Is there a single true Christian?

On first reading, in isolation, yes ... but it was never Gods intention to exclude any race from gaining salvation ... it was a question of a timeline if you like.
It is just that He first wanted to make a way open to faithful Jews when He ended His relationship with Israel. The Jews rejected His message and killed His Son, but some were still faithfull and accepted the message of salvation from Jesus.

So first Jesus spent his time bringing the message of salvation to the Jews who would listen, then with the conversion of Cornelius, God opened the way up for all to receive the Good News and gain salvation, hence in Revelation 7:9,10 it says:-
"After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.".

So everyone today, no matter what colour, race or background can gain salvation from God, thanks to Jesus Christ.

 

When you say never, you contradict with the first verse.
And when you say timeline, this is what Muslims believe in. That the message of Jesus was for that specific time and for the Israelities only; confirmed by Jesus.

As for salvation, look at this:

Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

 

why are we looking for a 'good' or 'perfect' christian anyway.and no human being regardless of faith can be categorised as 'good' simply because they don't eat pork, drink alcohol, or pray a certain number of times a day. forget it! my definition of 'good' applies to the way a person acts in everyday life towards his/her fellow human beings, and that doesn't necessitate reading a holy script and obeying certain rules that have no bearing on life today. after all saddam hussein prayed 5 times a day, probably didn't eat pork etc. and orthodox jews obey all the rules in their holy scriptures whilst pushing their palestinian neighbours to the brink of despair.
i have known many 'good' people and not one of them subscribed to organised religion.

 

That was a bit harsh, while the question wasn't worded very well it's a valid one all the same, it's fair to say that there is more than one religion that is using or based on the happenings and word of the bible, and it's also fair to say that there is no obvious reasons for thier sometimes huge differences in social perspective, perhaps if you had given the question another ten seconds thought instead of jumping down the ops throat you mighta got it.

 

There is no contradiction, just different time periods and circumstances that God is dealing with at that time.
In the begining God created man and woman and commissioned them to full the earth with perfect offspring and to care for the animal creation.
This quickly failed due to the activity of Satan and the failure of Adam & Eve to be obedient to God, thus they became imperfect, died and brought inherited death to all mankind, (as your quote from Ezekiel shows).
God then turned His attention to restoring peace and perfection to the earth through Adam's offspring.

Part of His purpose in doing this involved the nation of Israel, using the Mosaic Law to demonstrate to them how imperfect mankind had become since Adam and demonstrating the need for a perfect sacrifice ... the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ that leads to mans salvation.

So God at one time had the Jews as His chosen people, sadly over an extended period of time they rebelled against Him and eventually killed His Son Jesus. He discontinued His special relationship with the Jews and brought about the Christian Congregation, formed initially from faithfull Jews but then extended to all of mankind who would exercise faith in Jesus' sacrifice.

So we are now in a period of time when all men can take advantage of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ to the purpose of reinstating Gods original purpose of having the earth filled with perfect, obedient mankind ... of course much has yet to happen before that is acheived!

 

In the bible it says stay away from blood, and the jeovah's witness understand it by do not consumme it by mouth or by blood transfusion.
the christians ignore this, the same is said in the koran but muslims just avoid to eat meat which hasn't been cooked properly.
Like I sai dbefore it really depends how you understand things.

 

Good point!
In fact Jesus was once asked which was the greatest commandment, his reply was this:-

"Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

So the keeping of any particular 'law' or praying is in itself to no avail - rather it is necessary to 1st love God, (" This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome," - 1 John 5:3) and then to love our fellow man as ourself. According to Jesus if we do these two things we don't need any commandments ... stands to reason really, if we love our fellow man we won't steal his car, his wife or kill him!

 

What I don't understand is, if God forbade Jews from eating pork, why all of a sudden he resurrected the idea that it was OK for christians to do so? That does not make any sense unless pigs were suddenly purified and not the nasty creatures that we know they are.

 

These are your own assumptions! Nowhere does Jesus say that!
He clearly clearly said this:

Matthew 15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

If this wasn't so or was not going to be so, then why did he say that?
This clearly states that his mission was for the people of Israel. And for the rest, he said this:

John 14: 16-17

16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

 

But with respect Jesus only came onto the earthly scene in the latter years of the bible. It is not only Jesus' words that show us Gods activity and purpose. The reason why Jesus spoke mainly of the activity of bringing the Good News to the Jews is because that was Gods immediate activity at that time.
Clearly both Jesus and the followers of Jesus spoke to non-Jews and the vision to Peter and conversion of Cornelius demonstrates clearly that it was Gods intention to expand Christianity to all nations - the Apostle Paul for example was called the 'Apostle to the Nations' in that he had special concern for bringing the Good News to non-Jews.
These are not my assumtions, they are clearly seen from the bible, but encompass a large period of time and activity so would take an extremely long post to clarify if you are unfamiliar with the entire bible.

