a friend...

We must give up what we need for the needs of others.... in which we glorify God...

a reply to: Akragon

How much sacrifice? Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? Once a day? Once an hour? I'm not asking these as serious questions, I'm trying to illustrate a point.

Let's say that I'm provided 10 opportunites in the course of my life to help others. If I do it 10 times, I'm good right? What about 9? What about 8? What about 7? What about 6? What about 5?

Do you see what I'm trying to say here?

a reply to: graphuto

You're still pushing Paul is what you're doing...

How much do YOU think is enough.... ye who lives this blessed life...

a reply to: Akragon

I'm not pushing Paul, I'm asking you a serious question that really seems to be eluding you. Jesus told the rich young ruler, who said he had kept allof the commandments from birth, to sell everything he had, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus. He walked away, dejected.

a reply to: graphuto

LMAO!!


make up your mind... You just said it wasn't a serious question... here

How much sacrifice? Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? Once a day? Once an hour? I'm not asking these as serious questions, I'm trying to illustrate a point.

I think you might need sleep...IF not, try to keep up with your own replies ok?

Jesus told the rich young ruler, who said he had kept allof the commandments from birth, to sell everything he had, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus. He walked away, dejected.

Again... try to keep up alright?

Did I not just post a huge passage about trusting God?

a reply to: Akragon

I think my illustration went completely over your head. Let's try this again, and this time, I'm going to lay out a real world, hypothetical, for the sake of argument, scenario :

Let's say that I'm provided 10 opportunites in the course of my life to help others. If I do it 10 times, I'm good right? What about 9? 9 out of 10 times I sacrificed of myself to help others. Surely I'm still good right? What about 8? 80%, that seems pretty good. What about 7? What about 6? What about 5?

WHERE IS THE LINE!? Like I said earlier, your position is ambiguous and uncertain.

a reply to: graphuto

Jesus wouldn't even consider himself Good...

What makes you think that you are because you help 10 people?

DO you honestly think you can trick me on the gospels brother?

the "line" is not up to you or I...

a reply to: Akragon

I'm not trying to trick you or twist you. That's not my style of argument.

Also, I take a different interpretation of that passage :

"Why callest thou me good? There is none good but God."

What I understand it to mean :
"Why do you call me good? There's none good but God. (I am God.)

Who do I see about free stuff?

a reply to: Akragon

Also, I don't mean "good" in the literal sense. I mean "good" as in "We're all good, right? Everything is OK, right?? I'm getting eternal life, right?"

If we ourselves don't know where the line is, then how can 1 John tell us how we may know that we have eternal life?

originally posted by: graphuto
a reply to: Akragon

I'm not trying to trick you or twist you. That's not my style of argument.

Also, I take a different interpretation of that passage :

"Why callest thou me good? There is none good but God."

What I understand it to mean :
"Why do you call me good? There's none good but God. (I am God.)

Yeah I know Christian beliefs....

Unfortunately the Father is greater then HE

Which leaves your understanding of that passage in a really tight spot

a reply to: Akragon

John 1 says that God and Jesus are one and the same. I don't have the stamina to veer off into an entirely different topic at this point, it's really late for me.

a reply to: graphuto

yup... its 6am here... and I gotta be up at 10...

And that passage does not say "one and the same"

READ IT AGAIN...

a reply to: Akragon

It may not say that verbatim, but is clearly what it means.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 The same was in the beginning with God.
(The Word)
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
(The Word)
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
(The Word)
10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
(The Word)
11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

a reply to: graphuto

Beautiful.
I too was lost in confusion but this is clear the way you have pointed it out, Jesus is the Father as he said "No one comes to the father but by me" and again "He who see's me see's the father"-or alternatively written and older KGV translation "who sees me sees the one who sent me" which equates to "I sent me" and when moses asked god who he was when he manifested as the burning Bush "I am whom I am" or KGV translation "I am that I am" which was older english meaning I am whom I am from the KGV bible.

I too was confused and still am from time to time as God is both the Father and the Son as well as the Holy Spirit but I suppose it could not be any clearer than the way it is written "One god in the Unity of the Holy Trinity" - "True Light From True Light, True God from True God", it is possibly easier to remember that god is both outside and inside Time and can be in more than one place at the same time, in fact he can be omnipresent.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Great additions. I haven't poked my head in because graphuto has given them clear interpretation of Scipture. However I thought I might give you an analogy I like for the trinity.

You are cooking and the recipe calls for one egg. As you go to put the egg into the recipe you crack the SHELL on the counter and let the WHITE drip over your hand into a bowl until your holding nothing but the YOLK and then you set it in its own bowl. In this recipe we only have one egg, but at this particular part we have a shell sitting on the counter the white in one bowl and the yolk in one bowl. All three are separate parts of a whole. The same is true with God.

a reply to: danielsil18

Look at the verbs used in the original language if that doesn't clear it up come back to me.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

I have a bit of hard time answering his question as well, which is why I didn't attempt to. Staff/Staves, yes, no, ultimately, it doesn't change anything doctrinally.

