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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
3981 | When was "In the Beginning" | Gen 1:1 | Hank | 17576 | ||
Dear CDBJ: From your description of the "discovery" by the man, who just happened to have his master's degree in the Hebrew language, that the word "hayetah" in Geneis 1:2 should be translated "became" and not "was" is the darling of the proponents of the "Gap Theory." Therefore, according to this translation, Genesis 1:1 describes an original creation of God (Job 38:6; John 1:3; Hebrews 11:3), and Genesis 1:2 explains that the earth "became" chaos. Verse 2 is interpreted negatively as a description of the earth under judgment (cf. Is.24:11; 34:11; 45:18; Jeremiah 4:24-26), a state resulting in the expulsion of Satan from heaven (Is.14:12-17; Ezek.28:11-19; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6.) There is therefore inherent in this theory an indeterminate gap of time between verses 1 and 2 of Genesis 1 which, so argue the proponents, could account for the assumed older age of the earth than might otherwise be the case. Thus the following account in verses 3-31 of the six days of creation become in essence not the creation, but the re-creation, of the chaotic earth...... The traditional view, the one that I hold, is that the Hebrew verb "hayetah" in this context means, and should be translated, "was". The traditional view does not answer our every question about the when or how of God's creation. No view does or ever will. But it does not require of us, as the Gap Theory does, to postulate a broad spectrum of speculative assumptions to make it plausible and workable. The Gap Theory raises far more questions than it proposes to answer. Proponents of the Gap Theory have, in my estimation, fallen prey, perhaps unwittingly, to the pragmatism that characterizes naturalism. Naturalism seeks to explain, in human terms, the origins and causes of all things. It does not allow for the supernatural acts of the transcendent God. When we attempt to superimpose man's wisdom on the wisdom of the Creator we fail every single time. In no other way is man's foolishness so clearly shown than when he presumes to know the mind of God to such an extent that he thinks he has it all figured out about how and why God does what He does..... I happen to believe that God did His creative work in six days, each of which contained 24 hours. Others believe that the "days" were symbolic of vast time periods. I've been asked, "But don't you think God COULD have chosen an evolutionary process in His creation?" My answer is always "yes" -- yes He COULD have done that -- and "yes" He COULD have done, and can do still, anything and everything He pleases. But we can know, and know only, what He says in His word that He actually did. He tells us clearly that He created man from the dust of the earth and fashioned him in His own image. He makes no suggestion whatever that He prevailed upon either primordial ooze or evolution to effect His creative acts. Evolution is not science; Darwinian evolution is now being debunked by vast numbers of members of the scientific community. Evolution is a theory, but it is more than that; it is, in fact, a religion. A religion of naturalism designed to explain away any idea of the supernatural power of, or even the existence of, a Supreme Being..... God's word does not lend credence to any evolutionary theory or to any Gap Theory or make either necessary. The Almighty God whose power is so incomprehensibly immense that He can speak an entire universe into existence really doesn't need our weak theories to explain it. --Hank | ||||||
3982 | who did Cain marry? who will kill him? | Deut 29:29 | Hank | 17382 | ||
Hi, Norrie. The subject of Cain has been beaten to death, you say? Aren't you being too conservative? I did a search just now, and so far this forum has to its enduring credit a "mere" 196 rambling and speculative posts about Cain and his mysterious wife. Now, 196 posts later, we know the identity of Cain's wife no more than we did when Post #1 was entered. You know, it seems to me that 196 posts would convince us of the utter futility of giving to this topic another word. But, knowing how way leads on to way on this forum, I expect we shall see in time at least 196 more. --Hank | ||||||
3983 | will the world end soon | Matt 25:13 | Hank | 17207 | ||
Dalprad, I agree with you: there is a lot of tension in the discussion. And to what end? We could, and I mean all Christians, drain the swamp of tension over future matters by leaving them where they belong, (do we really have a viable choice?) in the hands of God. By faith we believe that Christ will return: we don't know when. By faith we believe that the earth as we know it will change: we don't know with pin-point precision what those changes will entail. Our only burden regarding future events is to do what Jesus told us to do: be on the alert. But regarding present events, the here and now, He gave us a bushel of things to do in His vineyard. Doesn't the Scripture place far more emphasis on being ready ourselves for His coming and on ministering to others so that they too will be ready, than it does on amusing ourselves with time frames and other eschatological scenarios? --Hank | ||||||
3984 | So what does this passage mean? | Matt 10:14 | Hank | 16921 | ||
