Need a some help!

L

LegatoMR

New Member
Today I was playing Guild Wars when someone from our alliance asked about Gnosticism. This alliance is made up of 10 Christian guilds.

Well anyways, I said that Gnostics are pagans. They believe in multiple Gods, they believe that the God of the Old Testament is a lesser and evil God and that Christ was a supreme and good God. This is all I said but then someone started calling me hurtful names such as hypocrite and a phony. I don't know how this happened, he said I was judging other religions but I did nothing of the sort.

After I asked him why he called me these words, I basically stated my beliefs (about how I feel Gnosticism goes against the teachings of the Bible) and then said that “this it is my beliefs but I only stated what the Gnostics believed so how are you calling me a hypocrite…for informing people what it is? I did not say they are bad people, I did not say they will go to hell, etc.”

Now, if I had to guess one or the other, then I would probably say they would go to hell because I believe the Bible is inspired by God and that if you go against it, you are against God, but I would be glad to be wrong. I do not wish for my fellow brothers and sisters to be tormented forever but if it happens I will believe it is fair and just, for God is fair, just, and what he believes, is holy for he is holy.

Yet all I said to this guy was the beliefs of gnosticism and later on I stated that "I believe Gnosticism is wrong ok? I believe it goes against scripture. I believe that you are saved by grace not knowledge. This is what I believe! I would appreciate if you stop calling me these names, you don't know me dude."

Well supposedly allot of people left their guilds because of "religious talks". I kind of feel bad, but I don't understand what I did wrong. Everyone basically told me to stop because I'm making people leave. They didn't say stop to the other guy but only to me, for informing people and then later stating what I believe. I kind of see where the guild leaders were, but still, I didn't see another way out, other than saying I was wrong and I will not say that.

That guy called me a hypocrite, that’s extremely offensive, I was heated! I prayed and started reading...well I'm not so heated anymore.

Mary once poured oil on Christ. When all the peoples yelled at her for wasting that oil, that the oil could have been sold and given to poor people, Christ told those criticizers to sush.

What that says to me is that, the only valid criticism is that of Lord God Almighty, all else doesn't matter. So, I'm pretty chill right now but I still want to know if I did anything wrong. If I did I want to fix that but I don't think I did anything wrong, then again I'm not too good at finding mistakes about myself...big ego here...lol.

Thank you, sorry for the long read :p.
 
In a nutshell and very quickly, Gnosticism is not as broad as you protray here. Gnosticism by it's very definintion is knowledge. Gnostics beleived intellectual knowledge was salvation. Some thought of Christ as the Gnostistic others looked more to Plato. The key here is that Gnostics hated flesh and anything human and sought to be the highest human in 'pure thought'.

So, in short, Gnosticism is not a Christian faith and goes directly against Christian teachings (faith without works is nothing and a physical risen Christ that you could touch). It is also broad enough to be infused with any belief system.
 
While your short & sweet abbreviated answers may not have been 100% accurate (see above), you didn't do anything wrong. In fact, it seems that you did what was expected of you based on our scriptures. You were presented with an opportunity to eventually share the information of the Good News.

Ultimately, people yelling at you to stop so more people wouldn't leave...blah blah blah.... isn't your fault. Someone else asked the question. You only answered it. So either way you look at it, you did the right thing.
 
LegatoMR said:
Today I was playing Guild Wars when someone from our alliance asked about Gnosticism. This alliance is made up of 10 Christian guilds.

Well anyways, I said that Gnostics are pagans. They believe in multiple Gods, they believe that the God of the Old Testament is a lesser and evil God and that Christ was a supreme and good God. This is all I said but then someone started calling me hurtful names such as hypocrite and a phony. I don't know how this happened, he said I was judging other religions but I did nothing of the sort.
Click to expand...

The name-calling doesn't surprise me, considering the elitist nature of that system of belief. To a gnostic, there is probably nothing more offensive than a Christian denouncing someone else's faith on the perceived basis that it 'isn't Christianity', without the denouncer fully understanding precisely what that faith really is. Gnostics are likely to view Christianity as a religion involving millions of people mindlessly following what preachers say, the Church says, the Bible says, etc.

With that in mind, I think it is best not to tell them what they believe, even if you've studied gnosticism in detail. A better strategy is to ask them to express their belief system in a paragraph or so, and then address that statement in light of scripture.

Also, I think the term 'polytheistic', whether accurate or not, should probably be avoided when dealing with gnostics. The problem is, it may seem dismissive of the gnostic belief in a single creator-God, who they do believe is the one and only creator of the universe and everything in it, just as we Christians do. Yes, they do believe in other gods in a certain sense, and also that all of us are divine beings trapped in a physical existence, similar I think to the Mormon system of belief. But ultimately they still believe that a single good, caring though unknowable God was behind all of creation, and they want to reach out to that God, just as Christians or Muslims do.

A better objection to gnosticism becomes clear when you read the following summative quote from the Wikipedia article on gnosticism:


"In order to free oneself from the inferior material world, one needs gnosis, or esoteric spiritual knowledge available only to a learned elite."


It's a different road to salvation entirely, and one which is restricted to those who earn it by acquiring special knowledge. All scripture which shows God's intention to commune with all who love him and obey his commands, and which shows undeserved salvation through faith rather than salvation earned through works, can be used to argue against Gnosticism.

Paul
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top