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How does that line up with the saved by grace/works dichotomy?

The parable of the sheep and goats makes it plain that none of us are good enough.

There's a great little book called Good Goats.

We're all good goats, sometimes we do good, sometimes we don't.

Your question goes both ways: how can you ignore the passages I cited? Jesus is meant to have said that "Love God" and "Love your neighbour as yourself" are the greatest commandments (some are more important than others), and that everything else is built on that. The verses I cited (from the old and new testament) are about the character of that love.

Paul says the character of love is to always hope, to keep no record of wrongs (this I assume is what we are meant to aspire to in our relationship with the world), but why is the nature of God's love any less than that?

We had at least a "binity" within the first 20 years. Sources: How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?: Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus and Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. He's a reputable scholar too and not an apologist. And regards to the Holy Spirit? I haven't read much, so I'm not going to claim anything about an early Trinity. Only that Jesus was looked at as Divine and God early on.

[Misquoting Jesus](http://www.Misquoting.com/ Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060738170/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_10SXDb37WVQ1H) by Bart Ehrman is a great place to start. It's a great introduction to the field of studying the changes of the Bible throughout the centuries (I don't remember the concise Greek name). It's a fascinating read.

not worth the effort

here is a great reference guide on information analysis. hope it helps =)

preteriest is the view (the oldest view, which the early christians had) that it's all symbolism for the roman empire persecuting christians in the 1st century. e.g. some myths around the emperor Nero were that he was "the beast that would rise again". and in the 90s, emperor Domition (after Nero) did persecute a lot of christians.

the allegorical view is also called the symbolic view sometimes, and it is that the book is about symbols of spiritual warfare, which is eternal and not about a particular time period.

neither of these views are about predicting the future, which some protestants, evangelicals and reformed strands of christianity get really obsessed with.

it's also a writing style what was really popular for a few centuries before and after jesus life, which many folks from different religions used, and i really love it!

a good and easy to read book on the subject for people of all backgrounds:
https://www.amazon.com/Four-Views-Book-Revelation-Counterpoints-ebook/dp/B003TFE8MY

have a lovely day m8

Imo, NIV cuts out a lot of rather inconvenient language that doesn't jive with modern Christianity and King James uses overly grand language for the sake of majestic effect. While there's nothing inherently wrong with either one, I prefer a translation that aims to have the most historically accurate reading. I use NRSV because it's the most academically focused translation but uses standard English and notates whenever important words have debated meanings or when names have important connotations (e.g. the roots of Elohim or YHWH) or there's notable shifts in narrative, contradictory messages, etc. My copy also has accessible scholarly essays giving historical context and extensive footnotes focusing on how readers contemporaneous to the books' writing would have interpreted the material. Here's an amazon link for 14 dollars :)

https://www.amazon.com/New-Oxford-Annotated-Bible-Apocrypha/dp/0195289609/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1525813943&sr=8-2&keywords=oxford+annotated+nrsv

I think what Paul really did was strip the “Jewishness” out of Christianity. The absolute core of Jesus’ message is love, and Paul did get that right.

There is a great book on the subject titled Paul and Jesus. The Book does a much better job explaining the subject than I ever could, and it describes a time when Paul’s actions may have saved the religion from obscurity or even destruction.

I wish you would've put a question mark at the end, because then I could've assumed that you weren't being condescending (correct me if I'm wrong, I hope you aren't trying to be condescending).

So here is the thing - God wrote his law into nature. We know it intuitively. We just don't follow it because we think we know better. This is true if you are in the Bible belt or some isolated tribe in the amazon. People tend to be pretty comfortable living this way, because that little pang of conscience we get when we sin gets smaller and ^smaller ^and ^^smaller. What people don't get about heaven and hell though is that for those who are comfortable in their sins, whether they be sexual promiscuity, or greed, or arrogance, or whatever, heaven is a very unpleasant place. Without some pretty major, invasive transformation, no one would enjoy being there, because the lies we tell ourselves about how we are good people become painfully obvious. Every time in the Bible that someone apprehends God in his glory, they fall down in stark terror. We need to be cleansed in order to enjoy the pleasures of God.

So, every day, that isolated tribesman has a choice. Does he live a life of moral perfection? Or does he compare himself against others, decide he's not that bad, and live life for himself? Invariably he chooses to do the latter, and every time that is a choice against the salvation that you say he is doomed to miss. But here is the thing - he wouldn't want that salvation. None of us do. The conversion from nonchristian to saint in heaven is very long and painful, and there isn't a single person who would want to arrive at that destination if asked about it before that process is started.

