Results 1601 - 1620 of 2277
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Results from: Answers On or After: Thu 12/31/70 Author: Hank Ordered by Verse |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1601 | accepting a non-beleiver | John 6:44 | Hank | 150196 | ||
Sent By God: Evolution might be a good place to begin your witness to your friend who claims not to believe in God but who you suspect believes in evolution.. For a good, general background on evolution from a Christian perspective, try this web site: icr.org .... and a specific article that you might casually mention to your friend can be found at this URL: http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-111.htm ..... This will lead you to an article called "The Splendid Faith of the Evolutionist" in which its author, Dr. Henry Morris, explores the idea that it requires considerably more faith to believe the message of evolution than it does to believe in God and the Bible. I pray that your ministry to your friend will bear much fruit. --Hank | ||||||
1602 | must we eat Jesus literally? | John 6:53 | Hank | 22735 | ||
Context, kama17, context! When Jesus held up the bread and cup and called them His body and His blood, His disciples obviously saw what they literally were and took His words in a decidedly figurative sense. In like manner so should we. --Hank | ||||||
1603 | should communion be weekly | John 6:53 | Hank | 122744 | ||
Your full question reads, "Do you have to have communion every week?" ..... The answer is no. Your short question reads, "Should communion be weekly?" ..... The answer still is no. Let's insert another question, "How often did Jesus say to observe communion?" The answer can be found in Matthew 26:26-30; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19,20. ....... And still another question, "How often did Paul say to observe communion?" .... The answer to that is in 1 Corinthians 11:26. .......... The bread and wine were only outward symbols of our Lord's death. Nothing in the Gospels indicates that these were to be viewed as a means of grace, as sacraments, or that they were physically necessary for one's salvation. ..... John 6:53-58: Jesus was not referring to the ordinance of communion because (1) it had not been instituted at that time, and (2) if Jesus had been referring to communion, the passage would teach that anyone partaking of communion would receive eternal life. --Hank | ||||||
1604 | Why is 'yet' not in the NAS?has support. | John 7:8 | Hank | 147535 | ||
sdee ::: The word 'yet' does appear in John 7:8 in the NASB; however, it appears only once, viz. "Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because my time has not YET fully come." However, the word 'yet' appears twice in the some other versions, e.g. NKJV, which reads: "You go up to this feast. I am not YET going up to this feast, for My time has not YET fully come." These variant readings are explained as follows: The NASB translators in this passage followed the Critical Text, which generally represents the Alexandrian or Egyptian type of text, whereas the NKJV (and KJV) translators followed the traditional text, known today as the Textus Receptus or Received Text, which was largely supported by the Byzantine family of texts, which according to the NKJV translators' preface to that version "has as much right as the Alexandrian or any other tradition to be weighed in determining the text of the New Testament." .... In any event, the sense of John 7:8 is not essentially altered regardless of which text is followed. The sense of the passage is that our Lord told His brothers that he was not going up to the feast because His time had not YET fully come. He did not mean that He would not go to the feast at all. We learn from vs. 10 that He did in fact go. Vs. 10 also teaches us that Jesus went up quietly and with a minimum of publicity: "not publicly, but as it were, in secret." So, Jesus meant that He would not go with His brothers and have a great and public manifestation. It was not time for that. So sometime after His brothers had gone up to Jerusalem, Jesus made a quiet trip there. --Hank | ||||||
1605 | Will Power and God | John 7:16 | Hank | 173586 | ||
