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You reject anything I say, b/c I come speaking the truth

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Do you truly understand the accusation you are making here?

At most innocent, it is a stupid and circular statement. "You say I'm wrong, because I am right" ..um okay.

However, I don't think you are a dummy. So that means that you are accusing him of intentional heresy and of being an intentional deceiver.

Besides this, the fact is that this poster doesn't even believe the things he was "always taught" So your follow up sentence just displays willful ignorance on your part. K2 is a converted to his church as an adult and you know that. He has talked about his journey to the Orthodox church many times.

I have never read about his story, but it doesn't matter. The truth is the truth. What he believes contradicts Yeshua's teaching.

The one who despises the word will be in debt to it,
But the one who fears the commandment will be rewarded.
The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life,
To turn aside from the snares of death. Proverbs 13:13-14

Don't despise the Torah! God's word can never be untrue. Therefore, you are either in debt to Torah (word) or you will be rewarded.

Did you know RetiredAg is a pacifist?

agie95 said:

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I have never read about his story, but it doesn't matter. The truth is the truth. What he believes contradicts Yeshua's teaching.

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So once again, are you truly saying he is an intentional deceiver? That he willfully rejects what you say, because he hates Truth.

That is the position you took in the earlier post.

When you believe your church over actual Scripture, you are taking the tradition of man over God's word. I think the Messiah and Paul both state not to follow the tradition of man over Scripture. It is ok to do together (as long as it is not pagan), but not in place of.

And Your Torah is truth. Psalm 119:142b
And all Your commandments are truth. v151b
The sum of Your word is truth,And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting. v160

There is only one truth and David is quite clear what is truth.

The only thing that is truth is God. Not even scripture is true as God is true. This is why you confuse people with what seems like idolatry of scripture.

The only thing true is God? In a sense yes. Based on how you see things, David lies, for he said the Torah is truth, the commandments are truth, His word is truth. John must of lied as well, for he said the sum of His word is truth (basically quoting Psalm 119).

Which is it? Is God's word truth or is it not? If not, then you should throw out all of Scripture b/c you don't believe it.

The flesh hates the Torah, but the Spirit loves it. Romans 7:14-8:25 is all about this.

"Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the fleshand these are contrary the one to the otherso that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you are led of the Spirit, you are not under the law." Galatians 5:16-18

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. Ezekiel 36:26-27

The Spirit shall cause you to follow the Torah, which the flesh hates and is against.

Not redefining anything. Let the Torah condemn man. I am not here to condemn anyone, but to speak the truth. You are trying to goad me to condemn him and that is not my position to do. If the passages I provided are not clear enough then I can't help you.

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You reject anything I say, b/c I come speaking the truth.

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Dude, these are your words. Not Torah. Not New Testament. This is an accusation that you levied at a poster.

This sentence means "You see that I am right, but you reject it because you hate the truth." That he doesn't actually believe his own faith, but rather is just fighting you because he rejects Truth. That is a heavy accusation. Either you think he is an intentional deceiver and basically running a scam by promoting his "faith" or you wrote a dumb sentence and can take it back and say that it wasn't your intention to accuse him of being disingenuous in his beliefs. If that is the case, that's okay, I misspeak and write things I shouldn't plenty.

He fights/rejects anything I post. That is a fact. If you have a problem with it, you are going to have to deal with it.

Scripture is an icon of God, and it is then an icon of truth. This means it is an image of it. Even a perfect mirror only reflects what actually exists. The image in the mirror is not the reality. It's not wrong to assign a quality to the image (i.e. truth) provided that we understand that only God is True, because He is the source of Truth.

agie95 said:

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He fights/rejects anything I post. That is a fact. If you have a problem with it, you are going to have to deal with it.

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Perhaps it would be more helpful to answer without accusing anyone that disagrees with you of not loving God and hating truth.

k2aggie07 said:

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Scripture is an icon of God, and it is then an icon of truth. This means it is an image of it. Even a perfect mirror only reflects what actually exists. The image in the mirror is not the reality. It's not wrong to assign a quality to the image (i.e. truth) provided that we understand that only God is True, because He is the source of Truth.

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Using your thought process here...David says the Torah is truth. Torah is the image of God and yet you want to get do away with it. There is a problem with that. If God is truth, then whatever comes from Him is truth! Therefore, Torah is truth, which the church does away with...it does away with God in essence...

The Messiah is this same "image" or "icon", yet you see the Messiah as THE GOD.

agie95 said:

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k2aggie07 said:

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Scripture is an icon of God, and it is then an icon of truth. This means it is an image of it. Even a perfect mirror only reflects what actually exists. The image in the mirror is not the reality. It's not wrong to assign a quality to the image (i.e. truth) provided that we understand that only God is True, because He is the source of Truth.

