Its not aimless. Its what the words say.


"Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’[c] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]”

20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”


If he is doing all this he is not sinning. If he is they need to change the words, especially the last part. Love your neighbor is supposed to cover most sin.

Feel free to clear it up and tell me what sin he is committing.

Oh btw. This is doing the homework. You know a discussion board where people discus the bible and say what they think and other say what they think. I know you dont do that. But that is what it is.

4) The lesson does apply to all students of that teacher at all times and all situations.

The passage is not communicating the command and the warning, it is communicating the lesson.

It would seem to me that part of the problem is that you're approaching the text with some preconceptions about "eternal life", the commandments, and sin, and they might not entirely line up with the text. That is, you are using a kind of logic that takes as premises that

1) To "inherit eternal life" means to be sinless
2) To be sinless means no more or less than to keep the commandments as written

So then, since Jesus seems to accept that the person is keeping the commandments, it doesn't make sense that the man would lack anything.

And, to be fair, Jesus' first response in the story is to point out that the man already knows the commandments, implying that "keep the commandments" is the key to eternal life. However, I think that especially in Matthew we might hold that in context with the Sermon on the Mount, in which his hearers are surprised that he "speaks as one having authority, and not as the scribes." Throughout that sermon, he begins from premises encoded in the Jewish religion of the time but then extends them in interesting ways. "You have heard it said 'Do not murder'...but I say to you..." and so on. This is an important theme in the gospels.

I think this narrative fits within that theme. In the same way as Jesus extends and reinterprets the traditional laws in the context of "loving your neighbor" in a way that goes beyond the minutia of laws in other cases, he also does so here. As an exhortation to a certain kind of social commitment it seems similar to the parable of the Good Samaritan. All of these passages may seem difficult to reduce to (1) and (2) if we take them in a very legal way or as involving a very legal soteriology.

The lesson Jesus is trying to teach the rich man is the same lesson he teaches in the following. It's a warning that if you are preoccupied with other things, you are likely missing the calls and invitations of something that Jesus considers more valuable.


107. Jesus said, "The (Father's) kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine and looked for the one until he found it. After he had toiled, he said to the sheep, 'I love you more than the ninety-nine.'"


64. Jesus said, "A person was receiving guests. When he had prepared the dinner, he sent his slave to invite the guests.

The slave went to the first and said to that one, 'My master invites you.' That one said, 'Some merchants owe me money; they are coming to me tonight. I have to go and give them instructions. Please excuse me from dinner.'

The slave went to another and said to that one, 'My master has invited you.' That one said to the slave, 'I have bought a house, and I have been called away for a day. I shall have no time.'

The slave went to another and said to that one, 'My master invites you.' That one said to the slave, 'My friend is to be married, and I am to arrange the banquet. I shall not be able to come. Please excuse me from dinner.'

The slave went to another and said to that one, 'My master invites you.' That one said to the slave, 'I have bought an estate, and I am going to collect the rent. I shall not be able to come. Please excuse me.'

The slave returned and said to his master, 'Those whom you invited to dinner have asked to be excused.' The master said to his slave, 'Go out on the streets and bring back whomever you find to have dinner.'

Buyers and merchants [will] not enter the places of my Father."

What Bible translation/edition is the source of these quotes ?

Do you actually know what the words mean?

If I were to make the claim "Adult person* X is sinless" (and X != Jesus), what is your level of confidence in the statement?

* I use "adult person" because there may be some disagreement about children's state of sinfulness depending on your particular theology and the age of the child. But none of those distinctions would apply to this person.

So the words say things, but they don't say the things you think they say because you are unfamiliar with the language.

Yeah...just no. Think im going the boosh root.

It's from a translation of the gospel of Thomas:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...lthomas64.html

Sorry missed this and carlos. Thanks both.

Im not sure i understand your post but im not looking at the eternal life part. Which would be another problem looking at it in black and white. Only him saying he is not sinning and Jesus saying, ok...

See if i had to guess i would go with the man was fooling himself since all are sinners. He was a sinner and if he gave up his money he would see this sin.

This is all side stuff anyway. For me the real question is would Jesus be ok with the rich.


The needle and camel part makes it seem like no. But the caveat of anything is possible makes it seem like it would be very very hard. Meaning if i was a rich Christian i would be worried. But they dont seem to be.

And if Jesus takes wealth disparity into account between rich and poor nations. First world rich otoh.

Thats really been my only argument. Getting you guys to give the poor all your stuff is a harder one.

Jesus' audience at the time associated wealth and prosperity as a sign of God's blessing (as many today do). I think the message was that if the rich, who must be seen as righteous by God bc of their evident blessing, can't be saved, who can be? None. It is impossible.

Classic aaron

Words and sentences from the bible are open to interpretation (when aaron says it) but sometimes they mean exactly one thing (when aaron says it).

He and festering spit are the incarnate cognitive dissonance.

I think it is interesting that we are discussing the interpretation of the passage when many people don't even really agree on what passage is actually refers to. The eye of the needle might be literal or it might be a gate (the idea being that the camel would have take off its baggage and get on its knees makes for a good Sunday school story). The camel might not even be a camel. The word for rope is the same as camel (so I've heard, but I don't actually know) so the imagery of someone actually trying to put a rope through a literal eye of the needle is actually better than a camel and it actually works better as a teaching point.

I don't think there is any evidence to necessarily support the idea that the camel's eye was a gateway. Instead i think that the message is clear. It is impossible for someone to enter Heaven on their own, even a rich 'blessed" person who is close to being sinless.

The bolded is almost definitely false. There is no record of any such gate until possibly the middle ages.

The underlined is wrong. They have different (though similar) spellings.

If you're going to troll, at least put some effort into it. Or if this is your best work, I feel sorry for you.

Well, I took a step away for a bit (busy week at work). Here is a view that I have. In order to be a serious scholar of the Bible, you probably have to be able to read it in the original language.

Now, I was thinking that there is a disconnect between the stated view of many Christians, that the Bible is the Word of God, and their relative lack of interest in reading or understanding the Bible. I think Aaron (and probably uke_master) agree with me on this.

However, I went further and suggested that they should also learn Greek and Hebrew as an implication of this belief. I'll concede that this is probably too far. It obviously can provide a good reason to learn the original languages, but the ready availability of high-quality commentaries is probably sufficient to prevent it from being a rational implication of the belief that the Bible is the Word of Bible.

We agree on all three points.

I agree as well...

Theologically, this is known as eisegesis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisegesis

You have a preconceived notion of what you want to do with the text, and so you're reading it in a way that tries to produce that outcome. The basic issue at hand is that you're trying to read a broad theology into a single incident, and that's a huge error when it comes to Bibilical interpretation and application. If you have to hold tightly to one verse (or worse, one particular interpretation of one verse) in order to make your point, you're almost certainly doing it wrong.

You are conflating two different topics here. Inerrancy refers to the theological doctrine that the original autograph copies (the copy of each text as written by its author) are without error.* This means that the original meaning of the texts are true or perfect, etc.

On the other hand, accuracy refers to how closely the Bible we have today (in Greek or Hebrew) match the original text as it was first publicized. But there is no implication in saying that a text is accurate that it is true, let alone perfect (i.e. inerrant). For instance, the text of A Million Little Pieces is extremely accurate, but the story it tells is often false.