Next time you're at the steak house, ask yourself "What would Jesus eat?"
Rack of lamb. Biblically speaking Lamb was Jesus's favorite meat.
I would implore the widow to keep her money so she can live to help another day, and implore the rich man to give, but also to stay rich so that he can continue to help. Giving everything you have helps only once, and makes yourself poor in the process.
The bible has many great stories and lessons within, just that one I'm not a fan of.
You should avoid thinking in this manner. "There are parts of the bible I like, and parts I don't like" is incorrect. Everything in the bible is there for a reason.
she denied my request to murder them and now I realize what a fool I was / am.
We all are lead astray, what's important to remember is that it is not the last time you will be made to understand your own foolishness.
I think if God ever had a plan, it was completely derailed at some point and the world it is today was not a part of his plan.
God does not play dice with the universe. Everything that is happening is both a result of human action, and also "foreseen" by God. (Foreseen is the wrong term, because to God there is no such thing as time, time is a worldly thing).
how can a person have free will if the outcome is already determined?
This is something I am currently struggling with, my church has explained to me that there is a difference between "free will" and "free agency", they argue that there is no will but God's will. I do not agree with this. I believe that we do have what we commonly refer to as "free will" as well as "free agency". If we didn't, there would be no significance to the fact that Adam and Eve ate the fruit. There would be no significance to acts of good or evil, as if we are determined to be good or bad at the time of our birth (or before), then we are simply what we are, and there is no reason to judge those among us that are evil, because hey, it's God's will for them to be evil, right?
I do struggle with this still though, because God is all knowing, he knows that some will be evil, he knows some will be good. The question is if he chooses those who are good and evil, or if he simply allows them to be without intervention.
There is a metaphor I like: Creation is a book, God writes that book. He allows us to write it in along side him, in the margins. He could peak forward at any time, but even if he does, he does not go back and change what he's written in response to that. So while he knows everything that's going to happen, everything we are going to write in the margins alongside him, he still sticks to his plan for the book. Our additions are there, and his story is there, in unity. This kinda lends to the "God has the plan but not the man" thing. God wrote in the book that someone would betray Jesus, and Judas wrote "and that man is me".