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Using your thought process here...David says the Torah is truth. Torah is the image of God and yet you want to get do away with it. There is a problem with that. If God is truth, then whatever comes from Him is truth! Therefore, Torah is truth, which the church does away with...it does away with God in essence...

The Messiah is this same "image" or "icon", yet you see the Messiah as THE GOD.

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You really need to work on your systematic theology. As it stands, it gets all fouled up.

For me, the starting point is God. He exists, He is One, etc. It is this existence, this essence, that is God. This is unknowable, because anything we can refer to it or compare it to is created. So, He is ineffable. Everything we may come to know from Him is then things about Him. You can do away with the Torah and not do away with God in His essence. Why? Because the Torah is explainable, it is understandable, it is knowable, it is finite, it had a beginning. None of these can apply to the Godhead.

Further, there has never been a time, even outside of time, when God was not True, or Good, or Just. These qualities are not created qualities that began, because they are expressions of that same essence. So these too are God, but they are God in a different way. We know what goodness looks like, and things are good insofar as they participate in what He is. Things are true as far as they are like His Truth. But nothing is true in a self-referential way, or good in a self-referential way, just like nothing exists in a self-referential way. Only God.

Everything comes from God, because apart from Him nothing was created (John 1:3, which you'll note is about the Son, not the Father). We cannot then say that everything that comes from Him is Truth, because then everything is Truth, because everything comes from Him.

Your entire theology rests on the idea that the singular interpretation of the word "Word" is equivalent to Torah is equivalent to Christ is equivalent to Law, etc. This is a very difficult position to defend as I have pointed out. The problem is, you don't start with evidence and work to conclusion, you begin with the posit I stated and force everything into that reference frame.

Again, the Torah isn't "done away with". It is fulfilled. Just like Christ did not END the law, but was the END of the Law (cf Romans 10:4).

I am tired of this discussion b/c it is going nowhere, so this is my last statement to you on this thread:


You still defy the Messiah's own words for He said:

For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Torah until all is accomplished. 19 Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.


You are teaching exactly what He said not to do. It is as simple as that.

Aren't you always harping about context? Why did you stop the quote there?

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"Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

"For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven."

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He goes on then to explain that far from removing the Law, he added to it - fulfilling it. Forget kill - you can't be angry. Forget adultery - your eyes condemn you before God. False vows? No - no vows. Then He says the final: Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Do you think that by fulfilling the entirety of the Law you can be perfect as God is perfect? Think carefully before answering, because in that question is the whole of the gospel.

Read carefully. If the scribes and Pharisees kept to the whole of the Law in righteousness, that is not enough. We must exceed even that! Even to complete perfection!

Breaking the commandments is not about the ancient Law but about what He was about to teach. How could He be prescribing to follow the Law as they understood it, when those who did adhere strictly to the Law were found without "enough" righteousness? Not only the lawbreakers are surpassed in Christ, but those who followed the Law well, in righteousness -- because if they were not following the Law well, He wouldn't have said exceed them in righteousness... this presumes they are righteous to some measure. And yet this is to be exceeded in faith, through Christ.

Of course this is clear in the whole of scripture. As St Paul says, it is a fact "that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners." And "when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away." And "There is therefore no condemnation now to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit: for the law of the Spirit of life has made me free from the law of sin and death."

And even further, he writes...

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Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother....

But what does the Scripture say? 'Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman.' So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman."

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God is not the author of confusion.

It's crazy how we can all read the same scripture and come away with a completely opposite sense of what it's saying.

I agree with Agie and it's not confusing to me. Seems like a pretty straightforward reading of scripture.

I appreciate K2's diligence in study and knowledge but the overall approach of K2 is confusing to me. Every explanation seems to be very mysterious and mystical and is always quoting St. so and so or church fathers as if to say that we, as common folk, are not meant to understand God, or His nature, or His Word and so we must have these special people explain it for us. I don't think that's consistent with scripture and it certainly puts us at risk of following man and not God. I don't know a lot about Catholic doctrine but I assume it goes back to the belief that the "church"/priests/pope were given some special "authority" in scripture?

Anyway, I've always found it odd that if God is not the author of confusion, why are their so many versions of what we think His word says?

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God is not the author of confusion.

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There's a certain Tower of Babel story that disagrees.

K2 is accused of being Catholic more often than Bustupachiffarobe is.

Did you really just refer to St Paul as "saint so and so"??

