The Ridiculous Gospel of Matthew

How about: If those people then weren’t impressed, why should we be impressed, here and now?

Man never wants to repent..It is part of that makeup known as the sinful nature, pride etc. I might suggest it is the same thing that has caused you not to repent and turn to God. All the gospels wouldn’t mention many aspects because each gospel looks at a different aspect of the Christ. Kind of like everyone looking at a picture and then asking everyone independantly to write down what they saw. Did they all see the same thing. No….are each of them going to notice the important things to them and it may not be to the other writer. Of course….Matthew- King Jesus, Mark- Jesus the Servant, Luke- the Son of Man, and finally John- Diety incarnant.

Rember also Jesus performed many miracles and they woudl not repent either. So it would seem man is not always phased by the obvious are they. Jesus even said, Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.” (Matthew 11:20-24 ESV)

“Man never wants to repent…” To say that the chief priests of the Temple had such undeniable evidence, yet remained steadfast in their denial of Jesus, is to say that there wasn’t a single one of them that actually wanted to faithfully serve God. Even years after the fact — they didn’t EVER convert to Christianity. Nor did a single soldier that was a front row witness to *the mostamazing and important miracle of all time* consider it compelling enough to convert to Christianity! Really? That’s the story you want me to swallow? I’d believe in a physical resurrection before I’d believe that one.

“I might suggest it is the same thing that has caused you not to repent and turn to God.” Tell you what. If a supernatural darkness falls over the land, a great earthquake happens and an angel wearing shiny angel-clothes blazes down from heaven to tell me, “BUM! Jesus is risen!” — and I dutifully recount this occurrence, yet refuse to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, I’d grant you your suggestion. Seeing as that hasn’t yet happened, I respectfully disagree.

“All the gospels wouldn’t mention many aspects because each gospel looks at a different aspect of the Christ. … each of them [are] going to notice…things [important] to them and it may not be to the other writer.” What would you say is the most vitally important message that Jesus had to proclaim? When I ask Christians this, I usually get the answer something like,”Jesus saying, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the light, no one gets to the Father except through me.'” Which I’d grant is a pretty important statement. Why do you think it is that neither Matthew, Mark nor Luke thought to write that one down? I mean, did they feel the story of the fig tree was more important, perhaps? Ran out of room? Did they not know about Jesus claiming to be the way the truth and the light and that He was the exclusive path to heaven? I mean, I guess they either didn’t know that He said this: which means they missed the point of… well, Jesus’ whole ministry. OR They knew that He said this, but didn’t find it all that important… which makes them, well, rather poor judges of the importance of things.

You want a miracle? Here: http://www.zeitun-eg.org/pg0001.htm Enjoy. True history is full of them. -True history- rather than history written by those who do not want to accept the existence of religion and God, so they must cover it up and pretend that people so full of honesty they would sooner die than tell a lie, would die for Him. It is miraculous!

OR you could always say that John just made it up, which doesn’t bode well for John. The reason I bring up that quote is that, I think you could (perhaps semi-convincingly) find wiggle room to get out of the fact that Mark, Luke and John fail to mention the guards that were posted, or either earthquake, or the temple curtain being torn in two, or the scores of dead saints that came back tolife and descended upon Jerusalem appearing to a bunch of people… Perhaps. But it’s harder (amazingly) to get out of the challenge of “How could 3 gospel writers miss the essential message of Jesus’ teachings?”

Your attempt to walk in the shoes of people back then strikes me as not a real attempt, but rather one with a premeditated goal, and terribly slanted and closed view.

People who genuinely want to be fair tend to be transparently so.. But I think if you hadn’t written this and went and read it later.. The premeditatedly biased approach would cry out, and due to your own views you would embrace it, but at the same time, would you really lie to yourself that it was fair? I wonder..

“Rember also Jesus performed many miracles and they woudl not repent either. So it would seem man is not always phased by the obvious are they.” Perhaps you fail to see that this is evidence on MY side, not your side. Entire cities of people failing to be impressed with GOD INCARNATE performing miracles is not evidence that people are hardhearted to miracles. It’s direct evidence that GOD INCARNATE put on an utterly unimpressive show. I mean, come on, there were cities that thought the Apostle Paul and his friend were the Greek gods Zeus and Hermes! (see Acts) Let me put it this way. If I was GOD INCARNATE with INFINITE POWER to do ANYTHING, I feel that I could impress at least half of a city in an afternoon. And if I couldn’t, the LAST thing I would do is be angry! First, everyone in the city will be levitated up to 1,000 feet where I will gather everyone in a floating group and explain that for 20 minutes, everyone here has the gift of flight. I mean, how many tricks like these before I’m compelling? 5? 20? If I had only an afternoon I could do it EASILY.

