[debeguiled]

(03-15-2019 01:43 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”"

Obviously if you've heard his word then you know going to heaven is based on following God's laws.

If you do not follow God's laws, then you aren't 'always saved.' Someone who sins after hearing the word of Christ, did not actually hear anything nor accepted Christ into his heart.

Orthodox Christianity is the only Church that teaches this, to my knowledge. Heartbreaking as it is, most "Christians" cannot even quote the most fundamental sentence of the Bible.

Anyone who claims they are teaching the Bible but doesn't quote the Book of Matthew almost never has any idea of what Christ was about.

I have attended many services in Protestant and Evangelical churches and they all understand this perfectly well.

It is not accurate to say only the Orthodox denomination teaches it and the business about not quoting the Gospel of Matthew is a straw man. Protestants teach the Gospel of Matthew for God's sake.

Using your own passage from scripture, it is very obvious that what was important to Jesus was that we love God and each other.

The Orthodox way seems to have worked out all these nit picky intellectual positions to bolster their idea of themselves as the best faith of all.

I don't think Jesus gives a rat's ass whether you believe in works, or you believe in faith alone but naturally do what Jesus commands out of love for him (Which is how most Protestants/Evangelicals deal with the issue of works).

It amounts to the same thing, they are just coming at it from a different angle.

The once saved always saved types are no different from the Catholics who sin with impunity because they have the sacrament of confession.

A hypocrite is a hypocrite no matter the denomination.

The way I look at it is, Jesus is the music, and the lyrics are part of the music.

Often the Orthodox commentators that I hear online seem to be people who don't hear the music, they only know the words and appear to think that is all there is.

(Not looking at you, Samseau, on that last sentence. I'm thinking more of people like Jay Dyer who have endless theological points, sub-points, references to obscure church fathers, and then end up calling people who disagree with them dum dums, characters, retards, or tell them they argue like girls. They may mention the word love once in a blue moon, but all they have for dissenters is mockery and condescension.)