Jesus said; These little ones who believe in me

a reply to: intrptr

How they found to live a true life, free from guilt and negative behavior. Children are closer to that way, having just come from there. Their minds aren't corrupted yet by the worldly dogma of men. Thats why Jesus said, suffer the children to come to me. He was reflecting how much easier it is to teach children than 'adults'.

Indeed! I loathe the comparison of "the children" as being blindly obedient and trusting. They most certainly are not! But, they are free from corruption and filled with a sense of awe and wonder.

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: intrptr

How they found to live a true life, free from guilt and negative behavior. Children are closer to that way, having just come from there. Their minds aren't corrupted yet by the worldly dogma of men. Thats why Jesus said, suffer the children to come to me. He was reflecting how much easier it is to teach children than 'adults'.

Indeed! I loathe the comparison of "the children" as being blindly obedient and trusting. They most certainly are not! But, they are free from corruption and filled with a sense of awe and wonder.

Further: His example was about teaching. Its easier to teach those who have a fresh perspective, uncorrupted by 'civilization', i.e., the state and the church, both of whom work in league to sway people away from their reason, from an early age. Little kids have good reason. They look at what we adults do all day and go, wth?

a reply to: windword
The quality of childhood which Jesus himself specifies is "Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" -ch18 v4, immediately preceding the verse I quoted.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: Akragon
Fortunately this thread is not attempting to prove belief in the entire Bible as the word of God.
"Belief in me" - trusting the person of Jesus- is all I need for the moment.

But what if my trust in Yeshua and reading his words make me think Christians are following a false prophet called Paul instead of Yeshua:s teaching. Should I trust in Yeshua teaching and follow him and reject Paul the hypocrite or become a hypocrite just to please Christians and therefore reject Yeshua:s teachings?

Yeshua is not my problem that makes me reject the Christian religion. It is all about Paul:s additions.

a reply to: LittleByLittle

Personally i have more issues with the OT then Paul, who i am quite obviously not a fan of either...

All the issues with the religion stem from the OT... and Paul Knew the OT books backwards

a reply to: LittleByLittle
If Jesus is telling people to believe in Jesus, and Paul is telling people to believe in Jesus, there may be less contradiction than you think.
I will not be talking about Paul in this thread; this one is about a specific aspect of the teaching of Jesus.
(If you want to talk about the teachings of Paul, there are my recent Galatians threads)

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: LittleByLittle

Personally i have more issues with the OT then Paul, who i am quite obviously not a fan of either...

All the issues with the religion stem from the OT... and Paul Knew the OT books backwards

In way of thinking the old testament is not even something we need to discuss the spiritual value of since if it so logically dualistically flawed that it should be rejected by all beings.

a reply to: LittleByLittle

Can't be rejected when its in "the good book"...

Heaven forbid such heresy

a reply to: DISRAELI

The quality of childhood which Jesus himself specifies is "Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" -ch18 v4, immediately preceding the verse I quoted.

What does blind obedience have to do with humility? Humility is directly related to the ego and how one views themselves compared to others. Children don't see inequality and haven't nurtured their egos enough for them to be stumbling blocks. Children are not rigid and stuck in their ways. Children are open minded and accepting.

originally posted by: windword
What does blind obedience have to do with humility?

They are the opposite of the unwillingness to obey which comes with pride.
Much of the anti-Christian sentiment which appears on ATS is based on "I'm not going to believe in anyone who tells me what to do", and this is rooted in pride.
Humility makes obedience possible.
But faith comes first, the attitude of trust which underpins humility. That is what I have been emphasising. Trust. That is a very child-like quality.

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: LittleByLittle

Can't be rejected when its in "the good book"...

Heaven forbid such heresy

You have probably noticed that I get cranky when the spiritual realm get dumbed down to lower awareness level and become illogical. Humanity make the flawed assumption that a being that have the capacity to oversee the whole creation will be shallow like a human mind with an ego with only 100 billion neurons of computational power.

It is like an one celled ameba telling a human how it's psyche is built up.

a reply to: DISRAELI

But what if we do trust the spiritual realm that have been reveled to us thru experience but mistrust your and Paul:s view of it.

In your mind "your view"="god view".
But if reality is not "your view"="god view" then I can reject your and Paul:s view and still be kosher with god.

a reply to: DISRAELI

They are the opposite of the unwillingness to obey which comes with pride.

I disagree. Have you ever tried to get stubborn 2 year old to eat their vegetables or go down for a nap that they didn't want to take?

No, children have a lot of unwillingness and offer plenty of challenges to authority.

They are, however, filled with a wide eyed wonder. They forgive easily and don't carry grudges or judge people based on programmed social standards.

