In the "Sermon on the Mount" Jesus gave the foundational teachings of Christian living. These were not suggestions but new commandments. He was thorough and what He did was to point out where sin begins. Notice when He quotes something from the Old Testament and then He contrasts it by saying "BUT I SAY TO YOU". He is giving NEW instructions that don't allow us any excuses. He raised the bar, He raised the standard that we all must obey.
Mat 5:21 "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.'
22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!' shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire. NKJV
The key to this passage is "angry with his brother..."WITHOUT A CAUSE". God is saying that those who are angry at their brother without a cause is guilty of MURDER and nothing less. The intent here is not just any cause that we can justify in our own minds, but a cause that is righteous in God's eyes. That is the standard by which we ourselves are judged. God's standard.
Now reflect for a while and ask yourself if you have been angry at someone for anything whatsoever. Were you angry at someone because they disagree with something you believe? Were you ever angry at someone because of a perceived injury to someone you know? Were you ever angry at someone because you believed in a rumor or Gossip? Were you ever angry at someone because they bruised your ego or hurt your pride? Did you get angry at someone because they took your parking spot? The list can go on and on if you think hard enough. Well guess what? In God's eyes you are guilty of MURDER. This is a hard pill for some to swallow but it is God's word that speaks truth here. So how do you make amends if this is the case? It is interesting how Jesus gave us the answer in the very next verse as to what our responsibility is.
Mat 5:23 THEREFORE if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
In other words, you know in your heart that someone has something against you because of something you did or said or if you are or have been angry without a cause in God's eyes. To take it even deeper. Suppose you did or said things about a person that in God's eyes falsely maligned a persons character and they are not aware you did it? Same principle applies in my opinion.
24 leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
In other words you have to first go and make every effort to reconcile with your brother or sister before you can go boldly before the altar of God and present your gift. Notice that Jesus here does not just simply say to confess your sins and all is well. He said you have to go and reconcile. That my brothers and sisters is a true heart of repentance.
I hope that we all learn from the words of our Lord in this and press forward to the depths of His wisdom and love one another JUST AS Christ loved us.
John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."NKJV
Thanks for the welcome. I'm happy to be a part of the board and site...
As you know, what the disciples taught and wrote in their writings was the docturines and teachings of Jesus. So connecting what Jesus said about how we murder others by being angry, would lead us to know and understand, that when we're angry with someone, we never hold it in and we do speak these words of anger either to that perosn in their face or behind thier backs.
Anger many times gives cause for us to behavior in many ways that is not becoming to our supposedly new life in Christ, because of the things we say or do when we are angry. In doing this, we are not only judging or condemning the person, but as James also points out in chapter 1, if we are Christians and can't control our tongues, we deceive oursleves.
Not that we can't speak our peace when we're angry we're also taught to do so, but the sin of judging and condeming(hurting), the other person becomes the goal of our anger. So Jesus says, that if we have killed/murdered someone with our mouths, we are in danger of the judgment from God, because we have become the judge of that person, by allowing our mouths to speak evil bitter words against the person with or more so without a cause... most often our deep anger is without a cause no matter what the person has done to us... in that, self-control and disicpline are qualities of the character of Christ, fruit of the Spirit who is SUPPOSE to be our influence over our new nature in Christ.
BTW, am I overlooking the delete, edit, quote buttons?... Or are there none?... I need them badly... I can't type or spell, sooooo, I need them badly...:dunce::winksmile:
No, there are not any, and I need an edit button badly. For some reason, I never catch my typos until I see it posted, and then everyone knows how illiterate I am. LOL.
I don't know why you went off on Leon or where this anger is coming from but I do not believe it was deserving as all he did was answer your question by copying and pasting part of my original post that answered your question.
