Falcon60 said:
I never said a true Christian does not take care of orphans and widows. However, there are a lot of folks in false religious groups who do these wonderful acts of charity because they subscribe to a "works based" theology.
True you did not, but you did say a true Christian must be born of the spirit. I'm saying they're the same thing, because they are so closely related as to be indistinguishable. I suppose you could pretend to take care of orphans and widows, or you could only incidentally take care of them. I don't see how you could take care of them purposely and have it not count as true religion. People don't naturally go out of their way to care for someone else's child or castoff woman. I admit you cannot tell whether someone does it for superficial reasons, but you also cannot know why people in a 'False' religion would take care of them.
The Great Commission has not been fulfilled. It can't be until the Gospel has been preached to all corners of the globe and Christ returns for his bride.
? Well yes, unless it already has, and also remember Christ's body is the church. So if his body is the Church, what might his return mean? We have two analogies for Church, Christ's body and Christ's bride. These analogies bump into each other if you take the analogies too far, because women don't marry themselves. Generally Christ's return for his bride is talking about the perfection of the church, the revelation of Jesus Christ's person in the church.
Why do you believe Jesus would not want Hinduism and Buddhism destroyed?? Anyone who comes preaching a different gospel Christ will cast out.
It has to do with how I see the meaning of antichrist. Here is my point of view of how history has played out: As predicted, many antichrists did come and many people left the faith to follow 'Doctrines of demons' which I think are 'Accusing doctrines'. This is when Catholics began to accuse Jews and one another of not being legitimate, and there were arguments about doctrines resulting divisions. Everybody was somebody else's heretic, just like it is today. The Churches tried to counter division with councils and creeds, but those did not resolve anything. Fallout with church splits and accusations continued, weakening the church and horrible leaders crept into positions of power. There were protests against the corruptions they introduced, resulting in the reformation; but it was another failed attempt. It inherited the same problems and nothing changed.
Remember that when Jesus prayed, he prayed that his followers would love one another, that they would be one, and that they would be preserved from the world. This prayer has yet to be fulfilled, despite 100 years of fundamentalist evangelical preaching, 100 years of pentecostals, 400 years baptists, Centuries of Methodists, 400 years of Calvinists and so forth. There has been no change, no real counter to antichrist. That's why you should not worry about Buddhists and Hindus.