Jason, young friend, I wouldn't get carried away with this "will power" thing and would be extremely wary of the mantra, "Where there's a will, there's a way," which has shades of meaning too uncomfortably akin to the superlatively unscriptural poem "Invictus" by William Henley. A comment on "Invictus" that you may find interesting is this: Timothy McVeigh, the heinous rebel bomber who murdered 167 souls and wounded some 500 others in Oklahoma City in 1995, was executed in 2001. At the end McVeigh chose not to make a "last words" statement from his own lips, but through a spokesman expressed the following sentiment taken from Henley's "Invictus": I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul." McVeigh, the master of his fate and the captain of his soul, is dead and his ashes scattered over the dust of the earth from which he came. Master? Captain? How much "free will" did he have, how much power did he possess to control his destiny? Read what Jesus said about the best laid plans of man in His parable of the rich man, Luke 12:16-21. ...... We've got to get our priorites straight and be sure we have things in their proper pecking order, my friend. There is no such reality as "a personal goal that you can control," to use your terminology. God is absolutely sovereign, absolutely omnipotent, absolutely in control. We are dependent solely on Him for each breath and each hearbeat. ...... I knew a man in his early forties. He worked hard and made a lot of money. He told me he "had it made" and was going to retire in a couple of years, at age 45, take it easy and enjoy life while he was still in his prime. Six months later the man was dead, the victim of an extremely virulent strain of cancer. ...... Jesus laid it down clearly for us in the Sermon on the Mount how we should live. He warned us against laying up for ourselves treasures on earth and taught us instead to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, pointing out that our hearts will be where our treasure is. He taught us that it is impossible to serve two masters. We cannot serve God and riches. And He taught us not to worry, but to look at how superbly God takes care of even the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, and asks which of us can add to his stature by worrying. He teaches us that our heavenly Father already knows our needs, so seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added. Reference: Matthew 6:19-34. ....... The Book of Ecclestiastes is the account of a king going through what we might call a mid-life crisis, an enormously rich man who had seen all and done all, and yet through it all did not find happiness or fulfillment, but only vanity and grasping for the wind. Solomon of old was not unlike modern man today. He wanted happiness and satisfaction in life, but he, like Frank Sinatra, wanted to do it his way. And he found, as modern man ultimately finds, that there is a huge void when one tries to do things his way, and so masw the profoundly gloomy and dismal observation, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." But in Chapter 12, just before the Book of Ecclestiastes ends, the king comes to his senses and puts things in their right pecking order, wrapping up the book with these words, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man" (Eccl. 12:13). ...... In conclusion of this post, Jason, I wasn't able to find much of anything substantive in Scripture about any good things that human "will power" can do, but it says much indeed about the power of Almighty God. And about the wisdom of trusting in Him and His Word. --Hank | ||||||
1606 | Biblical Interpretation? | John 7:17 | Hank | 167329 | ||
lionheart: Some years ago I attended a liberal lecture by a liberal professor from a liberal seminary who was also an ordained liberal minister in a liberal denomination. His topic had to do with what the Bible teaches about homosexuality. He tackled the Old Testament first and explained away everything it said about homosexual practices, and then he took on the New Testament and did the same thing. His line of reasoning on the OT teaching was this: that there was nothing wrong with homosexuality per se, but that it was discouraged for the Jews because the heathen nations around them practiced it. As for the NT teaching on the subject, the professor dismissed it as being merely the opinion of Paul who was known to be harsh and narrow-minded on sexual matters. ...... Oh, the professor went into a lot of mumbo-jumbo double talk, trying to sound authoritative and erudite, but what I have outlined here is the gist of what the man said in his lecture. It's a lecture I'll never forget, not because it was worth a row of pins in forthtelling the truth of God's word, but because it so aptly illustrates the brand of interpretation -- call it a liberal spin of the first water -- that one is likely to hear these days from the fools who subscribe to the "higher criticism" junk that is invading liberal seminaries and polluting the young malleable minds of thousands of seminary students -- the very students who are filling or soon will fill the pulpits of churches across the land. No wonder there's a crisis in Christendom! --Hank | ||||||
1607 | Bible Study | John 7:17 | Hank | 182765 | ||
