The Scriptural verse used as your title is due the respect of it's Biblical home address:
Ephesians 4:4We were told in 1st Corinthians 1:13 NOT to follow individual men such as Apollos or Paul, instead of Jesus Christ.
Those who today, two thousand years later, follow Luther or Calvin or Wesley or any man instead of Jesus are creating their own rules, and ignoring what God has written.
Your one theme of "It's all about love," and, "Love is all there is," is singularly incomplete.
Christ has everything to do with what we believe.
Why?
He is the object of our love.
Christ IS what we believe.
Why?
Because He first loved us, and died in our place.
rumitoid: "No one is to believe in Jesus, as we perceive it; we are each called to be as Jesus."
IF anyone of us were capable of "being as Jesus," if anyone of us could have lived a perfect life as Jesus did, then He (Jesus) could have saved His trip to earth, and we could perch ourselves on an anointed chair, if we could but identify one.
Our Savior could have remained comfortably tucked in at the right hand of God, the Father, while we in our infinite wisdom, rotated the position of Jesus Christ among role playing substitutes, successively appointed as Christs on earth, ...and how has that worked out?
What we make of it is to identify our own humanity and fallen sin nature.
What we each make of it is our own individual decision as we identify the Savior provided us.
What think ye of Christ?Christ has everything to do with what we believe.
rumitoid wrote:
Not since Christianity began has this been true, and even less so now. What are we to make of this? And as Christians we savagely dissected this, ripped it apart, in one example, with Luther and Calvin and Wesley, oh my. Putting their names on Christ's words, letting them speak for Lord of the Universe and taking credit for knowing him better than himself.
Lutherans, Calvinists, and Methodists: a slap in the face of Christ. Baptists and Catholics and thousands of other worldly- or ego-driven sects. And the pathetic thinking that maybe some bargain or compromise could be made by agreeing on certain beliefs they invented to bring Christians together. Ecumenicalism: "Concerned with establishing or promoting unity among churches or religions." P***eful bishops arguing for their stance against the same.
Christ has nothing to do with what we believe. Belief is the whole problem of Christianity. No one is to believe in Jesus, as we perceive it; we are each called to be as Jesus. Belief is of the mind and includes all the worst of us. We will never agree on what is righteous and just, true and good through belief.
When Christ said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." God is love, and "believeth on him that sent me" is love, not how long his beard is or the length of his robe. Love, not belief, is the only way for Christians to be under One Lord, one faith, one baptism--the rest is craven worldliness.
Not since Christianity began has this been true, a... (
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