Results 521 - 540 of 784
|
||||||
Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Author: Beja Ordered by Verse |
||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
521 | Heaven/hell - those never hearing gospel | Rom 10:12 | Beja | 223986 | ||
To the thread and forum, If anybody is truely struggling with this question I bet this book by John Piper would help you work through the issue. And Piper is very biblical in the things he writes. Jesus: The Only Way to God: Must You Hear the Gospel to be Saved? by John Piper You can find it for like six dollars in paperback on amazon.com. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
522 | John Mills 30k inconsistancies in the NT | Rom 10:17 | Beja | 219624 | ||
Hello Kevo, While you've been given some good words on this question. I felt it might build your faith to hear a bit more of what is actually going on with these errors in the manuscripts. First of all we need to take an honest look at what was going on when they were copied. Most have heard stories about how reverently the Hebrew text was copied and how carefully they preserved it from error. This was done by professional scribes and even the slightest error found would cause the copy to be burned. However, when you come to the new testament documents this isn't what you see. What is happening then is largely uneducated people are copying letters written from the various apostles and evangelists. They are using very cheap materials and they don't have the training or financial means to just scrap them if one letter is wrong so that they can start again. So we would expect many errors in these manuscripts. However, also consider the nature of these errors. As you said something like 90 percent is in perfect agreement, but there is a more remarkable statistic. Of the errors, the vast vast majority are of what we would call a negligible nature. In other words its something like this: Four manuscripts read as follows... Jesus is the Son of God Jesus is the Sun of God Jeus is the Son of God Jesus is the Son of God This is a made up example, but bear with me. In these four "manuscripts" now we have already counted two errors. But look at the nature of the errors. Their source is so obvious (a mistaken letter, and somebody hearing and writing a phonetically identical word) that there is literally no doubt whatsoever as to what is the original author's writiing. This is the nature of the huge majority of "errors" in the manuscripts. Now, if one of these errors occur within a passage on the virgin birth, we can rightly say there is error in such passages, but they mean to make it sound like there is a significant variance in which one manuscript teaches something crucially different. Do you see how their words are true yet deceiving? Are there errors that can affect the sense of a passage? Yes, rare but yes. But even in these there are no errors that affect a passage's teaching of a doctrine that doesn't have ample teaching to show the error for what it is in other areas of scripture, or more often just in other copies of that manuscript. Most expect God to have preserved his word through one copy with no errors. But if that was the case how would we know it had never been tampered with? No shortage of wicked men have tried to alter scripture I suspect. But God has preserved his word by a sudden amazing spread of copies throughout all the known world at the time, so that if in any place and in any passage wicked men have altered his word, or have translated it carelessly through tired eyes, manuscripts throughout the world shout out corrections to it. So we have many errors, but many witnesses to the true writing of God's word, showing us clearly what it is. Such is the wisdom of God. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
523 | How can we know if Bible was not fabrica | Rom 10:17 | Beja | 222470 | ||
Billy 2010, You said, "I don't want to simply have a blind-faith." Sir, I would like to commend very highly to you "blind faith." Hebrews 11 teaches us that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And it is by this blind faith that abraham believed God that his descendants would be as many as the stars in heaven. It was by this blind faith that he was willing to risk offering up the one son of promise he had through whom God had told him this multitude would come, believing that if God let him die then God was able even to ressurrect him. Blind faith is the means by which men are saved. Read 2 corinthians 4:1-6. Men are not set free from being blinded by clever arguements, but by God granting them to perceive the truth of who Christ is. Romans 10:17 claims that faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of Christ! The parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 ends with the rich man in hades crying out for lazarus to go warn his brothers of this place. He was told that they have Moses and the Prophets (the scriptures), the rich man responded that if only one rose from the dead then his brothers would believe!. The response to him was that if he will not believe those said scriptures, then he would not even believe should somebody rise from the dead to warn them. And I tell you, sir, should you not believe scripture for what it says with this "blind faith," then you will certainly not believe regardless what defenses we give you. That being said there are many apologetic sites that could give you "defenses" of scripture's inspiration. A couple of things that strongly argue in its favor are archeology and prophecy. Many prophecies in scripture were fulfilled with such obvious precision that it speaks of scripture's inspiration. Time and again also, the world has accused the scriptures of false history details, the book of luke was once laughed at for references to people and places that we had no record of existing. Yet christians took it with, "blind faith." Now Luke is marveled at as historically accurate to a remarkable degree. Why? Because archaeological digs kept proving Luke right time and again. There are other things to argue for it, but you can always find a way not to believe it. Seek out this blind faith you refer to. It is the good stuff. It is the saving stuff. It is the faith that can ward off all the attacks of Satan (Eph 5.) In Christ, Beja |