Cuddle, some questions put before SBF fall flat on their face while others, such as yours about Bibles and Bible study tools, not infrequently draw a lot of responses. I guess we're all interested in that sort of thing, which is very good, and each has developed his likes and dislikes in Bibles and study aids, as well as his method of approaching Bible study, over the years and, judging from the volume of responses, he is eager to share them with his friends on the Forum. ..... Much good stuff has come forward in this thread and I have nothing really new or earth shaking to add. Long ago I gave up trying to hitch onto every new version, commentary, study Bible, or other materials that were promised to make me as wise as King Solomon. I've found my Bible study -- and my life in general -- goes a little better the more I try to heed Henry David Thoreau's advice to "Simplify! Simplify" .....My methods are quite ordinary and my Bible tools few, and I'll list them both in a moment. But first I'd like to quote a line from Rudyard Kipling: "I keep six honest serving men, (they taught me all I knew). Their names are what and why and when and how and where and who." ..... It's remarkable how much these six men, along with a good Bible translation read in context, can teach us. ..... A concordance (I've used the same volume of Cruden's that I bought 50 years ago and it's still ticking) and a Bible dictionary (I use Holman's) are indispensible. I like John MacArthur's notes as well as Charles Ryrie's. And I get a lot of good stuff from the annotations and other study helps in the King James Study Bible (Nelson). I read from several versions, but in the main I study from the NASB and KJV. I also do a little Bible study and research on the internet, but nothing like some of my colleagues do. ..... I try to do some serious Bible study nearly every day. I am not a devotee of what has been called 'devotional reading' or 'quite time reading' in which one reads a snippet of Scripture, perhaps a poem or a 'devotional' quotation by some well-known writer of devotional tid-bits. I'm an admirer of Dicken's novels, but had I used such timid methods of sampling the works of Dickens, I'd still be toying around with "David Copperfield" which I've already read three times, the first time years ago. To learn Scripture one must study Scripture with at least the earnestness, resolve and industry that he would normally devote to Dickens or any other secular writer. Why we tend to think that we must nibble on Scripture as though we had spiritual anorexia instead of partaking of a hearty meal is beyond my comprehension! ..... But I've left out the two most important things in Bible study, spade work and Spirit work. The spade work means that we have to dig deep, long and hard to uncover the precious gems of truth that Scripture has for him who is willing to seek earnestly for them. "Ask, (also translated as 'keep asking') and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7, NASB). ..... And 'the Spirit work' means praying to God for illumination by His Spirit: "Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things from Your law" (Psalm 119:18,NASB). ...... A certain man, a Bible expositor of note, is on record as saying that he never put pen to paper about any book of the Bible until he had read that book through at least 50 times. The man's name, by the way, was Dr. G. Campbell Morgan. ....... Someone asked a great Shakespearean scholar years ago, "How do you study Shakespeare?" His answer was terse: "Read Shakespeare." ..... A seminary student went to his professor one day and asked him to recommend a good book on the life of Jesus. The professor responded, "Have you tried the one Luke wrote?" ....... "There is no royal road to learning" so says the old aphorism. Yet there are some people today who seem to believe that God will transform them into Bible scholars overnight without effort on their part. It's as if they expected to put a copy of the Bible under their pillows at night and while they slept, by some strange means of mental osmosis, the names of the kings of Israel and Judah would come up through the duck feathers! I agree with Dr. J. Vernon McGee: "The Bible needs to be studied. We need to realize that the Spirit of God will not teach us something that we could get for ourselves by study." ...... How important is it to study the word of God? I could write on this subject for days! But I'll close by relating a sobering experience. For more than a quarter of a century I taught an adult Sunday school class in a church where the Bible was not preached from the pulpit and the people simply did not know the word of God. That church, from which my wife and I eventually pulled away, has fallen into apostasy, can't pay their bills, and is dying for lack of nourishment, word of God. --Hank | ||||||
1608 | Is truth relative? How do we know it? | John 8:32 | Hank | 20453 | ||
