What Must I Do To Be Saved?

[The Irish Ram]

Well gee, if James E. Conkin said it, it must be true.........

 

[orogenicman]

Well gee, if James E. Conkin said it, it must be true.........

I can say the same about your claims. The difference, of course, is that his are backed by modern scientific evidence, while all you have is a 2,000 year old book mostly written by unknown desert tribesmen. Good luck with that.

 

[hobelim]

Not if you are "saved!" When you are saved you are saved from the punishment you would have earned if you WERE responsible for your own sins. When you are saved you pass your responsibility and therefore punishment off onto an INNOCENT third party who accepts responsibility and punishment for your transgressions.

Everything in this Christianity is a senseless contradiction.

Maybe so, but it makes a good basis for a new fairy tale where Satan, the most despicable being alive, takes the form of a holy man and tricks the gullible into believing that God can be eaten and that they will be absolved of any personal responsibility for their own sins if they just believe that it was Gods will that Jesus, who had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with their sins, was tortured and crucified instead.


What type of creature would be OK with that anyway? Certainly nothing on the kosher menu.


However, I'm sure that Jesus would be very impressed with the great love for him demonstrated by believers.....

I am.

 

[Avatar4321]

Adam and Eve weren't meant to fall? Then why plan for a Redeemer.

I'm quite glad they did fall. I rather like being alive. And I like the fact that our Father is giving us this opportunity to grow.

 

[sealybobo]

Acts 16: 29-31-


…29And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, 30and after he brought them out, he said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" 31They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."…

How come then Christians say you have to be baptized too? Maybe that was a different author than the particular bible you read.

And how come Born Agains say it isn't enough that us other Christians were baptized when we were babies. They say that doesn't count and you NEED to be saved or born again as an adult.

Sealy, no where in the Bible does Christ say to baptize babies. That practice was adopted when the mortality rate for infants was so high, the parents took no chances. It isn't Biblical, nevertheless, I have a feeling that our loving Father counts it as righteousness on the part of the parents that they committed their child to God.

You don't have to be baptized, or belong to a church to belong to Christ. Call Him from your heart, and He will be closer to you than a brother.
If you don't belong to Him, He considers you a little lost sheep. And He is the best of shepherds.
The only thing that a lost sheep has to do to be saved is consent to being picked up and rested on the shoulders of the shepherd. He'll do everything else for you.

It does not say that the thief on the cross was ever baptized, and there was no opportunity to accomplish it after he acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God, and yet his belief in Christ produced immediate salvation.

Being born again is not the same as being baptized. Nicodemus was staunch Pharisee, so Christ explained to him that for him, a whole rebirth had to take place. On the other hand, the woman at the well was reborn with no instruction, after one short conversation with Jesus, and started evangelizing immediately. When you accept Christ as your Savior, you start over in a new life and purpose. That is rebirth.

The importance of baptism is an outward declaration that the old you dies going down into the water, and a newly reborn creature in Christ emerges. Christ received the Holy Spirit upon baptism.

As to the importance of baptism, the Bibles mentions 3 times to be baptized. As soon as the sabbath ended, as soon as dawn broke, and what are you waiting for, do it right now.

See what your fellow Christian ninja007 said? You MUST be baptized as an adult. Any wonder I ran from this religion?

 

[sealybobo]

baptism must be done as an adult- or at least as someone who realizes their sin and that they need Jesus as their personal Savior. Only then should they be baptized. In doing so, it is a symbol to those around them- that they agree with the fact they are sinners and need a Savior. As they are dunked under the water the old man passes away and is buried; as they come out, the new man is birthed (spiritually) to the public. A public confession of an already inward change, being born again.

What do you say to this?

It does not say that the thief on the cross was ever baptized, and there was no opportunity to accomplish it after he acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God, and yet his belief in Christ produced immediate salvation.

 

[Avatar4321]

baptism must be done as an adult- or at least as someone who realizes their sin and that they need Jesus as their personal Savior. Only then should they be baptized. In doing so, it is a symbol to those around them- that they agree with the fact they are sinners and need a Savior. As they are dunked under the water the old man passes away and is buried; as they come out, the new man is birthed (spiritually) to the public. A public confession of an already inward change, being born again.

What do you say to this?

It does not say that the thief on the cross was ever baptized, and there was no opportunity to accomplish it after he acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God, and yet his belief in Christ produced immediate salvation.

unless a man is born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

the scriptures are silent on the theirs life. We don't know if he was baptized. He could have been baptized long before and fallen away until then. He could have received proxy baptism afterwards. All we know is that he met Christ in paradise, where the spirits await the resurrection.

 

[turzovka]

Acts 16: 29-31-


…29And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas, 30and after he brought them out, he said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" 31They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."…

Jesus is emphasizing the grand importance of belief, but it is not excluding other crucial elements of being a true Christian, nor is this state of belief fully explained by one’s singular understanding of the word “belief.” After all Jesus also said ---

Matthew 6:15 "But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”

Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “

IOW, don’t be so dogmatic of one verse and ignore all others. In addition, being “saved” is not necessarily the same as being simultaneously granted entry into the kingdom.