CS Lewis (author of the Narnia series) wrote a fascinating thought experiment on this subject, called The Great Divorce.

> First of all, kids go to Heaven no matter what they did as they didn't mature to understand everything they are doing. They aren't judged for the bad things they did and will go to Heaven instantly. That explains your "10,000 kids starve every single day".

First of all, thank you so much for posting. It was very nice to read your perspective of things. I am a Christian (just for full disclosure) and one of the most impactful things I remember reading in college was the book "Spirit of the Rainforest" which is the testimony of a Yanomamo Shaman who later converted to christianity. The part that I remember most strongly was during a spirit walk, he saw the spirit of a child who was recently eaten by a giant snake go to the great palace in the sky, and his spirit guide told him how the evil spirit in the sky takes all children's spirits there. He later goes on to talk about how that spirit turns out to be God and stuff, but that part always stuck with me, and it's interesting to see how this is a common theme even outside of Christianity and Islam. (it also makes sense, I mean I'm not here saying "Look! Proof we're right and everyone else is wrong!" or anything, just illustrating how this point seems to be fairly universal)

EDIT: Just realized I wrote first of all and quoted you saying first of all lol. Sorry if it made my post feel edgy or aggressive at the beginning there.

Only somewhat related, but if you haven't already, you should read "The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible" (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SEPAYO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_vKKUCb09SWVAS)

It's a really funny (and respectful, really) chronicle of the author trying to adhere to as many biblical requirements as possible (while acknowledging the inconsistencies and contradictions). I read it a long time ago, but I think this is one of the things that's covered (no pun intended).

Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back https://www.amazon.com/dp/0849946158/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VwqWDbR42N55J

I saw these shirts at a gift shop in Williams, AZ last year. Naturally Amazon has them for anyone interested. This one is my favorite.

Well a resource we used for just real basic "snippets" of theology based on theme is a large book (read: tome) called "The Christian Theology Reader" which was edited by Alister McGrath. The reason I would recommend this book in particular is that it is by topic, it is in small digestible portions per author and also gives some context on the snippet that it pulls out from a given author's full text. The other reason I suggest it is that, like Shakespear, theological reading is something where you need to read enough of it in order to start actually grasping the way language is used. Before you go and get Karl Barth's "Church Dogmatics" it's helpful to have a book like the above to get your toes wet. Also, you may find a theologian in this tome that strikes your fancy from the early church or from the past century you've never heard of and if you like it you can find one of their books for cheap on amazon as well. Here's the link to the recommended book:

https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Theology-Reader-Alister-McGrath/dp/1118874382/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523043307&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Christian+Theology+Reader

Now there is the 4th edition as well which you can buy for cheaper, that's the copy I own. But honestly, with the breadth of information for the beginning reader it is worth the price tag.

Edit: Oh and one more book, it is also a tome, but if you have any interest in the theology of the cross (Not why Jesus had to die but why Jesus had to be crucified) then I'm going to recommend a book that I just got done teaching a class on called "The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ" by Fleming Rutledge. It is, as I said, a tome. But it was one of the more formative books in my own formation than any other single book I've ever read (incoming jokes about "how about the bible?").

https://www.amazon.com/Crucifixion-Understanding-Death-Jesus-Christ/dp/0802875343/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523043804&sr=8-1&keywords=the+crucifixion+fleming+rutledge

Use this instead. https://www.amazon.com/Oral-Rehydration-Salts-Current-Formula/dp/B00DWBYVWM . These work better against dehydration than sportd drinks, and the formula is officially made by the WHO to combat diarrhea deaths. Plus they can be way cheaper if you find a good source (they can be manufactured for 3 cents lol. Dont buy the from the link thats just an example)

The audio version has Andy Serkis (Gollum) doing the voice of Uncle Screwtape, and he’s SO awesome in it.

I’m no philosopher, and wouldn’t be able to articulate it as well as others have. If you truly care, there is a wide variety of literature on the subject.

https://fivebooks.com/best-books/kenan-malik-on-morality-without-god/

http://ebooks.bharathuniv.ac.in/gdlc1/gdlc4/Arts_and_Science_Books/arts/philosophy/Books/Elements%20of%20Moral%20Philosophy.pdf

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Morality-Introduction-Ethics-Bernard-Williams/dp/0521457297

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/052143971X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_yewmAbY8W8TGR

My non-abstinent friends seemed to like this one

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V2P36CR/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=i+love+virginity&qid=1562962278&s=apparel&sr=1-1