||||||
524 | How can we know if Bible was not fabrica | Rom 10:17 | Beja | 222471 | ||
Billy, Forgive me, that last scripture reference should be ephesians 6 rather than ephesians 5. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
525 | God turns back on individuals? | Rom 11:5 | Beja | 227564 | ||
thread, I think what we run into here is very poor specifics on what we are asking. "Does God turn His back on us so that we can't be saved" is simply an emotional question that could mean more than one thing. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
526 | God turns back on individuals? | Rom 11:5 | Beja | 227614 | ||
PaulusSecundus, These verses are only illustrating my point. What are we talking about when we say that God turns his back on us so that we can't be saved? Are we talking about when God kills an individual? That certainly ends their chances. Are we talking about election and reprobation? Are we talking about the Gospel no longer being valid for them even if they repent and believe? Are we talking about individuals in some remote time and place who never heard of the gospel? All of these require different discussions, and in the mean time its just a vague highly emotionally charged question. There are certainly valid forms of this question, we just won't have productive conversations until we define what we are talking about better. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
527 | God turns back on individuals? | Rom 11:5 | Beja | 227632 | ||
Justme, I don't think that is what the original post was asking at all. However, you also illustrate my point. There is no great clarity on what is being asked. That has been my only point. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
528 | Doing a job without a call from God!!! | Rom 11:11 | Beja | 226220 | ||
Grace7044, "Calls" have been greatly over exagerated in our time. Now don't missunderstand me, there is truth to a man being called of God. But when somebody in our church wants to drive the youth van, we don't stop and try to make sure the man has received a destiny defining moment of realization before he may do so. What we look at, if we are doing it correctly, are two fold. First and foremost, the top qualification of any role within the church is a godly character. Look at 1 Timothy and see the qualifications of a pastor. Consider how many of them are character and how few of them are a matter of ability. Read the account in acts concerning the choosing of the seven to wait on tables. This is the type of task we'd toss to your youth groups and say, "oh, let the kids have some ministry opportunity!" But in contrast, even for such a thing as waiting tables the apostles called for men filled with the holy spirit. So first of all we require character. Second, we look to see if God has given the spiritual gifts for this task. Whether or not my character is godly, I assure you that you don't want me to be a music minister. God has gifted us for the roles that he wants us to play within the body of Christ. As you look at those two things, if an individual has a desire to serve in a certain way, it is then the role of the church to affirm whether this individual has both the character and the gifts of the spirit for this role. Granted those two things, followed with the individual actually desiring the job, there is nothing standing in the way. The "calling" is pretty much simply a God given desire for the task. There is such a thing as a desire for a task that is not from God. But how to tell the two apart is what we've been talking about, and the job of the church. We pastors have done a huge disservice by making people feel like they must have a damascus road story before they are validated. The truth is, it doesn't happen like that at all...usually. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
529 | contraception | Rom 14:1 | Beja | 221041 | ||
Dear Rajeeb, Here is a sermon that drastically changed my perspective with regards to children. No single scripture impacted me as did grasping a biblical opinion of kids. I hope this can help you and your wife as well. I will pray for you. http://www.evangelismteam.com/sermons_vbaucham.php In Christ, Beja |
||||||
530 | Is drinking and smoking pot allowed | Rom 14:23 | Beja | 228729 | ||
Justme, I do not think you will find a passage of scripture that says repentence, sexual purity, or right standing with God is a prerequisite to marriage. Or are unbelievers and sinners not allowed the gift of marriage under God's common grace? If you do find scripture forbidding marriage outside these circumstances, please let me know. Please note: I do think scripture teaches us to repent, be sexualy pure, and to be in right standing with God through Christ. I'm not asking you to prove this. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