Bill, you ask such easy questions! How I wish I knew the answers. For 66 years I've been alive and for 50 or so of those years I've been a Christian. But I am willing to be counted among those who readily admit they don't have all the answers. There is an old proverb whose source I've long forgotten that goes something like this, "The eye of the needle is difficult to pass through; thus, the wise say the path to salvation is hard." The proverb is, of course, a variation of Jesus' statement about the camel and the rich man.....I don't think it is essential to our salvation to be "right" on all the issues your questions address. I tend to camp with an idea C. S. Lewis espoused when he said that some churches are more right than others, but the ones that are less right are not necessarily all wrong either. I am summing up his thought from memory but believe I've captured the essential meaning of his words. It is my conviction, Bill, that the one essential, the sine qua non, is being right in one's relationship with the Lord Jesus. I happen to be a Southern Baptist and subscribe to the Baptist Faith and Message affirmations. But what would it matter to whose faith and message statement I subscribed if my relationship with the Savior were not right?...... I'd like to see more unity among Christians and fewer denominations, to be sure, but emphatically not the kind of coerced "unity" that is envisaged by a movement toward a world religion. Bill, I fear that my response has not nearly traversed the breadth of your questions. Perhaps a better head than mine can lend more to your inquiry which, by the way, is an excellent one indeed. Your presence on this site is a welcome sight. --Hank | ||||||
1609 | Is truth relative? How do we know it? | John 8:32 | Hank | 20473 | ||
Bill, having reflected further on your questions and my answer given earlier this evening, I beg the luxury of being able to amend one of my statements; to wit, "I'd like to see more unity among Christians and fewer denominations." My ideal, my utopia, would be to see complete unity and no denominations at all in Christendom. I'd like to see Christianity become what C. S. Lewis wrote a book about and what he chose for its title: "Mere Christianity." At the first, in those days when Peter and Paul were so actively spreading the good news, the church and its members were called simply "The Way" or, merely, "Christians." It was not, even then, all sweetness and light, however. The early church had its dissenters, its problems, and divisions, to which the book of Acts and the Pauline and Pastoral letters clearly attest. But I believe it's fair to say that the differences were not so vast nor the factions so firmly entrenched then as now. I can't see an iron allegiance to denominationalism as a healthy thing -- not for the individual Christian or for Christianity itself. A long-time admirer of C.S.Lewis, I particularly cherish this line from the preface of his book, "Mere Christianity": Speaking of denominational differences and disputes he said, "I think we must admit that the discussion of these disputed points has no tendency at all to bring an outsider into the Christian fold. So long as we write and talk about them we are much more likely to deter him from entering any Christian communion than to draw him into our own."...... So said, and well said at that, by C.S.Lewis. When I talk with another Christian in person, or interact with him on the forum, and he tosses his creed, catechism or confession at me as if it were the definitive gospel of Jesus Christ, I know that I am out of my depth, and so very likely is he, in such waters -- waters that involve points of high theology and ought never to be treated except by real experts; and even then, they can and frequently do have wide differences in their points of view. --Hank | ||||||
1610 | Is truth relative? How do we know it? | John 8:32 | Hank | 20475 | ||
The short form of your question, Bill, is "Is truth relative? How do we know it? To the first I would say, "No, I don't believe truth is relative because the Bible speaks of the truth in the absolute. And how do we know it? I'd name the "golden texts" of the Bible as Genesis 1:1, the first 17 verses of John's gospel, and John 3:16. They contain enough of absolute truth to last us for an eternity. Everything else is exposition upon these fundamental, foundational truths. --Hank | ||||||
1611 | Shepherd's Chapel t.v. cult - need info | John 8:58 | Hank | 114545 | ||