That is indeed a grave concern, Bill, and I believe all Christians share it and none has a really good answer. We are living in a world in which easy answers come with rapidly diminishing frequency. Were it not for my hope in Christ I would be, I should think, numbered among the world's greatest pessimists. Whether the real and present problem of mortal danger to Christian missionaries in a given location was indeed addressed in Jesus' phrase about shaking off the dust I cannot say with anything that approaches certainty. A missionary effort that is known beforehand to be met with deadly resistance before it has a chance to carry out its function would hardly be worth mounting and could not have any positive effect, it seems to me. A live missionary is more apt to bring the lost to Christ than a dead one. To this scenario, perhaps Jesus' words do indeed apply. --Hank | ||||||
3985 | Opinions of J. Falwell on WTC attack. | Rom 3:23 | Hank | 16907 | ||
"Has God removed His hedge around America to protect it as He did to His people of olden times?" is, I believe, the thrust of Jerry Falwell's message. The timing may have been less than ideal; the naming of names may have been inappropriate at such a time and on such a medium; the secular press may have been less than fair in their reporting of the incident.... But the question is a valid one nevertheless. Has God indeed removed His hedge from America in the wake of our wide-spead national apostasy that has resulted in our turning away from Him? We cannot really expect the secular world to understand the concept of God's protective hedge -- nor to care. They see and they understand nothing but human cause and effect. We who believe in our sovereign God allow for causes and effects that superintend the natural and the human. Thus I would never presume that, in any and all given events, the Sovereign Lord has no hand whatever. --Hank | ||||||
3986 | Should we shake the dust from our feet? | Matt 10:14 | Hank | 16903 | ||
Charis, I quite agree. Should Christians opt to measure a country's rejection of God's message by its governmental stand, what country would measure up? Would a country in which prayer and Scripture reading are banned in its public schools? Would a country that hosts the pluralistic view that one faith is as good as another? The message of Jesus Christ is for all nations. But salvation comes in small doses, personally, individually, to one person at a time when he is led by the Spirit to respond to the message of the gospel. That any given nation holds dissenters and enemies of Christianity neither diminishes the force of the commission Jesus laid down to preach the gospel to every creature nor gives Christians license to be selective of their audience. Paul did not hesitate to travel to foreign lands that were hostile to his message. Neither should we. It's the cross we bear when we follow Jesus. --Hank | ||||||
3987 | Explain doctrine and statement of faith | John 3:16 | Hank | 16034 | ||
Very Precious, I'm happy to answer your questions about my background. I have attended neither a Bible college nor a seminary. I attended college and my major field of study was the English language and literature. I am not a pastor but have taught various classes at my church for some 20 years. While God has blessed me with a bump of curiosity and a keen desire to know more of Him through His word, in no sense of the term would I call myself a scholar...... I pray God's blessings on both you and your husband in your aspirations to enter the vineyard in service to our Lord. Your proviso for this endeavor was "God willing and the finances are available." I beg both of you to consider thoughtfully and prayerfully that if God has called you into His service, He will make a way when, by all human assessment, there seems to be no way. --Hank | ||||||
3988 | What is eternal life? What is saved? | John 6:37 | Hank | 16022 | ||
Tim, with all the vigor I can muster this morning, I echo your feelings and perspectives about the heinous acts of yesterday morning that leaves injury, death, destruction, and untold agony to countless numbers of American citizens. My wife and I truly emphathize with the families who have lost loved ones in this disaster. We lost a son at the hands of a drunken driver. Though on a smaller and more limited scale, the devastation wrought by a drunken driver is no less devastating to a particular family than that wrought by a terrorist. Our personal scar has remained with us for over a decade and our lives have never been quite the same in the wake of our loss. So it will be with the families of the victims in yesterday's unprecedented tragedy; and not the families only, but with all Americans. I pray that we as a nation will return to God who has promised that if "My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (1 Chron.7:14). --Hank | ||||||
3989 | What is eternal life? What is saved? | John 6:37 | Hank | 16004 | ||