531 | Subsequent process | 1 Cor 1:2 | Beja | 228468 | ||
Thread, I recently did an in depth study on the word sanctification in the new testament. What I found was that as Biblicalman said, "The term has a variety of meaning to be determined by context." The word is extremely flexible. However, I was quite disturbed by the range. How can it mean "set apart" in a quite literal interpretation. Yet we see it universally discussed as an ongoing conformity to Christ in every discussion we read in books? I found this disturbing and decided to try to dig at the root of it all. I found that sometimes the word is meaning "set apart," sometimes the word is meaning the ongoing growth of holiness/conformity to Christ, and yet sometimes it seems to have the sense of a finished event accomplished at the cross. See Hebrews 10:10 for an example of that type. Other times it seems to be almost synonymous with our entire salvation. Now what is the common denominator in all of this? I found the Old Testament to hold the answer. In the law, the setting apart of something to God was always done by clensing it. Whether by water, fire, or most often by blood, clensing something of its defilements was the way in which one set something apart to God. We can not seperate the two. If you took a holy object and asked a Levite at what moment it became set apart to God, I believe they would say when it was clensed for that purpose by the blood of a sacrifice. The clensing by sacrifice was its being set apart, and its being set apart was its clensing. So in the same stripe, we are set apart unto God through clensing by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So in one sense, we were certainly sanctified once for all at the cross. Christ is our sanctification. Then again we can look to our sanctification as the moment the sacrifice was applied to us when we were united to Christ by Faith. And yet there is more. The sacrifice ofcourse was clensing. Our sanctification is our clensing of sin, and our clensing of sin is our being set apart to God. So we must look at that aspect. And we must notice that Christ has clensed us from sin and this happens in two ways. First, Christ has clensed us finally from the guilt of sin, justification. Second, Christ has (ongoing process) sealed our clensing from the actually practice of sin, holiness. See the new covenant in Hebrews 8 and you will see both forgiveness and obedience were bought for us at the cross. So this means though we previously have mentioned a sense in which our sanctification has been accomplished, now we see a sense in which although our sanctification is garaunteed, it is in the process of happening through the holy spirit's work in progressively securing our obedience. So here is a sense in which sanctification is ongoing and can even be commanded that we persue it (Heb 12:14). So this I think is the root of sanctification, our being clensed by the sacrifice of Christ both from guilt and practice of sin so that we are set apart to God Holy. This is why the word is so so very flexible. Sometimes it just means set apart, sometimes it is highlighting the fact that Christ accomplished it, sometimes it is focusing on the fact that it is not yet completed in practice, and sometimes it is highlighting the entire process. Yet if we keep the whole picture in mind, we can see where they are focusing on any given context. Hope this wasn't hopelessly jumbled and that somebody benefited. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
532 | homeasexual invited into home | 1 Cor 5:1 | Beja | 223127 | ||
Posha, According to 1 Cor 5, if a professing christian is a homosexual we are not to even have a meal with them. However, I take 1 Cor 5 to mean that if an unbeliever is a homosexual then we ARE able to eat with them. The idea here is that with those who are professing to be christians, they are giving the world a false idea of christianity and the gospel, therefore our deliberate seperation is part of preserving both the church and the gospel. On the other hand, I bring to your mind what Doc is so often reminding us of. There is a difference in what we may do and what we ought to do. We may eat and spend time with an unbelieving homosexual couple, but should we? If our time is being spent to build a bridge for the gospel then in my opinion this is a good thing. Yet if we are just hanging out and having an ongoing friendship with no context of striving to bring them to christ or to show them their sin, then I would suggest it could contribute to the problem of confusing the outside world what the church is suppose to be. Not suggesting every encounter with them should be you challenging them, but I think if their conversion is the dominant desire in your heart it will look different to all involved. Hope this helps. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
533 | What does the bib say about christians t | 1 Cor 6:1 | Beja | 223470 | ||
MyAnnointed1, You will find that in 1 Corinthians 6. And the short of it is that it would be far better to let the christian get away with wronged you than to take your brother in Christ to court. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
534 | can you go to heaven if yoursavedand gay | 1 Cor 6:9 | Beja | 226550 | ||