I don't generally like to "read in" to too much in the Bible unless it's obviously metaphorical or allegorical. I tend to lean toward literalism whenever possible.

My only possible explanation for the contradiction is that Jesus was using hyperbole. I think the spirit of what he was saying was this :

"Go right now, don't stop to gather anything. If you have a staff, great, if not, don't stop to get one."

Something else to take into consideration is this :
In Mark, this is not a direct quote from Jesus. In the physical Bible, these words are not in red. It's the narrator saying what Jesus said.

The actual quote from Jesus is found in Luke 9

"And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats a piece. And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart. And whosoever will not receive you, when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them"

If we read the rest of Luke 9, it seems to be written from the standpoint of what was happening right then and there, first person, whereas in Mark, the author is really just telling that same story, from a 3rd person point of view, like a narrative.

Here's the parallel passage from Mark :

And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits; And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse : But be shod with sandals and not put on two coats.

Nothing in red. And here we see Mark saying something about sandals, which was also never actually quoted by Jesus in red.

I actually just studied this out just now. In the beginning of my post, before all of my editing, I wasn't quite sure what was going on. After reading the passages and thinking on them, I have to conclude that this isn't a contradiction at all, just understand that the books were written from two different perspectives and viewpoints. There is no change in meaning one way or the other. In light of other scripture, there is no contradiction.

Furthermore, I'd just like to add that a person who brings forth petty "contradictions" such as these with the brutish mindset of proving the Bible wrong, saying "Oh, contradiction, not the word of God" is really just completely void of any type of spiritual understanding.

Do you people see how easily that was explained in light of actually reading, and seeing, and understanding? We didn't have to change any doctrine, we needed no outside sources, we didn't have to jump through any theological hoops, or twist any words, or try to make the Bible say or mean something that it doesn't say or mean. The Bible is undoubtedly the inspired Word of God.

a reply to: graphuto

Of course you do know Luke was not a witness to his life...

Luke interviewed people to write his gospel... but he was by no means a witness...

SO it wasn't written from "the stand point of what was happening" as you said...

a reply to: graphuto

When reading the Bible its always important to understand two things:

1 The author always chooses the diction of his work.
2 The author chooses his words based on his understanding of the situation.

So the question then becomes what did each of the authors have in mind. First Matthew can be thrown out as a contradictory as the author of Matthew uses a different verb from Mark and Luke. The verse in Matthew is telling to to "acquire" nothing more than what they have and go. Now we come to Mark 6:8 and Luke 9:3. They use the same verb, and the same word that our translators translate staff. Lets look first at look Luke 9:3 because as you pointed out Luke quotes Jesus where as Mark does not.

The word translated staff is hrabdos and it is similar to the english word "tree" in that it has specificity enough for a general category, but not enough specificity to tell you if its an redwood or a maple.

So now the question becomes what did Jesus mean when he said hrabdos? Was he excluding all things that could be classified as a hrabdos?

"
And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece

"

The phrase take nothing for your journey means not to plan for your trip. However, the word nothing is to broad and I dont think Jesus wanted them streaking as they went so he got more specific :
no "hrabdos", no "paran" (bag), no "arton" (bread = food), no "argurion" (silver = money), dont take two "citwna" (tunics)

Jesus is telling them not to plan for the road ahead because he wants them to learn that if they follow Him he will provide, and this can be inferred by his command not to take two citwnas as the second was something you packed when you were camping out. We can tell this inference is correct from the verse that follows "And whatever house you enter, stay there.."

Now lets look at a parallel verse to help clear things up:
Luke 22
35 And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing? And they said, Nothing.

Jesus is making reference to the scenario in Luke 9, but two new things not previously mentioned are added here and they are the the "ballantion"(purse) and the "upodhmatwn"(sandals), and it is clear by his question that his intent was to show them He would provide for them.

Now look at Luke 22:36



36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

This gives us insight to the meaning of Mark 6:8. If you will notice Mark puts things in two categories things to be taken so the Journey can begin, and things not to be taken. The sandals and a walking stick(hrabdos) were how the journey began the others are things not to be taken.

We can tell from Luke 22:36 that when Jesus said Hrabdos in Luke 9 he was thinking of a long piece of material that could be used as a weapon of defense.

So in conclusion,

The verse in Matthew uses the verb "acquire" and is telling them to take acquire nothing for the future just go on your way.

The verse in Luke tells us not to take a hrabdos(long piece of material used as a weapon of defense)

Mark tells us that they were to set out with sandals and hrabdos(walking stick). This is not a contradiction. Also when Jesus refers to sending them without shoes it doesnt mean that they took the ones off they were wearing they just werent to acquire and extra pair.