Hello, Tim. I'd like to begin with another appeal to you and the rest of our forum family to continue in prayer for our land and for its leaders in this sad hour when we stand in so dire a need of God's help and strength to get us through this time, a time of tragedy and mourning, and a time when this republic faces one of the greatest crucibles in its history......... Tim, I'll try to paraphrase the questions you have asked, and they are tough ones. I'd really rather you'd put them quietly back on the shelf and ask me something about dinosaurs or Cain's wife :-)........ You ask whether I accept the Calvinist view that the only realtest of election for any individual is his perseverence; and, if not, how do I feel that election and belief relate?..... Well, Tim, first of all, I'm not a five-point Calvinist; I'm a Southern Baptist. I'm not acustomed to or comfortable with using the words "election" and "belief" in the same sentence, and I'm not trying to be a smarty pants when I say this. I'm simply not used to thinking in this way or in this category of thought. And I simply can't answer your questions, Tim -- not because I am being stubborn, not because I am trying to duck them, but simply and honestly because I don't know the answers to them....... Dr. Paige Patterson, considered by many Southern Baptists to be one of our top theologians, is on record somewhere as having given a lecture at one of our seminaries on the topic of election and free will, citing for the students the main points of each view. Near the close of his lecture one of the students said, "But, Dr. Patterson, I still don't really understand the relationship between God's election and man's free will." "Frankly," Dr. Patterson responded, "neither do I." (This item about Dr. Patterson is anecdotal; I heard it in a sermon from a Baptist minister and am relating it from memory; yet I believe the facts are essentially correct)...... So, Tim, that's it for me. No deep wells of theology spring forth from me. I have never fully understood God's election much beyond the simple concept that God is God, transcendent and sovereign, and can do and does, in fact do, whatever he wills. I have much less problem understanding that Jesus saved me 52 years ago by His grace through the faith that I, a 14-year old boy, had in Him. I trusted Him then and I trust Him still. I wasn't a theologian then and am no theologian now. I've let Him down many times and in many ways; He has not let me down even once. I'm not quite sure, Tim, exactly how to explain what belief in Christ has to do with election, except to say that I believe the Holy Spirit had everything to do with my conviction that I was lost and needed a Savior. That's how I see election and that's how I see free will. Jesus offers His salvation; we learn of it through the message of the gospel; the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin; the choice, or free will, that we have is whether to accept or reject the offer of salvation..... So, then, my friend and brother Tim, I have herewith told all I know and confessed all I don't know about this topic. So, please have mercy on me and don't ask me hard questions like these :-) Blessings in Christ. --Hank | ||||||
3990 | Explain doctrine and statement of faith | John 3:16 | Hank | 15979 | ||
Very Precious, you won't find the Nicene Creed in the Scriptures, nor as for that, any of the other well-known creeds that have become a part of our heritage of literature on Christian faith and practice. Unlike Scripture, these creeds, confessions of faith and the like are not inspired and the claim is not advanced that they are. They are merely man's attempt to state in summary form the essentials of the Christian faith..... You asked about the Nicene Creed in particular. It is an ancient creed, adopted at the first Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 to settle a controversy concerning the Persons of the Trinity. Should you like to read it in its entirety (it isn't very long), you may go to makedisciples.com/nicene-c.html. Or simply go to a search engine (I used Yahoo) and type in the two words, nicene creed, and you will be able to find it. Some websites offer it an couple of translations...... But please let me say again, creeds are not Scripture. Many people feel that they are of help to them in being able to express and affirm in succinct form what they believe. If any of the creeds help you to do this better, fine. If they don't help you or don't say what you believe, you're at liberty to continue your walk in the Lord and leave the creeds behind. --Hank | ||||||
3991 | What is eternal life? What is saved? | John 6:37 | Hank | 15968 | ||
Kin, in your most recent response to my post, you, speaking of the genuineness of conversion, asked me, "Was yours? How do you know? Is that eternal security, not knowing for sure? Do we have to say the right words? Feel the right way?"......... Kin, how we "feel" has nothing to do with salvation, and salvation has nothing to do with our feelings. There are no "right" words, no works, nothing, and again I say, nothing that we can do now or ever that will contribute one iota to our salvation. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Period. Period. Period..... Scripture answers your question, "How do we know" (we are saved)? and it answers it fully and for all time in language so clear and plain that a child could understand. Here it is: "The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has that life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that may know (((so that you may KNOW, so that you may KNOW, so that you may KNOW))) that you have eternal life." (1 John 5:9-13) Parenthetical repetition and emphases are mine. .... By the way, did you happen to catch that last statement, "so that you may know that you have eternal life"? --Hank | ||||||
3992 | if someone take there own life where wil | NT general Archive 1 | Hank | 15962 | ||
My dear Golden Child: It was not I, but someone else, who advised you not to consider suicide. It is most unfortunate when this forum offers advice when it is not requested and which it often is unqualified to give. I'm sorry if the inference you may have drawn was an embarrassment to you. Merely because someone asks a question about hell, for example, doesn't mean he or she is contemplating going there. --Hank | ||||||