 

[Vandalshandle]

I lived in New Orleans, where many people still practice VooDoo, and it seems to me that there are a lot of similarities between them and Christianity. I mean, this concept the Catholics have that they are actually eating Christ's flesh and blood is really creepy. Then there is this thing about raising the dead, which sounds like something out of a "Night of the Living Dead". Then the concept of exorcism seems to be copied from a Bela Lugosi movie, with demons cowering in horror when faced with a crucifix. The Rapture is simply too weird to even contemplate, but I am sure that Stephen King has done something along those lines in one of his books...

 

[guno]

I lived in New Orleans, where many people still practice VooDoo, and it seems to me that there are a lot of similarities between them and Christianity. I mean, this concept the Catholics have that they are actually eating Christ's flesh and blood is really creepy. Then there is this thing about raising the dead, which sounds like something out of a "Night of the Living Dead". Then the concept of exorcism seems to be copied from a Bela Lugosi movie, with demons cowering in horror when faced with a crucifix. The Rapture is simply too weird to even contemplate, but I am sure that Stephen King has done something along those lines in one of his books...

CHRISTIAN CANNIBALS

An argument of why Christians are cannibals (and possibly vampires) from Christianity's own perspective


Christian Cannibals

 

[ninja007]

baptism must be done as an adult- or at least as someone who realizes their sin and that they need Jesus as their personal Savior. Only then should they be baptized. In doing so, it is a symbol to those around them- that they agree with the fact they are sinners and need a Savior. As they are dunked under the water the old man passes away and is buried; as they come out, the new man is birthed (spiritually) to the public. A public confession of an already inward change, being born again.

What do you say to this?

It does not say that the thief on the cross was ever baptized, and there was no opportunity to accomplish it after he acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God, and yet his belief in Christ produced immediate salvation.

baptism isn't needed for salvation, but to be obedient to Jesus and show others you are born again. A baby doesn't know he needs a Savior.

 

[sealybobo]

baptism must be done as an adult- or at least as someone who realizes their sin and that they need Jesus as their personal Savior. Only then should they be baptized. In doing so, it is a symbol to those around them- that they agree with the fact they are sinners and need a Savior. As they are dunked under the water the old man passes away and is buried; as they come out, the new man is birthed (spiritually) to the public. A public confession of an already inward change, being born again.

What do you say to this?

It does not say that the thief on the cross was ever baptized, and there was no opportunity to accomplish it after he acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God, and yet his belief in Christ produced immediate salvation.

unless a man is born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

the scriptures are silent on the theirs life. We don't know if he was baptized. He could have been baptized long before and fallen away until then. He could have received proxy baptism afterwards. All we know is that he met Christ in paradise, where the spirits await the resurrection.

The other day I heard a Christian on Christian tv say the bible was written by eye witnesses to Jesus. Why would he lie when we know for a fact that all historical references to Jesus derive from hearsay accounts written decades or centuries after his supposed death.

Few biblical books are regarded by scholars as the product of a single individual; all the books of the Old Testament have been edited and revised to produce the work known today.

Both Jews and Christians have, in different ways, regarded the Bible as being the "Word of God".

But the fact is, it wasn't like Jesus' apostles wrote the bible in year 1 or 10 or even 50 years after he supposedly walked the earth and performed miracles. The bible(s) were written centuries later by 2nd, 3rd and even 4th hand accounts. Did Jesus exist

 

[sealybobo]

The most "authoritative" accounts of a historical Jesus come from the four canonical Gospels of the Bible. Note that these Gospels did not come into the Bible as original and authoritative from the authors themselves, but rather from the influence of early church fathers, especially the most influential of them all: Irenaeus of Lyon who lived in the middle of the second century.

 

[sealybobo]

Are Christians any smarter than Muslims? The gospel of Mark describes the first written Bible gospel. And although Mark appears deceptively after the Matthew gospel, the gospel of Mark got written at least a generation before Matthew. From its own words, one can deduce that the author of Mark had neither heard Jesus nor served as his personal follower. Whoever wrote the gospel simply accepted the story of Jesus without question and wrote a crude an ungrammatical account of the popular story at the time.

 

[sealybobo]

The author of Luke admits himself as an interpreter of earlier material and not an eyewitness (Luke 1:1-4). Many scholars think the author of Luke lived as a gentile, or at the very least, a Hellenized Jew.

 

[rightwinger]

What Must I Do To Be Saved?

My best advice is to call 911

 

[sealybobo]

John, the last appearing Bible Gospel, presents us with long theological discourses from Jesus and could not possibly have come as literal words from a historical Jesus. The Gospel of John disagrees with events described in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Moreover the unknown author(s) of this gospel wrote it in Greek near the end of the first century,