If levitation is not your style, what if Jesus had gathered the citizens of Bethsaida in a large crowd and healed everyone of everything ailing them at once. No more leprosy, no more cancers, no colds, no more crippled or amputated limbs, no more diarrhea, no more asthma, no more poor eyesight, hiccups, indigestion, sprains… Everyone knows at least one person with at least one problem…that should have convinced the whole town! Or at the very least a fair fraction of it. And Jesus healed people miraculously, so there’s no out from this one.

God is not your trick pony. He doesn’t need to prove Himself on your command and specifications to the world, because the reason the world doesn’t see Him is not because there are not abundant miracles, but because it does not want to see because of what that would mean to people’s lives. And something gigantic I just posted a link to above, it was in the New York Times in photos.

http://saints.sqpn.com/saintt04.htm http://saints.sqpn.com/saintp14.htm http://saints.sqpn.com/saintm54.htm http://saints.sqpn.com/sainta35.htm .. Basically the entire site.

Enjoy the humble people of faith and their miracles! 🙂

ATB, I think you missed my point all together. I never said that all of what Jesus said and did was not important I said that the authors wrote down the part that spoke to them as directed by the Holy Spirit concerning the particular aspect of the Christ that God himself wanted them to see. Once again when we look at John he mentions many things that point to the diety of the Christ that are not mentioned in the gospels as well. Let’s say we both witness a car crash, and our statements are taken. We are both at the same location basically the same angle are our stories going to be exactly the same or are you going to see it from your perspective. In fact we will see it from through our filters. In fact my friend if all of the gospel said exactly the same thing I would be more suspicious if in fact all the gospels said exactly the same thing because they obviously at that point where not independantly written.

The Hardness of mans heart is so very obvious. Even John of whom you quoted stated that man loves the darkness and would not come to the light. That light is Jesus and while you state if you saw all these things you would convert, evidently that didn’t hold true in many places that witnessed the miracles and never converted. Perhaps a study on the harmony of the gospels might help you understand why God chooses to have 4 different authors present 4 separate aspects of the Christ. I think you would find it would have to do with the presentation of the Messiah from the prophecies of the Old Testament.

I clicked the links, don’t want you to starve! haha

I am going to agree with Jim. When the different people wrote their accounts, they were writing from their point of view. You and me could see the same movie, and have different reviews or remember things that stuck out to us in different ways. As far as the priests repenting? They were so stuck on religion then, and probably too stuck on it now, to realize their wrongs.

“they must cover it up and pretend that people so full of honesty they would sooner die than tell a lie, would die for Him.” Who died rather than tell a lie, when, and what was the lie?

“He doesn’t need to prove Himself on your command and specifications to the world, because the reason the world doesn’t see Him is not because there are not abundant miracles, but because it does not want to see because of what that would mean to people’s lives.” How many non-Christian miracles do you believe in? Do you believe in these Islamic miracles, for example, that the BBC reported?<P> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7193579.stm

http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/exodus/exodus7.htm Also, find something comparable to Fatima or Zeitun, or the hundreds of saints that have documentatedly raised the dead and other miracles. The difference between myths and beliefs is in the evidence, which a fair minded person will note is clear, witnessed, and by impartial and even anti- observers.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/COPERTIN.htm

The notes are almost as entertaining as the entry. Good one. 😀

I have had atheists tell me that even if Jesus came down and did a miracle right in front of them…they still would not believe and would not worship Him. Why should the pharisees have been any different. People only see and believe what they want to…just like the evolutionists believing in something that science has already disproved.

Shin is fine thanks. 🙂 You have to go to ‘view’ and ‘encoding’ and Japanese to get the characters.

“Really? That’s the story you want me to swallow?” Dude, hate to break it to you and your massive intellect but you can believe or not believe, that’s your choice. Nobody is going to ‘save’ you but yourself. Your attempts at denigrating Christians to make yourself ‘feel’ smarter only make you ‘feel’ smarter.

“Your attempts at denigrating Christians to make yourself ‘feel’ smarter only make you ‘feel’ smarter.” Your analysis of what my entries can accomplish isn’t really that interesting. You care to answer any of the questions posed in the entry? Or address a single point that I made?