It is not at all inaccurate to say that conversion of sinners is one of the prime tenets of evangelicals. Not all protestants are evangelicals, many are deeply traditional. The revivals, mission work and media crusades of modern Evangelicals . . . "sharing the good news" as you call it . . . is clearly work towards converting people to fundamental Christianity. From Wikipedia . . . Here is what the National Association of Evangelicals says . . .
red dont be naive they are not trying to convert anyone, they are just spreading the good news. yunno just in case anyone might be interested. one thing that is really fun is when you meet someone new, and in particular a woman you just start dating. and get real serious and say "have you heard the good news" and they are like "eh? wassup" and you say "about oor lord and savior jesus christ". and they are super super terrified, its really a fun thing to do. the relief on their face when you tell them you are kidding is beautiful.
The people that were killed were worshiping a false idol (the calf) and God wanted them seperated. There is a difference between murder and killing. ( i.e a police officer doing his job in a line of duty) Just like when you read in the Bible to Fear God it doesn't mean be terrified of him. It means to respect him as you would your dad if you got in trouble as a kid. In this chapter, The Golden Calf was an abomination against God created by the Jewish people. God’s own people created a *horrible* abomination against Him because they worshiped this idol instead of God. Even worse this sin took place after God had delivered his people from slavery in Egypt and was renewing His covenant that He made with Abraham with the Israelites through Moses and was intending to lead them to the promised land. He was after their hearts to set them aside and make them *His* holy people on earth, belonging to *Him*. But the people were so ‘stiff-necked’ in their ways they would not give their hearts to God. Instead they cast a false idol out of gold and gave their hearts to a completely worthless thing. It was an unimaginably horrible sin against God because God is so Holy and so deserving of worship that to worship this idol instead of God is a horrible abomination. The sin of these people is so great that God being completely Holy and completely Just cannot stand for it. He must carry out His divine justice. He allows Moses to tell the Israelites “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me”, separating the people who were for God as God’s Holy people. These Israelites were then commanded to kill their sons and brothers who were evil and wicked and *against* God to carry out God’s divine justice. It was so that God’s justice could be carried out. It was to purify the Israelite nation for God purifying the Israelites’ hearts as they killed their own sons and brothers so that they could know the heart of God. It was so that they would know that God was completely Holy and completely Just. Then after they had done the will of God. Moses told them gravely “You have committed a great sin (the idol). But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” Then Moses asked God “please forgive their sin.” This parallels the act of repentance that people must go through to ask God for His forgiveness. This was why it was so important that Jesus Christ came to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins so that God’s righteous anger and justice could be appeased. oh well, I am not into the whole debating religion thing. To each their own.
what a self-serving psychopathic evil jealous murderer god would be if any of this nonsense were true. he will kill you if you dont worship him? by what standard is this not the behavior of of a narcissistic murderous madman? if i were god i wouldnt care if you worship me. but i am not a desperately insecure lunatic. i just want you to be happy. i would be angry if you were a bad person, because you are making other folks unhappy, but i definitely wouldnt care if you enjoyed a false idol from time to tim. but thats just me i am a better person than god. its the way i was raised.
I am not going to argue religion. I have my beliefs. You boys have yours. God is the judge at the end.
I never did understand why people would tell me I would go to hell if I was not saved even though I lived right by people.. I mean, if any religion is right, we are talking that around 2/3's of all people that die go to hell....
Martin, stop dreaming about me. I am a child of God. Plus you can't spell. Oh, if you read the bible there is quite a few pages on why we suffer. It would explain why bad things happen to good people. GOD BLESS
