[Christians only] Angels are far superior to men

Thank you. I also got your PM. Don't worry about it. May God deliver you from your bad place.

Perhaps the discussion on angels is futile, in a sense, because it seems like we'll each continue under our own beliefs rather than come to a resolution. I guess I'll leave my thoughts here though.

When I read the Bible as a child, these were my convictions: the Old Testament and the Revelation of John reveals angelic beings that are very powerful, very frightening, and extremely holy; meanwhile the Psalms and Ecclesiastes reveal humans as very weak. Even in Jesus's day, it was the angels who helped and ministered to him in the wilderness, it was the humans who nailed him to the cross. Under this stark contrast, and under this vivid impression, the verses in Hebrews etc. didn't come across to me as implying inferiority. They never have. When I first read about judging I took it for granted that Paul referred to fallen angels... In fact I thought it was so obvious he could only be referring to them, that if I had opened a different Bible with slightly different translation that had said "fallen angels", I wouldn't have even noticed. The thought that he would mean the perfect angles never even occurred to me. Even the verse about angels as "servants", to me, left me with the impression that their service was the similar to Jesus being a servant- a sort of higher being who, through their own great humility, condescends to help people.

In fact as a child when I first heard someone say humans are beneath angels my mouth opened in gaping shock; to me it seemed to contradict everything in Scripture. I was even more surprised when I found the belief was actually commonplace. When they quoted the Bible to justify their belief I thought they were twisting Scripture and purposely ignoring other parts to try and make themselves feel like they were higher than the very messengers of God. At the back of my mind I thought it was a kind of bragging heresy. These were my child-like observations. I wasn't convinced by their arguments then, and never have been since.

On many topics I hold opinions that are contrary to the majority of Christians. I think it was because I tended to study the Bible alone as a child rather than in a church (thank God!). So my conclusions were never influenced by the standard consensus or by popular understandings or by church culture, and definitely not by any kind of political correctness. I found, when I finally entered a church, that its teachings were weak and pathetic. I found that if I casually mentioned something like "the more spiritual someone is, the more they will suffer", it would send alarm bells ringing in their minds and, almost as a defence mechanism, they'd quote verses about how much God loves them. And yet Job suffered, Christ suffered, Solomon suffered... my opinion had been based on impressions left on me by Scripture but those impressions were unwelcome in church culture. It grated against all their values.

Or if, when someone asked how I was born again, I innocently replied "Oh, I was born Christian..." more alarm bells: "What? But that means you never gave your life to Jesus!"; I didn't see what the problem was. Plenty of people are born Christian. Even John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb and Paul said that children are made holy by their parents... but no! Pointing this out means I'm "comparing myself to John the Baptist" and this is proof I must be incredibly arrogant; also I clearly "twisted Scripture" when I mentioned the verse about holy children. Also in using this verse, which has the word "holy" in it, I must want to imply I'm "holier than thou" and thus I can only be a self-righteous Pharisee. I have to be "born again" and "repent and turn to Jesus" even though I'm a Christian already... Why? Because their church culture believes that all are born into sin and there has to be some definite moment when they repented of their previous life and turned to Jesus, if not they cannot be Christian. These and similar things have caused Christians to accuse me of "twisting Scripture" ever since.

God only knows how they would've reacted if I'd told them I believed in a death sentence for gay sex and adultery!

I left the church and went back to studying the Bible alone, only to later find myself accused of "twisting Scripture" by Christians on the Internet whenever we didn't agree.

Anyway the point I'm making is, that, even if it seemed to you like I made excuses or twisted things to suit my own ends, I have in fact been honest and come to the conclusion which I am rationally convinced is true. Understand that and I don't mind whether we disagree or not.

... Everyone will find out about angels when they die, anyway.

God bless.

/r/TrueChristian Thread Parent