Babbigil, 1Co 6:9,10 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. May I ask a question in return? How do you reconcile two things in your own question: 1. "Living an openly gay lifestyle 2. "Struggling to become free." Perhaps we are just having different terminology, but "living a gay lifestyle" whether hidden or exposed does not mean to me that they are struggling to become free of the sin. Regardless, rest assured that there is no salvation without repentence. Carefully note what is said in Ephesians chapter 4. Eph 4:17-24 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Note very carefull how this passages says that if anybody has been rightly taught Jesus Christ, they were taught to turn from old sins in repentence and to instead walk in holiness. This is a jarring passage because it causes us to conclude that a great deal of the "easy believism" that passes itself as christianity today are teachings that fail to teach Christ. Repentence is required. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
535 | is a christian allowed to drink | 1 Cor 6:10 | Beja | 213553 | ||
I think this is very unlikely in the great. In the greek it basically says the negative in between each. NOT addicted to wine, NOT pugnacious. Makes rendering it in a complex phrase such as the cause of each other highly unlikely. However, I'm not a greek master and it is possible that that combination can have some funny uses possible. My greek books are at the office so I can't say but as stated, very doubtful. In love, Beja |
||||||
536 | is a christian allowed to drink | 1 Cor 6:10 | Beja | 213554 | ||
heh, in the greek, not "in the great". Little fuzzy today, monday's are recooperation days for pastors. Beja |
||||||
537 | is a christian allowed to drink | 1 Cor 6:10 | Beja | 213558 | ||
Lion, Not sure quite how to respond. I was never trying to make any statement in the discussion except to let azure know what was in the greek, since she(or he?) showed interest. If you look at the post I responded to she asked if the idea of not being pugnacious and not drinking could validly be combined into one phrase in the greek. The answer is no. But, if you do want to know my opinion then I think having a drink is not a sin. Second, the question of whether one should or not can certainly not be given a universal answer. For me, as a Baptist pastor, in my given congregation, the answer is certainly no I should not drink (Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 9). Besides, the stuff is remarkably foul tasting so I wouldn't want to. God bless you and sorry for the confusion. In Love, Beja |
||||||
538 | is a christian allowed to drink | 1 Cor 6:10 | Beja | 213568 | ||
Justme, I wish I could let myself leave it as just what you have said. I wish I could leave it, "this has been abused and therefore lets just not mess with it, and not bother defending it." However, it is with a regret that I suggest to you this position is a luxury. It is a luxury of which few of us, especially a pastor can indulge. Consider this, a church that is convinced that alcohol is wrong, and a new Christian who wants to join who drinks a glass of wine before bed. The church wants to exclude this person based on drinking. What then? I dearly wish it could simply be solved by saying, "lets all keep our opinions to ourselves and not judge." I do not say this mockingly or with sarcasim, I truely wish it! There are times we need to know the truth about this. In such a situation do we need to exclude the person or are we putting requirements on church membership which God Himself did not place? Dare we exclude one that God does not find fault with for our own traditions? So I say this, at points we must know the truth on this topic, and we must stand fast in it. But until that is forced upon us I agree with you. There is no need to pursue it to the point that we are known as the "pro-booze church." In love, Beja |
||||||
539 | having sex if engaged biblical stance? | 1 Cor 6:16 | Beja | 228071 | ||
Biblicalman, Though we are going on speculation and not clear verses, this passage seems imo to refute the notion that having sex means you are married in God's eyes. Joh 4:16 He *said to her, "Go, call your husband and come here." Joh 4:17 The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus *said to her, "You have correctly said, 'I have no husband'; Joh 4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly." Jesus clearly doesn't think her sleeping with the sixth man means they are married. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
540 | having sex if engaged biblical stance? | 1 Cor 6:16 | Beja | 228073 | ||
Biblicalman, First, the passage that you are quoting does not say any of the things which you are saying. You are making inferences from the passage. Now those inferences could be correct or wrong, but the passage does not say them, they are inferences. Admitting as much is a matter of simply honesty, not debate. Second, you are making a lot of inferences from one statement. Third, your words do not agree with what Christ said. You said: "And that is marriage in God's eyes if we have not had sexual relations before. If we have tnen it still makes us one but in an adulterous relatonship." and "A second sexual union is adultery. It is not marriage in God's eyes because the person had been made one with someone through the first sexual union" Yet Jesus acknowledged 5 husbands as husbands. We do not have a clear explicit teaching but Scripture, and Jesus, do not appear to agree with your inferences which you are making from 1 Cor 6:16. I do not want to offend you as I have enjoyed and silently given my "amen" to many of your posts. However, I think you are off base on this one. In Christ, Beja |
||||||
Result pages: << First < Prev [ 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 ] Next > Last [40] >> |