The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Amish beliefs

I know that are ana-baptists but what all entails their beliefs? They appear to have a solid view of God's providence in all that happened this week.

I think if you actually do a little research upon the Amish you'll find that they come from free-will baptists of the radical reformation. I know that they are an off shoot of Simon Menno's group who definitely held to some strange beliefs.

John,

The Dordrecht Confession of Faith is a basic statement of Mennonite beliefs; the Amish broke away from the main Mennonite group because they felt that there was a lack of discipline. But the Dordrecht Confession reflects their beliefs.

Amish Anabaptist regard the New Testament alone as authoritative Scripture. The Old Testament does not inform their ethics. There are even parts of the NT which they neglect, i.e. Romans 13.

Because they renounce violence and every form of coercion, they forbid their people from participating in police departments and the military. Hence the Amish cannot really stand for justice against the oppressed. They do not cheer on the civil magistrate as he metes justice upon evil doers. Their extreme form of forgiveness violates Luke 17:2–4

"If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him."

Forgiveness requires repentance.

I think in this case no one could say there sorry, the prep is dead too. So I don't have to forgive anyone unless they asks? Makes Christianity interesting.

IMHO their forgivesness does not violate Scripture, nor does it require repentance when done to us:

14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Mat 6:14-15

Christians must forgive when asked for forgiveness. But if no repentance is sought, what kind of forgiveness can be granted? God Himself does not forgive the unrepentant, and so it is beyond our authority to do so.

interesting take esp. when Christ himself said "forgive them for they know not what they do." No repentance their yet forgivness is offered and asked for. Even in the verse I quoted it says nothing about repentance.

If someone does something wrong to me and I know it, I should offer forgiveness. However, if I don't know it than I couldn't.

The Amish knew what wroned them and they forgave, that does not need mean that there should not be justice.

There but for the grace of God, go I.

I think if someone were to kill my family and then themselves I would want to forgive them lest a root of bitterness spring and trouble me. Forgiveness never violates scripture for a Christian. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

William,


Are you confusing the absence of forgiveness for vengeance?


Forgiving someone who does not repent and ask for it is futile and meaningless. IMO, it's much like forgiving Bill Grogan's goat for eating your laundry or forgiving the wind for blowing your house down.

Denny

Romans 3:22-24

The Lord sends the goat and the wind. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

It should be emphasized that biblical teaching is only rightly discerned when the WHOLE of Scripture is included, aka: the Analogy of Faith, i.e., comparing Scripture with Scripture. Failing to do so most often results in error, Along the same idea of this subject of forgiveness is that of answered prayer. It is popular among the "prosperity gospel" and "name it and claim it" crowd to refer to the following passage:

John 14:13-14 (KJV) And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do [it].

However, this is a distortion of Christ's teaching because it fails to take into account other texts which are actually commentary on that saying, e.g.,

1 John 5:14 (ASV) And this is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us:

The point here is that carte blanc forgiveness is nowhere taught in Scripture as it would be in violation of other didactic passages [Basic Hermeneutics Rule #2: The Epistles interpret the Gospels] which teach otherwise, i.e., repentance is always a prerequisite to forgiveness. As CovenantInBlood mentioned in his reply, God Himself does not and cannot forgive sins without repentance. In fact, no one is forgiven any sin if that person is not salvifically united to Christ.

I also dealt with this issue in another thread where I supplied a link to a marvelous article on forgiveness by A.W. Pink, and Christ's words on the cross, which you can read here: My reply #1 and My reply #2.

In His grace,

No, forgiveness is not offered by Christ. He does not do any forgiving, but asks that the Father forgive them. And given the overall teaching of Scripture, it would seem evident that Christ ultimately was requesting the Father to send His Spirit to regenerate those for whom Christ prayed.


Which is proof of nothing, especially when we have passages that explicitly make forgiveness dependent on repentance, as for example "chestnutmare" quoted Luke 17:3-4: "Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' forgive him."


They should be notified of their wrongful action first, and if they repent, then forgiven.


They were in no position to forgive him because he is not around to repent or to be forgiven. His actions clearly demonstrate that he is now awaiting final judgement in hell--we have no right to forgive him.

Denny, I have never been told that forgiving someone who wronged you and is now dead is a sin.
In a sense that is what you are telling me. I certainly will consider the teaching but it sounds a little Devilish to me.

William

William,


I never said that this was a sin, I said that it was futile and meaningless. How can you forgive someone who is dead when he can't hear you and how can you forgive someone who is alive and he won't hear you?

In what sense? Please read Pilgrim's post and the article he linked in the "Forgiveness" thread.

Denny

Romans 3:22-24

I've been following this thread with some interest and it has raised some questions in my mind.
Let me press this point a little. Suppose a husband and wife get into an argument and one says something really bad and storms out for an hour or two to cool down. Most likely after a few hours, they will come back together and forgive each other (I assume there will be will repentance). However, while the spouse in the wrong is out, he/she is killed in a car accident. Now, should the remaining spouse never forgive the dead one because it is meaningless? Is it really meaningless?

First of all, I think forgiveness has several aspects. Or, maybe a better way to say it is that when people use the word "forgiveness", they may be attaching a different meaning to it depending on the situation. There seems to be a judicial aspect that many of the people in this thread are arguing for. In that case, I can understand that there may be no basis for forgiveness since the person is already gone. I can also understand in the judicial aspect, that repentance is required by the offending party before forgiveness is granted (party not dead). But, isn't there also a more individual aspect of forgiveness where you forgive the other person their wrongs against you. Maybe it's more of not holding their wrong against you against them then forgiveness. Or, it may be in a sense, not dwelling on the wrong and not letting it anger you or affect the love you have towards the other person. I wonder if a lot of the arguing in this thread is due to a difference in what people are meaning by "forgiveness". In the second aspect, maybe we shouldn't be using the word forgivenes and apply another term to it, but I think that is the definition that the vast majority of people are using for forgiveness. I wish I could explain what I'm trying to say a little better, but hopefully everyone gets my drift.

John