That quote is from the book of Galatians.

I refer to him as Rabbi Sha'ul which probably makes more historical sense. Where does Saint come from? Saint Maximo? What does that mean? What's with the laughing/crying emoji? Are you ridiculing me? Is that very Christian? I think we all love God and want to serve Him with all our hearts. We just disagree on what that looks like.

RetiredAg said:

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I think we all love God and want to serve Him with all our hearts. We just disagree on what that looks like.

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TBH, it would be great if agie took this mindset. But, he regularly accuses those that disagree with him of not loving God.

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Yeah, I get it - He's not a very tactful guy, right? But having chatted with him a few times, I can say that he is a nicer guy then he appears here - and he'll admit it too.

According to his theology - which considers the OT to be the foundation that everything else is built on - there is a specific way to show love to and worship God. Look to the examples in the OT: Israelites who did not worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph in the correct way were considered to be in sin and error. So to Agie95 and his group, there is the straight and narrow path, and then everything else (not referring to the verse per se, just making a metaphor).

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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RetiredAg said:

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I think we all love God and want to serve Him with all our hearts. We just disagree on what that looks like.

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TBH, it would be great if agie took this mindset. But, he regularly accuses those that disagree with him of not loving God.

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Yeah, I get it - He's not a very tactful guy, right? But having chatted with him a few times, I can say that he is a nicer guy then he appears here - and he'll admit it too.

According to his theology - which considers the OT to be the foundation that everything else is built on - there is a specific way to show love to and worship God. Look to the examples in the OT: Israelites who did not worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph in the correct way were considered to be in sin and error. So to Agie95 and his group, there is the straight and narrow path, and then everything else (not referring to the verse per se, just making a metaphor).

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Oh, I don't have an issue with his beliefs. We clearly disagree, but that's fine. Basically any time I ever say anything to him anymore is because his tone. It damages his case because it's so off-putting. But, he's admitted to this being a relatively common critique, even from those he knows outside of texags.

bamdvm said:

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I refer to him as Rabbi Sha'ul which probably makes more historical sense. Where does Saint come from? Saint Maximo? What does that mean? What's with the laughing/crying emoji? Are you ridiculing me? Is that very Christian? I think we all love God and want to serve Him with all our hearts. We just disagree on what that looks like.

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Why is "Sha'ul" more historical than Paul? By all accounts he used both names. He grew up a Roman citizen, with a Roman name just as much as he grew up a Jew with a Jewish name.

And of course we see him refer to himself as Paul (Paulou) in many of his epistles:

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I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, and this is a distinguishing mark in every letter; this is the way I write.

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Saint is from the Latin sanctus which means holy. This is a direct translation from the Greek hagios, literally set apart because different. The apostles are referred to as hagios -- holy -- in Ephesians 3:5. Prophets are called holy in Acts 3:21, Luke 1:70 (in this case from the mouth of the Holy Spirit). The wives of the patriarchs are called holy in 1 Peter 3:5. And of course, we are a holy nation as Christians (1 Peter 2:9).

St Paul himself was, of course, an apostle (1 Corinthians 9:1), so of course he is worthy of the title of holy.

The laugh/cry emoji was incredulity that you would refer to St Paul as "saint so and so" and act like holy mystery or allegory is somehow unscriptural -- without realizing that the quote was a direct quote from Galatians. I found it more than a bit ironic.

The problem with your last premise - "I think we all love God and want to serve Him with all our hearts. We just disagree on what that looks like" - is that it is more than a bit unscriptural. There is no mention in the scripture of multiple ways, of many faiths, of different forms of worship. "There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all." (Eph 4:4-6) We are not called to multiplicity but unity. Why? "Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." (John 17:23).

If we disagree on what that looks like, there is no other conclusion than that someone is wrong (or perhaps both). But both cannot be right. Now I'm not talking about minor liturgical differences, but we're examining major theological differences. Agie95 doesn't even worship the same GOD that I do! We can't both be correct.

Since Agie won't answer me, WHY do you hate and reject "the truth"?

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If we disagree on what that looks like, there is no other conclusion than that someone is wrong (or perhaps both). But both cannot be right. Now I'm not talking about minor liturgical differences, but we're examining major theological differences. Agie95 doesn't even worship the same GOD that I do! We can't both be correct.

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"And this is how people will know you are my disciples. You will always be right, and they will always be wrong"

I winced when I wrote it too. But I agree with it even to the point of saying that if it's not true, our faith is false. If there is not a singular faith still existent that is guarded by apostolic succession and authority, the faith is a lie, the scriptures lie.