Humility makes obedience possible.

Nonsense. The two have no connection whatsoever. Humility has to do with self judgement when compared to others and obedience is about submitting authority.

Much of the anti-Christian sentiment which appears on ATS is based on "I'm not going to believe in anyone who tells me what to do", and this is rooted in pride.

Stop being so defensive. I haven't posted anything anti Christian in this thread, only that I disagree with your assessment of what Jesus meant by suggesting his followers be more childlike. He certainly wasn't looking for blind obedience or someone that could be "obedience trained".

When did Jesus demand obedience anyway?

100% absolutely yes. I think that this was a rather pertinent thread I like your analysis.
reply to: DISRAELI

a reply to: DISRAELI

In this case, the people affected are “these little ones who believe in me”.
So “causing them to stumble” will surely mean “causing them to CEASE believing in me”.

That is true, since "σκανδαλίσῃ" come from "σκανδαλιζω", which its proper meaning is

Original Word: σκανδαλίζω
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: skandalizó
Phonetic Spelling: (skan-dal-id'-zo)
Short Definition: I cause to stumble
Definition: I cause to stumble, cause to sin, cause to become indignant, shock, offend.

Thus leading to :

"to cause a person to begin to distrust and desert one whom he ought to trust and obey; to cause to fall away," and in the passive, to fall away (R. V. to stumble (cf. 'Teaching etc. 16, 5 [ET];

Strongs Greek 4624

Peace

a reply to: Seed76
Thank you for underlining that point, which is key to the whole theme.
I was using a different lexicon, which gave me the same definition.

a reply to: rukia
Yes, I am on a "faith" theme this year, or at least until the summer. Hence Galatians and now the relevant remarks of Jesus.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Yes i noticed. I simply wanted to contribute , as its a key part so the verse can be understood properly. Keep up the good work my friend.

Peace

originally posted by: windword
children have a lot of unwillingness and offer plenty of challenges to authority.

This is true, and Augustine dwells on this point as part of his proof of the doctrine or Original Sin.
"See, even the behaviour of children shows up the inbuilt disobedience of the human race".

But Jesus did not mention the word obedience, and I mentioned it only as an aspect of trust.
[Here I am re-writing my first response, which was inaccurate]
This thread was focussed on the word faith, based on his description of his disciples as "little children who believe in me".
In response to you, I expanded on his understanding of childhood by introducing his previous comment about "humility".
You then asked "What's the connection between humility and obedience?", and since there is a connection I took a moment to explain what it was.

The connection is that pride is one of the obstacles to obedience. If humility is the opposite of pride, then one of the effects of humility is that it removes that obstacle. That is how, as I said, humility makes obedience possible.

Stop being so defensive. I haven't posted anything anti Christian in this thread

No, this is you being defensive.
Where did I say that this remark was about anything you had posted? "Much sentiment on ATS" means the sentiment expressed by many people. I was remembering the times obstreporous posters have said on one thread or another that they could not believe in obedience to a God because it offended against their democratic rights as Americans (I paraphrase, of course, but that was the gist). I brought this up to illustrate the point that the connection between disobedience and pride is a wide-spread phenomenon.

When did Jesus demand obedience anyway?

I wrote this thread on the theme that Jesus expects faith.
He associates this quality of faith, or trust, with children.
The evidence that he expects faith and that he associates it with children is in the text which I've been quoting; "These little ones who believe in me".
So if you don't like talking about obedience, why don't we drop the subject and go back to the original theme of Faith?
"They believe in me".

a reply to: DISRAELI

But Jesus did not mention the word obedience, and neither did I until you brought the subject up.

You most certainly did!

From your OP:

They were told that if they wanted to enter the kingdom of heaven, they needed to become like children themselves.
In other words, they should be approaching their God in trusting obedience.

This is you putting words in Jesus' mouth! And I disagree as to your reasoning that Jesus asked his followers to be like children, if they wanted to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Children possess a wide eyed innocence and unquestioning love and acceptance of everyone equally, without judgment and free from jaded and rigid dogma and doctrine.

So if you don't like talking about obedience, why don't we drop the subject and go back to the original theme of Faith? "They believe in me".

You're hanging your sermon on children "who believe in him"? Why do children believe? Because they haven't yet been betrayed, disappointed or ridiculed by the world..........things that cause people to loose faith.

This is true, and Augustine dwells on this point as part of his proof of the doctrine or Original Sin. "See, even the behaviour of children shows up the inbuilt disobedience of the human race".

Jesus never taught "original sin". Jews don't teach original sin. Original sin is a Catholic thing. People were never meant to be gullible robots to authority, and free will isn't a sin, it's a gift.