Donna - Shepherd's Chapel guru Arnold Murray teaches the following heresies (this is by no means an exhaustive list). For starters, He and his followers are 1611 King James Onlyists. (This is not uncommon for cults, by the way.) Murray teaches modalism; he teaches that men were once gods who existed prior to living on earth; that Anglo-Saxons are the chosen race; that Eve had sex with the serpent in the Garden of Eden and gave birth to Cain by this union; he takes the annihilationism view of hell. The list of theological blunders could be extended, but this short list gives one a hint of just how far off base Arnold Murray and his cult are. If your friend who is being taken in by this blasphemous cult could be persuaded to be a Berean and compare the theological mumbo-jumbo that Murray spews out to Scripture itself, surely she is not so blinded that she can't see the blatant errors of Murray's brand of gospel. The source from which I took my foregoing synopsis is www.mission.org/jesuspeople/arnmuray.htm. I pray that you can rescue your friend from the claws of this vulture. --Hank | ||||||
1612 | Japanese's suicide is brave and honor | John 10:18 | Hank | 81848 | ||
There are any number of ways to demonstrate belief in a better life after death besides committing suicide. In fact I would ask, How does suicide testify to any belief other than that life has become so unbearable that it is no longer considered worth living? ... You draw an interesting conclusion in reference to "many famous Japanese authors" who commit suicide "at the highest point of their life"; namely, "They defeat death. These are quite similiar to the Christian faith." In the first place, how is it possible to "defeat death" by bringing it on? And in the second place, no true Christian has ever claimed that he has the power to defeat death by suicide or any other means. Rather, it is the Christian's affirmation that Jesus Christ defeated death, and because He defeated death -- because Christ lives eternally, we too, those who believe in Him, have eternal life. Suicide missions have absolutely no kinship with Christian beliefs. To equate Jesus' death on the cross to human suicides is not worthy of serious comment. Jesus did not commit suicide. He was slain on a cross. He could have prevented it. He could have miraculously struck His enemies down in an instant. But He did not. He suffered and died willingly for the sins of the world. The miracle of the cross is that, by God's design, there was no miracle. No miracle was performed to prevent it, although there clearly could have been. It certainly was within God's power to prevent His Son's agony and death, yet God gave His only Son, suffered Him to die on the cross, because He so loved the world. [John 3:16] And the Son, Jesus Christ, in perfect obedience, willingly gave himself to die on the cross .... To conclude, I ask you to study Hebrews 11 within the context of your question, "Shall Christians also commit suicide at the highest point in their lives to show their faith?" ... Is suicide mentioned or commended as an heroic act of faith performed by any of the persons referred to in this chapter? Consider Judas Iscariot. He committed suicide in the wake of his betrayal of Christ, but is he commended for his faith in having hanged himself? Is Judas someone whom you'd cite as a paragon of faith? James (see James 2:18) had something to say about how the believer ought to show his faith, but you will find that he did not suggest suicide as one of the ways! --Hank | ||||||
1613 | Do you keep salvation? | John 10:28 | Hank | 168671 | ||
nanypr1: The doctrine of eternal security teaches that God is able to complete the good work of eternal life that He has begun in every believer: "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good workk in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). "will perform it" is God's promise that He will finish it. Paul is laying it down to the believers of Philippi that the work of grace that God began in them at conversion will be divinely continued "until the day of Jesus Christ." This is to say that the Lord will keep working in these believers until Jesus returns to the earth, at which point He will finish His work, bringing it to completion -- the culmination of progressive sanctification, which is called glorification (see Rom. 8:16,17; 2 Pet. 1:4; 1 John 3:2,3). ...... Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one" (John 10:27-31). ...... It has been argued that the doctrine of the eternal security of the believer leads to antinomianism, a fancy term for 'allowing Christians to live in sin.' But this charge has no merit and lacks depth, because it reveals at best a shallow understanding of the very nature of salvation. Salvation involves both a union with Christ and death to sin (read Romans 6). In addition, please see 1 Corinthians 3, which stresses the believer's service to Christ. Please note verse 15 of this chapter. .... Lastly, even if Scripture provided no more evidence in support of the doctrine of eternal security of the believer than John 3:16 -- it does, of course, provide more, much more -- this golden verse attests strongly and unimpeachably to the kind of life that God gives to all who believe in His Son. It is life that lasts forever; it is eternal life; it is God's gift, not a prize that man can acquire or forfeit by his works. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8,9). --Hank | ||||||