At John 14:16,17 Jesus was specifically speaking to his 12 Apostles, he was telling them that they would receive Gods Spirit after Jesus death and it would enable them to accomplish many things, even greater things than he did.
These Apostles were all Jews who had accepted the Christian faith, Jesus told them to preach to others the world over, (as shown before at Matthew 28:19,20) so although he spent his time concentrating on finding 'the lost sheep of the House of Israel' he commissioned his followers to take the Good News that he started and take it the world over and that is exactly what Christians have done from the time of Paul to those of the present day.

 

You should realize the stress in the statement before commenting on it. It says, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel"
If you know English well, you will know what I mean.

As for John 14: 16-17, I just looked at it in context and nowhere found specific evidence that it was specific for those twelve.

And what do you think about this?

John 16: 12-15
12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
15 All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

 

Where you got that info from. Jesus in fact made good quality wine to help his host at a wedding when they run out of wine. So alcohol is not banned for christians. & I never heard of the pork ban anywhere either

 

I never seen that part in my bible

 

It doesn't change anything, the truth of Gods word and purpose is not based on a single word other wise God would not have found it necessary to have it declared in the entire bible.

Read it again - Jesus was gathered for the passover meal with his 12 Apostles, that was who he was talking to.

Jesus was explaining that the Holy Spirit would come to help them after Jesus had been resurrected to heaven. This it did, as evidenced by the activity of the Apostles and disciples and the direction they received, for example the direction given to Peter to extend the Good News to Cornelius and open up the way for non-Jews to receive the Good News and become Christians ... that has continued down to this day.

 

Your statement still does not make sense. Jesus' words should be enough.

Nope. It isn't about the Holy Spirit. Look at it in context:

John 16:7-14 "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew [it] unto you."

This shows that Jesus had to go for the comforter to come! And the Holy Spirit was still there. And the Holy Spirit did not reprove the world of sins! If you know, Jesus had clearly prophecised the coming of Muhammad (PBUH) to his disciples even if the translators changed it. But here, there is no refute:

[John 1:20] The chief priests and Levites asked John the Baptist, "If you are not the Christ (Messiah), and not Elijah - are you THAT Prophet?"

 

eating pork wasnt allowed as a safety measure...

 

And here, spirit is used for prophets:

"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world," (1 John 4:1-3)

This also shows there will be a prophet and its your duty to try him if he is from God.

 

In the NWT John 16:7-16 reads like this:

Nevertheless, I am telling YOU the truth, It is for YOUR benefit I am going away. For if I do not go away, the helper will by no means come to YOU; but if I do go my way, I will send him to YOU. 8 And when that one arrives he will give the world convincing evidence concerning sin and concerning righteousness and concerning judgment: 9 in the first place, concerning sin, because they are not exercising faith in me; 10 then concerning righteousness, because I am going to the Father and YOU will behold me no longer; 11 then concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

12 “I have many things yet to say to YOU, but YOU are not able to bear them at present. 13 However, when that one arrives, the spirit of the truth, he will guide YOU into all the truth, for he will not speak of his own impulse, but what things he hears he will speak, and he will declare to YOU the things coming. 14 That one will glorify me, because he will receive from what is mine and will declare it to YOU. 15 All the things that the Father has are mine. That is why I said he receives from what is mine and declares [it] to YOU. 16 In a little while YOU will behold me no longer, and, again, in a little while YOU will see me.”

Notice in verse 13 "the spirit of the truth"? Right, now think of the apostle John in around 100CE when he was given the vision to write the Book of Revelation. How did he receive that vision? Was John able to understand what he was seeing in the vision? Who was giving him the visions?

These questions you should be asking yourself to help find out what these verses really mean.

Col

 

The actual word used for comforter is parakletos.
And Jesus used this word for himself too! That is why he said, another parakletos!

It is used here:

"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have a parakletos with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." (1 John 2:1)

 

mohamad was neither a prophet, the holy spirit or anything good. mohamud represents evil in so many ways. he is the example of evil to be used for generations to come, who will make hitler seem like nothing.