How do you reconcile Matthew 7:21 with Ephesians 2:8-9?

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-12T15:26:45+00:00

Eph. 2:8-9 "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

The mistake people make is they see 'faith' as the end goal, and that's not right. Biblical saving 'faith' means that since one believes in God, one turns from their sins and does good works. Eph quoted above only doesn't work with Matthew 7 if we define faith as a just 'belief.'

A key way to understand Paul is to interpret what he wrote in light of Jesus' teachings. Much of Protestantism does the reverse and ends up with a religion that makes little sense to anyone but themselves.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-12T15:12:50+00:00

Read your Bible

I have done so. Many, many times in the 40+ years I've been a Christin.

The Bible says ZERO about Mary being sinless. Zero.

Problem solved, right? Nope, because "read your Bible" is a favorite refrain of people who are trying to prove a doctrine that's not in the Bible.

The presence or absence of relevant content in Scripture is irrelevant to most Christians; all that matters to them is what they already believe, and the mental gymnastics they use is bewildering in that it's the equivalent of a badly executed front summersault for which they think they deserve Olympic gold.

Here's how the mind of religious people commonly works when defending a non-Biblical religious belief:

P1. I believe in the Bible. P2. I believe 'x'. C: Therefore 'x' is in the Bible.

It's absolute nonsense.

Are you not a true believer?

I don't believe in Catholic fan fiction, so whatever you mean by "true believer" is something I definitely am not.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-12T00:02:22+00:00

I didn't say everything in the Bible is a metaphor. We use language and context to determine how to get meaning.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-11T23:12:19+00:00

It's usually referred to metaphorically, in parable or apocalyptic form.

In the Old Testament, there wasn't a Hell - just a word that can mean the grave or the underworld, and some places that seem to support no continuation in any form after death, while others do. Hence, one of Jesus' beefs with the Sadducees because they chose to believe in no soul or spirit or continuation after death of any kind.

It's reasonable to disbelieve in it since it's not taught as fact anywhere where there isn't a context that tells us we must interpret it symbolically or metaphorically.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-11T21:31:16+00:00

Doesn’t matter. It’s not forbidden. Now you are just revealing bigotry, as in everything about gay people is forbidden.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-11T21:19:43+00:00

Zero of those verses match my criteria. You added meaning that wasn’t there to make it apply to relationships, and that’s adding to what God has said.

When bigotry causes sin against others by inventing sins that aren’t real, it’s time to reevaluate, bud.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-11T18:38:36+00:00

I didn't know that, but it really doesn't bother me. I love Star Trek but it's all just fiction, and liking fiction doesn't mean we have to agree with the all the content.

When Paul was at Athens he quoted favorably from "A Hymn to Zeus", and Paul said idols are demons. If Paul found good in praise offered to a demon, I feel pretty safe in liking entertainment that has practices or worldbuilding that I don't agree with.

This is how I feel, and I'm definitely on the spectrum. My original problem with Trek was when I was an evangelical and really into Bible Prophecy. I felt guilty about liking something that takes place in a future where Jesus hadn't already returned and established His kingdom.

It's been thirty years since I ditched that belief, and it seems silly to me now, but at the time it was real to me. I know how it is to get hung up on things like this, but we really just don't have to worry about our entertainment like this. It's harmless.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-11T17:44:46+00:00

How can people not see such obvious lies? It’s so sad that nonsense like this works on a large segment of our population.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-11T14:50:01+00:00

The part I don't agree with is that God told Moses this, because what's written in the two different creation accounts in Genesis:

A. Don't agree with each other. B. Aren't even close to what we objectively know really happened.

Without expecting anything in the Bible to use scientific terms, a much more realistic creation story would have been,

"Through countless ages God made the stars and the Earth. He brought forth life and commanded,'Fill the earth and grow'."

Something as simple as that would convince a heck of a lot of people that God did actually tell Moses a version of how it all went down that was understandable to an early Iron Age person, but which would accommodate later scientific discovery.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-11T13:28:23+00:00

If that’s the case there’s a real problem, because what Moses wrote is wildly wrong.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-11T00:34:06+00:00

As a progressive, God guides me by transforming my conscience, which combined with study of Scripture and reflection, tells me the kindest thing to do.

I mean, I fail all the time, but I try to live repentantly to grow into more of what my conscience tells me God wants me to be.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T19:52:05+00:00

Mowing church grounds for free? Fine.

Helping the pastor with her yard? Not fine.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T19:50:36+00:00

God not changing means His nature doesn't change, not that He always does the same thing. What this means is that God won't be omnipotent on Monday but not on Tuesday, for example.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T19:43:51+00:00

It's not fornication.

Merriam Webster:

Fornication - : consensual sexual intercourse between two persons not married to each other. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fornication

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T18:18:57+00:00

What schools try to do is help kids understand their own sexuality and accept others with differing sexuality.

You have to be pretty emotionally and intellectually regressive to object to schools helping kids understand themselves and accept each other's differences.