Since this is a Bible Study Forum it is common for people to have different "opinions" and while we all have a right to our opinions I believe it is more important that our opinions conform to God's word and have a proper interpretation of any given scripture. It is ok to disagree as long as it doesn't get unChristian like in the manner we disagree. Discussions can get heated with passion but there is a fine line between passionately debating an issue and becoming argumentative. The Bible says that ..."as Iron sharpens Iron so does one man sharpen another". To sharpen an object it requires "friction" and this can sometimes feel unpleasant but it is a necessary process. As long as we have the right spirit in studying God's word by being willing to accept that our opinions may not be correct, but endeavor to seek what is the correct interpretation, then we will discover the beauty of God's truth. We are all here to share and to learn the depths of God's word. Let us do it in the spirit of love as our Lord commanded.
WILL SOMEONE PLEEEAAASE TELL ME WHY POSTS ARE BEING DELETED FROM THREADS On the board? Is this board ran by the communist party KGB, or CIA?... I don't understand why grown people are not allowed to discuss matters of life with maturity and adult like in words and conversation...
I have written the administration and waiting their reply. I re-posted something similar that was deleted so let's see what happens.
When i originally wrote them concerning an article i wanted to post but the site controls would not let me was due to the word "intercourse". Fornication was ok but not intercourse. LOL They removed the ban for me and I posted the Article about Pre-Marital sex. Not sure what is going on but we will soon see. just keep in mind that they had placed bans on certain words because of people abusing their usage and sometimes it got more graphic.
Yes, I can understand graphic language, but the word intercourse is not graphic, its an everyday word in our everyday language. Of course, if things were going over board and getting out of order with the use of such word, that's different. But the posts that they have deleted were not graphic nor inappropriate in adult discussions... I mean let's be real. Nothing anyone has said has been in violation of their rules of insults, inappropriate language, etc. So my question is, why would they sensor our posts? We're discussing adult topics therefore, mature adult language is to be used without fear sensorship of a person's thoughts and opinions.
If you cannot discuss adult mattesr that are even in the Bible or use language from the Bible, what's the purpose of discussion? Why put the topic on the board for discussion? If it cannot be discussed in honesty. We all are suppose to be grown folk, with proper use of the english language. Nothing has been said on this boad that isn't found in the Bible, so to delete a person's posts without even notifying the person as to why it is being deleted... is to me, not the proper way to do things. Of course, this is not my board, so they can do as they please, but I thought PRIVATE messages were suppose to be just that PRIVATE, so what was the purpose of going into our mail boxes and deleting our personal PRIVATE messages... well, this lets us know somebody in staff is reading our messages... I would say.:devil:
Christian honesty is expected from poster, I would think this should also apply to those who oversee the boards. And it appears the very thing this site is promoting, they themselves are in violation of... it is not a show of Christian Honesty by deleting posts and message from our boxes...
This is what's wrong with the Christian community today, we are afraid to hear the truth about a matter in its fullness, and no one is being changed or saved, because sugar-coating the truth feels much better than right out telling the truth of a matter... So glad Jesus nor Paul and the other disciples sugar-coated the truth, neither did God sugar-coat His Words in His laws or statues in the OT (Old Testament) ... although some today try to ban the word of God, but the word of God tells it like it is, and it will never be abanned from speaking the truth...
I suppose you can't even get into a heated discussion on this board either, even Jesus and Paul and Peter got into heated disagreements with each other and other people, that humanness.
I can't believe IT...just can't believe it!We were having a very good discussion and people were joining in discusiing their opinions and views, but it got all messed up with unwarranted self-rightoueness of the whoever deleted our post. I Don't quite understand the purpose, and it makes me angry WITH a CAUSE!...:rolleyes:
...BTW, please over lok all my typos. I see I kept hitting the s key instead of the c for censor, of course, there are other words and typos... but give peace a chance:peace::laugh:
I think it may have been a technical problem, all the posts, on all the forums seem to have been deleted after a certain time yesterday. I don't think it was censorship, although that was my first thought. I also have a message in to admin. and am waiting for an answer.
