Quote:
Originally Posted by bearbear
Jesus said if you do not forgive someone from your heart, the Father cannot forgive you.
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And I return to an even shorter portion of the quote I just used.
What does this mean?
Is it eternal or in time?
Does it override everything else, or is it like finding some wood among your gold and therefore be "saved, yet as through fire"?
We are clearly commanded to forgive others because even the prayer we were given declares that we forgive others as the Father forgive us.
Are we so certain that the isolation of those few words means what it seems to when it remains in isolation? Or if someone suggested a different meaning for what it means in isolation, might we find ourselves changing to that one. Or arguing about which "out of context" understanding is correct, only to put it back in context and discover both are wrong.
This is what I am complaining about when i mention "fortune cookie" reading of scripture. That kind of approach assumes that whatever we come up with by taking a sequence of words that happen to occur in that way in scripture must be a word from God. Might go like this: "Look! Mine says 'You shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Jesus!' Wow, I'm going to bear the Son of God!!" "No you're not. You a guy!!" "Hey! Mine says '10 15 22 37 39 51' . . . . Ooops! Wrong side."
I know that is a little too tongue-in-cheek. But it might help to look at the side of the map (Google maps or Mapquest) where the "+" and "-" are and back out on your view. See a little more than the roof of the house that some guy keeps asserting belongs to Bill Gates. It might be that as you back out you discover that you are looking a poor part of Tupelo, Miss. Or Sarbourg, France.