In a small town, there were two Coptic Churches. Let's call them A and B.
I attended the pre-servents meeting in Church A.
THey said the following:
Joseph, the son of Jacob, Pharoah's wife wanted to commit adultary with him. Joseph said "How can I commit this sin before the Lord?". The 10 commandments came after joseph. So who told joseph it was a sin? Church A said it was the Holy Spirit that was with Joseph, that told him it was wrong.
Strangly enough, i went to Church B [10 km away], and they were discussing the SAME very topic within the same 2 week period as when Church A were talking about this subject: They said however, it wasnt the Holy Spirit. It was well known that adultary was wrong. Not everything is mentioned in the Bible, and this is an example of Spiritual Tradition: Things were passed on orally. They knew it was wrong, yet it wasnt written down.
Now, there were no overweight people in that Church for me to determine whether or not they were true Orthodox or not. What Church do you think is right??
Comments
man what do u mean?? huh?? >:( this quote is very frustrating dude!! is it like a registered trademark nowadays that Christians are overweight or something!! ??? ??? moreover, what in the world does ur unecessary comment have to do with the topic??
Fibo
I believe this is what the previous posters were trying to explicate. Prior to Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was bestowed upon particular men at particular times. Thus you will hear of instances in which the "Spirit of the Lord filled" so and so; before the coming of Christ. However, while the Holy Spirit does not reside in all of men's hearts, God has imbued men with the cognizant propensity of a moral law deep within.
To answer your question saliently, I will ask you one question. Could not both the Spirit of the Lord and the conscientiousness of the ascribed moral tradition—passed down by the prophets—have compelled Joseph to refrain from ceding to his sexual proclivities? If so, wouldn't both churches be correct? This would suggest that the Holy Spirit worked within Joseph as a reminder to heed the established morality of the Jewish people.
For, the commandments were not the establishment of new moral values; they were the commencment of an absolute seal placed upon such values. In other words, the commandments would no longer be "relative" morality that changed to and fro....there was to be no more compromise. Yet from the start of Adam and Eve, the Lord decreed His identity as the Sovereign God to whom there was no equal. It logically follows that the command to Love God with all your heart, soul and mind and to love one's neighbor as one's self would have been the natural outcome of the individual who revered God and His creative works. The commandments set out to re-affirm what had been so easily displaced.
God Bless
k babye