JFJ Forums

The sodom and gomorah fires were real, Y'shua's crucifixion was real.
Molech, remphen, chemosh, tammuz, gods of the caananites, ammon and moab and egypt were figments of man's imagination, OR part of Satan's suggestions.

Turning the other cheek is hard. I don't know any of "these" forum members personally, so.... the mind God has given me says  if you have posted here it is more than likely you are either, serving God (Yahweh), yourself, or another God. (or Satan)

God says to love our enemies..... NOT agree with them.

What are your ideas on Y'shua expelling the Money-lenders and (turning over their tables) from/in the temple? I have heard one Pastor say, He did it with cords of love; sometimes, I wonder.

Y'shua was God (God's son). I am a forgiven sinner relying on His grace (daily).

Tried to PM you, but got that wierd msg about "language"...so, I'll just post here:

Your threads: "Fishing technique", "literal", and "disciples"

Are you "talking" to someone here, or about someone you met in the real world, or just making statements in general?

I don't want to know a specific "who" unless it is me, and I have offended you in some way, or misrepresented scripture or God's ways.

If not, great! But if I have..please feel free to name me by name, even in threads, so I can answer any misunderstandings.

Comprende, hermano? (Understand, brother?)

well Jesus being God in the flesh and If I saw someone turn my home into a super market I would also be pretty upset.

I've heard that He did it on the very day that Jews clean their own houses from leaven.

I don't think He was using "cords of love." I don't think it is possible to whip someone in love, driving them out of your house, anymore than it is possible to overturn tables in love so that people lose their money. He did it in zeal--in love for God--but not, I think, in love to others. I think this is an important distinction: our love for others does not supersede our love for God. Sometimes it is necessary to respond harshly to someone, without love, to serve the greater commandment to love God. I think this would also explain why God could command Bible heroes in the past to kill their enemies: it's very difficult to kill in love. Consequently, the modern church (i.e, the Emergent church) has turned love on it's head making love more important than God and His Holiness. God is love, but love is not God. Love must fall under God in importance because it apparently doesn't limit Him in the same way that righteousness does.

Amen, Bro.

None of God's characteristics compromise other characteristics. Love doesn't contradict holiness or vice versa.

I don't know the story, why did he do this? Were not
money changers running honorable and necessary businesses?

Neither necessary nor honorable.

Perhaps I am wrong, but doesn't the Torah say that people are to choose an animal from their own flocks (Deuteronomy 15:19) not buy it from someone else. But even if that's false, when the people brought their own animals, the rabbis would say the people's offering wasn't good enough and make the people buy the rabbis' animals. Where in the Torah does it say to do that? Leviticus 5 is clear that the offering is not to come from the priest but from the "offerer." For those who do not have a proper sacrifice, alternatives were suggested. Nowhere in Torah can I find that people are to buy the offerings from the priest. In fact, the only "payment" a priest was to get--payment is not the right idea, I think--was from the actual sacrifice, not money. If rabbis are to buy and sell sacrifices, you will have to show me in the Torah because I can't find it.

Assuming for argument's sake that Moses was a rabbi (I don't believe that's true) why do we never see or hear of the people buying sacrifices from Moses when the Torah is so explicit about the Temple and its practices?

God's forgiveness was not to be bought or sold by humans. He purchased our salvation with all that He had, and He offers it to us as a gift. Salvation comes from the Lord freely. We cannot "buy" Him with money or with good works or with blood offerings of humans or of animals. Salvation had to be purchased with the blood of God. God had to die in our place.

What do you have that's valuable enough to pay off the incomprehensibly weighty foulness of all of your sins? (I ask myself the same question.) There is nothing. Therefore, salvation (and consequently the means to salvation) can neither be bought nor sold by man. To do otherwise is to cheapen the gift and reject it.

John 2:13-21
And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?

Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?

But he spake of the temple of his body.