Figure this one out...

[jolee65]

Oh they were thinking of joining the church you have a while before your ready for that. Dont take this the wrong way but we'er not hard up for members its always nice when we do get a new member but usually its someone more open minded to the teachings and your not so just continue on the path your already on be it Baptist or what religion you are currently.

[Elrond]

If you become aware of who you are in Jesus and have the chance to be baptized then do so. Some people don't for a variety of reasons. They think someone else must do it for them or they have no oportunity like the dying theif.

I've been baptized 3 or 4 times. Once when I was a child in a Lutheran church I think.... once several months after I was born again. (So was I not really saved for those months inbetween?) and once by myself in a river when I recommitted myself to Jesus and thought a river would be more traditional and Biblical than a Baptismal tub.

Personally I think faith takes precidence over an act but acts should also be made on faith. Both go hand in hand.

[Hemidakota]

After listening to this thread with the pertinent thief and the impertinent thief on the cross, let me delved about the other thief.

One other trait comes to us from the Luke, confirming our impression that his account was derived from one who had stood quite close to the Cross, probably taken official part in the Crucifixion.

Matthew and Mark merely remark in general, that the derision of the Sanhedrin and people was joined in by the thieves on the Cross. A trait this, which we feel to be not only psychologically true, but the more likely of occurrence, that any sympathy or possible alleviation of their sufferings might best be secured by joining in the scorn of the leaders, and concentrating popular indignation upon Jesus.

Luke, also records a vital difference between the two 'robbers' on the Cross. The impenitent thief takes up the jeer of the Sanhedrin: 'Art Thou not the Christ? Save Thyself and us!' The words are the more significant, alike in their bearing on the majestic alms and pitying love of the Saviour on the Cross, and on the utterance of the 'penitent thief,' that—strange as it may sound—it seems to have been a terrible phenomenon, noted by historians, that those on the cross were wont to utter insults and imprecations on the onlookers, goaded nature perhaps seeking relief in such outbursts. Not so when the heart was touched in true repentance.

One thing stood out before the mind of the 'penitent thief,' who in that hour did fear God. Jesus had done nothing amiss. And this surrounded with a halo of moral glory the inscription on the Cross, long before its words acquired a new meaning. But how did this Innocent One bear Himself in suffering? Right royally—not in an earthly sense, but in that in which alone His claimed the Kingdom. He had so spoken to the women who had lamented Him, as His faint form could no longer bear the burden of the Cross; and He had so refused the draught that would have deadened consciousness and sensibility. Then, as they three were stretched on the transverse beam, and, in the first and sharpest agony of pain, the nails were driven with cruel stroke of hammer through the quivering flesh, and, in the nameless agony that followed the first moments of the Crucifixion, only a prayer for those who in ignorance, were the instruments of His torture, had passed His lips. And yet He was innocent, Who so cruelly suffered. All that followed must have only deepened the impression. With what calm of endurance and majesty of silence He had borne the insult and jeers of those who, even to the spiritually unenlightened eye, must have seemed so infinitely far beneath Him! This man did feel the 'fear' of God, who now learned the new lesson in which the fear of God was truly the beginning of wisdom. And, once he gave place to the moral element, when under the fear of God he reproved his comrade, this new moral decision became to him, as so often, the beginning of spiritual life. Rapidly he now passed into the light, and onwards and upwards: 'Lord, remember me, when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom!'

The familiar words of our Authorized Version—'When Thou comest into Thy Kingdom'—convey the idea of what we might call a more spiritual meaning of the petition. But we can scarcely believe, that at that moment it implied either that Christ was then going into His Kingdom, or that the 'penitent thief' looked to Christ for admission into the Heavenly Kingdom. The words are true to the Jewish point of vision of the man.

He recognized and owned Jesus as the Messiah, and he did so, by a wonderful forth going of faith, even in the utmost Humiliation of Christ. And this immediately passed beyond the Jewish standpoint, for he expected Jesus soon to come back in His Kingly might and power, when he asked to be remembered by Him in mercy. And here we have again to bear in mind that, during the Life of Christ upon earth, and, indeed, before the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, men always first learned to believe in the Person of the Christ, and then to know His teaching and His Mission in the forgiveness of sins.

It was so in this case also. If the 'penitent thief' had learned to know the Christ, and to ask for gracious recognition in His coming Kingdom, the answering assurance of the Lord conveyed not only the comfort that his prayer was answered, but the teaching of spiritual things which he knew not yet, and so much needed to know. The 'penitent' had spoken of the future. Christ spoke of 'to-day'; the penitent had prayed about that Messianic Kingdom which was to come, Christ assured him in regard to the state of the disembodied spirits, and conveyed to him the promise that he would be there in the abode of the blessed—'Paradise'—and that through means of Himself as the Messiah: 'Amen, I say unto thee—To-day with Me shalt thou be in the Paradise.' Thus did Christ give him that spiritual knowledge which he did not yet possess—the teaching concerning the 'to-day,' the need of gracious admission into Paradise, and that with and through Himself-in other words, concerning the forgiveness of sins and the opening of the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. This, as the first and foundation-creed of the soul, was the first and foundation-fact concerning the Messiah.

This was the Second Utterance from the Cross. The first had been of utter self-forgetfulness; the second of deepest, wisest, most gracious spiritual teaching. And, had He spoken none other than these, He would have been proved to be the Son of God.

Nothing more would require to be said to the 'penitent' on the Cross. This would be His last teaching moment to the world.

[kona0197]

If I was born into a Amazon tribe, then there was no chance for me ever to accept the gospel.

Well perhaps teaching goes on in the spiritual world but I don't think they teach the Mormon Gospel.

Hmmm, I thought you said earlier that the only thing stopping you from joining the church was the government. Sounds to me like you don't believe any of the stuff we teach.

That's a pretty confrontational post. Here is my response. Yes if I could join I would. But I do not believe in everything the church teaches nor will I ever stop questioning those teachings.

[Palerider]

I did not view JD's post as confrontational.....I was curious myself and he asked the question......

[kona0197]

Eye of the beholder my friend. How would you like to be grilled about what you believe?

OTOH JD and I have never seen eye to eye...

[Palerider]

Eye of the beholder my friend. How would you like to be grilled about what you believe?

OTOH JD and I have never seen eye to eye...

I get grilled about my beliefs often and have most of my life.....the joys of living in the Bible Belt