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And cheers to you, Taijasi!:)

Good questions. I also wonder how you distinguish between faith and wishful thinking. Yes, there are too many groups that want to claim God as their own personal property. That's nothing but egotism. God is not in anyone's hip pocket.

Prophecy is a gift of the Spirit. But the chief gifts of the Spirit, according to Paul, are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

BTW, people were never forbidden to read the Bible. In the MA, most, of course, could not read it because they were illiterate. Also, because Bibles had to be copied by hand (and usually illuminated), they were time-consuming to produce. The first book that Gutenberg printed was the Bible--the...

Oh, dear! Thread multiplication! ;)

I think I mistitled the thread. I had just come from reading a couple of posts on another site that questioned whether Jesus existed--which, I think, is nonsense. (Principle of "Occam's razor" applies) I should have titled it simply "The Uniqueness of Jesus."

"Exactly in this passage. The Samaritans worshipped what they did not know, yet the Jews ignored what they knew. Because it was not the way they wanted things. They wanted a King who would beat the Romans and all other enemies at the time, not a savior for the soul. And what was going on in the...

Interestingly, the confrontation with the Syro-Phoenican woman may be an occasion on which Jesus spoke Greek--at least we can so speculate. Mark makes a distinction between the woman's race (Syrophoenician) and language (Greek). If Jesus spoke Greek to the woman, the word for "dog" he would...

What disparagement? I already cited some:-- "We read in the synoptic gospels of Jesus' hostility to Gentiles. For example, he calls them dogs in his confrontation with the Syro-Phoenician woman. Not only tactless on his part, but this reveals him as partaking of the usual Jewish prejudice...

"Man" can mean either a specific man, or it can mean humankind. When we say, for example, "A dog is man's best friend," do we mean only males? And there are many other examples. But the most conservative theology says that God is pure spirit--therefore, NEITHER male nor female. How could God...

The following may be relevant: SUFI: The Immediacy of God Karen Armstrong points out that the Kingdom of God "is not an experience for the elite or for monks only; the kingdom announced by Christ in the Gospels is a union with God that everybody can experience here and now...

Genesis 1:27 says "God created humankind IN HIS OWN IMAGE, IN THE IMAGE OF GOD He created them, MALE AND FEMALE he created them." The logical inference is that God is male and female. One problem is limitations of language. When we refer to God we always use "He," "His," and "Him." But maybe...

Here's an Islamic take on the subject: "The point is met, for if we preach the Gospel in hope of benefit of any kind, then we are judged by the Gospel. It is as Rabi'a prayed to God, a lesson for us all in seeking God's kingdom with a sight toward reward of any kind. "Perhaps her most...

On a more informal level, there's CS Lewis' MERE CHRISTIANITY and GK Chesterton's ORTHODOXY.

Thanks for your reply, Path. It does shed some light on these passages. Of course, the touching encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman was not the only case in which Jesus seemed to disparage Gentiles.

One could not deduce a Trinity from that.

There's no mention of a Trinity, either.

That's why we have Purgatory. (Well, some of us do)

Maybe "Q"?

Well said, Wil! (I like the song) BTW, here's something the Jesus Seminar said about God's kingdom: "For Jesus, God's kingdom is a modest affair, not obvious to the untutored eye. It offers little by way of earthly reward. Its demands are staggering. He apparently didn't want it confused...