1614 | Should we rethink the Trinity? | John 10:30 | Hank | 135529 | ||
Saint N Says - Should we rethink the Trinity? It has been done. Many times over. The fruit of clear, biblically-based thinking about the Trinity is called orthodoxy. The fruit of fuzzy, man-based thinking about the Trinity is called cults. What profit can there be in exhuming ancient heresies and giving them asylum? Teaching that was proved false in the first century and has been proved false in each succeeding century is no less false in our time. Far better to let dead dogs lie and concern ourselves with spreading the truth of the gospel of Christ. --Hank | ||||||
1615 | Should we rethink the Trinity? | John 10:30 | Hank | 135587 | ||
Saint N Says - Tim Moran asked you a good question concerning your definition of the Trinity. Along with your answer to Tim's question, it would be good to know what your belief is. Would you say that you're a Trinitarian or do you hold to some variant view on the doctrine of God? Lastly, your user name holds interest, particularly on a Bible study forum. "Saint N Says" when spoken sounds like "Satan Says" -- a curious user name indeed. It would be interesting I'm sure to learn why you chose such a name to use on this Forum. --Hank | ||||||
1616 | How many days had Lazarus been in the to | John 11:17 | Hank | 182245 | ||
Luv - Your answer is in John 11:17, but let me ask you, are these "homework" questions? It certainly seems so, and if they are, you should be digging out the answers for yourself instead of looking to the members of this Forum to do it for you. The answer to the question about how long Lazarus had been in the tomb before Jesus arrived in Bethany is so easy that a sixth-grade child who knows how to use a Bible concordance or Bible dictionary should be able to answer it without any trouble. We aren't trying to run you off from using SBF, but we are urging you to research simple questions like this one for yourself. If you're engaged in a Bible study class, we most assuredly commend you for it and, again, we encourage you to do a little mental spade work yourself. You'll be better off for it if you will. --Hank | ||||||
1617 | Need Bible passages for dying friend | John 11:25 | Hank | 4502 | ||
Dear Lily's Mom:You might read to your friend Psalms 1, 23, 46, 100, 119, 150. Matthew 5:1-12. John 3:16 and 11:25. Romans 8. And 1 Corinthians 13.God bless you in this ministry and in your life.--Hank | ||||||
1618 | Need Bible passages for dying friend | John 11:25 | Hank | 4510 | ||
You will note that the suggestions for passages given by JVH are, for the most part, differenct from mine. That's wonderful! What an example it is of the marvelous richness of God's word in being able to speak in so many places and in so many ways to the hearts of the dying, and to the living as well. The Bible is an inexhaustible storehouse of spiritual truth, wisdom, hope, and comfort. Whether new believer or seasoned saint, it is a fountain at which we must all drink daily in order to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord. My prayer is that these passages will bless your friend as she prepares to meet her Lord, and you as your prepare to begin your walk with Him. --Hank | ||||||
1619 | Hebrews 6:4 -Am I a useless cause? | John 11:25 | Hank | 121020 | ||
Dear 'former' -- Never have I seen this combination of words: "Having attempted salvation several times and failed." I simply don't understand them. How does one go about attempting salvation in the first place, and how does one fail in the attempt? I believe your clarification of this cryptic statement would help us all in our attempt to help you. --Hank | ||||||
1620 | Jesus Wept - (Jn.11:35) | John 11:35 | Hank | 148812 | ||
Bobby : If Jesus wept, and Scripture confirms that He did, we should not feel ashamed to weep when the occasion calls for weeping. One is reminded of the poignant scene in the motion picture "Shadowlands" when Anthony Hopkins as C. S. Lewis wept openly and unashamedly upon the death of his beloved wife. And I -- I too had occasion to weep and weep profusely when my son died some years ago of an automobile accident. There is something cleansing and therapeutic in giving oneself over to weeping in times of intense sorrow and profound grief. ..... By the way, your note was posted as a question, but it is better to post notes as notes. Thanks for your contribution. --Hank | ||||||
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