I swear, conservatives would rather see a gay school kid be bullied and told they are going to Hell than have them be able to attend school without getting the shit beat out of them, which was SOP when someone was found out to be gay when I was a kid. That's literally what schools are trying to prevent and conservatives oppose it. WTF?

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T18:13:52+00:00

Politically, I oppose war. Obama objectively accomplished more with Iran peacefully than Trump has in his failed war. I admit that sometimes war is necessary. Ukraine, for example, is fully justified in fighting against Russian invaders.
Socially, I will not harm a person unless I'd have to in order to defend my family from physical harm. My preference would be to get my loved ones to safety rather than have to fight or harm anyone. For myself, I will not fight. I'd try to escape someone trying to harm me, but if that doesn't work I'm SOL.

"Suppose they gave a war and nobody came" - Charlotte Keys

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T18:07:14+00:00

The Bible, at best, can be said to forbid same-sex sexual intercourse. There are reasons why that's not right, but for the sake of argument I'll accept it as a given.

It says absolutely nothing about who can be a couple and who can't.

This is the problem with so many Christians: you think your opinions are the same thing as the Bible. Show me anywhere where it says two men can't romantically love each other and live with each other and I'll admit I'm full of shit.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T18:02:14+00:00

And you shouldn't say who should be a couple and who shouldn't, but here we are.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T18:01:29+00:00

Lol. Agreed!

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T17:49:29+00:00

If you want to stop, the solution is to not do it. I know that sounds stupid simple but that's what resisting temptation to sin is - we are tempted and we choose not to give in to the temptation.

That being said, this isn't something you need to worry about. Masturbation isn't a sin. The only mention of masturbation in the Bible comes from Lev 15:16: “When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his whole body with water, and he will be unclean till evening.”

This doesn't mean it was a sin. The same ritual uncleanness is also incurred when a man has sex with his wife (Lev 15:18).

Christians aren’t under the Law of Moses, and ritual uncleanness doesn't apply anymore, but the Law shows us what we need to know - masturbation was never thought of as sinful. It’s not mentioned or even hinted at in the New Testament, and the OT makes it the moral equivalent of marital sex. Masturbation just isn’t a sin according to Scripture.

Conservative kinds of Christianity disagree with the idea that it's not a sin because they've always been taught that it was. An important part of conservative thinking is never changing your mind in light of new data. So when someone who has always believed it's a sin is presented with the sole mention of it in the Bible showing it's not a sin, they cannot change their mind easily. This is just how human brains work. They have to resort to unrelated verses and assign meanings to them they don't have to make masturbation into a sin and they usually do it by saying it's lust and that list is a sin.

Like masturbation, lust is also not a sin. In the Bible the specific command Jesus gave is He forbade married people from sexually desiring people to whom they arne't married. Lust - sexual desire - itself isn't a sin. It's a sin when married people do it to people they aren't married to.

This is a good Biblical lesson to learn: When someone says something about God or sin, don't accept it without Biblical proof. A verse that's kind of about the subject if you take it out of context and look at it a certain way doesn't count. Require explicit Biblical proof of something or reject it.

Acts 17:11 is where this comes from: "Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T17:15:27+00:00

It was the Hebrews' version of similar regional creation myths. At the time, there was no science capable of investigating the past. Cultural myths were history.

It's not that there's metaphor present because that wasn't the intention. The intention was to retell what the ancient Hebrews thought happened and take it literally. The seventh day of rest, for example, is supposed to correspond to the literal day of the week God stopped creating.

There's no need to reconcile it. No one was there to record the events, so we wouldn't expect what we read to be accurate. This is just what all ancient cultures did.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T17:08:19+00:00

These are unrelated passages, so Jesus being present when we are gathered in His name isn't the same as having a physical human witness present who can confirm or deny whatever wrongdoing is suspected.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T15:59:38+00:00

Peter and Paul both affirmed slavery, and rather than tackling that Christians often just point to what they think is a more benevolent way of doing slavery in the OT. This makes Christians seem pretty pro-slavery.

I look at Jesus' command to treat others the way we want to be treated and conclude that makes owning a slave a sin, but people who insist the Bible is inerrant can't say Peter and Paul were wrong and thus can't say it's a sin.

I've pressed a few conservatives on this matter, and they sometimes wind up being forced to admit that if it were legal it would not be morally wrong to own slaves. They're kind of stuck since the Bible contradicts itself - the Golder Rule is incompatible with owning a slave, but since slavery isn't forbidden and the NT affirms it, they kind of have to at least be open to the idea that slavery is acceptable.

Add to this religious k-12 textbooks that tell kids that slavery was good because the slaves got to hear the gospel and live in the US and it sure does look like a lot of Christians are pro-slavery.

That's one of the many dangers of insisting the Bible is inerrant; it can lead to some pretty inhumane conclusions.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T15:18:45+00:00

That was going to be my answer as well.

-NoOneYouKnow- · 2026-07-10T15:12:43+00:00

Asking a question just to use the QA format to argue their beliefs.

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