3993 | Prayer for the Terrorist Attack | 1 Thess 5:3 | Hank | 15955 | ||
AMEN AND AMEN. LORD GOD, HELP NEW YORK, HELP AMERICA, HELP THIS WORLD OF SIN AND SHAME.IN THE NAME OF JESUS. AMEN.--Hank | ||||||
3994 | Should Christians practice nonresistance | Lev 26:6 | Hank | 15864 | ||
Of course, as you know Nolan, I don't try to hide my being a Southern Baptist, and we Baptists by and large tend to be a patriotic bunch, which includes service in the military in defense of our country. We don't consider bloodshed in defence of country in the category of murder proscribed by the sixth commandment. My stint in the U.S. Army was during peacetime, and I didn't face the grim possibility of having to take the life of a fellow human being, for which I am personally grateful till this day. I was in the Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) and chances are would not have been on the front lines of battle in any event. That would have been quite a spectable if our outfit of Counter-Intelligence gumshoes ever got on the front line, because just about everything we did seemed to run counter to intelligence :-) --Hank | ||||||
3995 | if someone take there own life where wil | NT general Archive 1 | Hank | 15830 | ||
God'sAngel: Without reservation I agree with you that suicide is sin. I further agree with you that God gives life and that we should not insult Him by taking it. And, providing you can support your assertion by Scripture I will agree with you in your view that a redeemed child of God, by taking his own life, will not go to heaven. --Hank | ||||||
3996 | Was Peter denied before the Father? | Matt 10:33 | Hank | 15823 | ||
There is, I believe, a sense in which all believers deny their Lord every day of their lives, because each of us, in his own way, sins and falls short of the glory of God. When we allow the things of the world to take pre-eminence over Christ in our lives, even for a short time, we are to some degree denying Him the place He demands in our hearts and lives. Peter's denial had its genesis in fear and cowardice. Ours may stem from lust or greed. We may be deceived and fall prey to idolatry of various sorts. We may equally deny Him by our apathy, our failure to take decisive action in asserting our faith or in witnessing to the unsaved. While our denial may not reach the same magnitude as Peter's did when he blatantly affirmed, "I do not know Him" it is nonetheless denial. --Hank | ||||||
3997 | What is eternal life? What is saved? | John 6:37 | Hank | 15799 | ||
Kin, it is amazing to me that you would call what I said about the passage of the lost son in Luke 15 "entirely speculation." Suppose you tell me how a biological son of his one and only biological father can acquire another biological father, thus severing his relationshp to the first?...... Your citing the verses of Hebrews 6 in an effort to prove your position that the perseverence of the saints, or the eternal security of the believer, is not sound teaching comes quite as no surprise to me. I rather expected it, as in the same manner I expect Acts 2:38 from proponents of water baptism as essential to salvation. In both instances what is being done is extracting a few pet verses that SEEM to support a certain view while virtually ignoring a host of other scriptural passages that teach no such thing...... I will not attempt an expanded exegesis of your verses. Whatever I said would, in all likelihood, be much too "speculative" to suit your tastes. I will, however leave you with this thought to mull over. If the verses in Hebrews 6 teach that a person can lose his salvation, they also teach that he can never be saved a second time, which becomes tantamount to saying that whatever he did to lose his salvation was an unpardonable sin, does it not? And does that interpretation square with Jesus' definition of the unpardonable sin? And does the Hebrews passage, when you interpret it to mean that the eternal security of the believer is a false teaching, conflict with any of the following passages: John 5:24; 6:37-40; 10:27-30; Rom.5:9-10; 8:1,31-39; 1 Cor.1:4-9; Eph.4:30; Heb.7:25; 13:5; 1 Pet.1:4-5; Jude 24? --Hank | ||||||
3998 | Doesn't it say that God would cause evil | 2 Sam 12:11 | Hank | 15644 | ||
Thanks, Joe, for your response and it reminds me of an old saw I read once that said, in essence, that when everybody thinks exactly alike, no one thinks very much :-)....... While I'm quite willing to concede the possibility that my remarks may not be precisely germane to the spirit of this thread, would you allow for the possibility that, as I stated, there has been in some theological circles of our time, a distinct erosion of the the spirit of wonder, awe and reverence in which the view of God and His eternal word is held?...... One of the planks in the platform of some proponents of the King James Bible is that in those "good old days" men took a more reverential view of Scripture than they do in our time. I am far from prepared to affirm that the translators of the KJV held any higher view of Scripture than, say, the NASB translation team; or that this presumption by some KJV supporters constitutes a cogent reason to adhere to the KJV above all others; nevertheless, the evidence appears incontrovertible that we do see in some of the hallowed halls of theological academia a definite trend toward replacing traditional views of Scripture, and of Scripture itself, with so-called higher criticism, which in my view, amounts to nothing less than a watering down of the importance that Scripture plays in our faith and practice. --Hank | ||||||
3999 | Is it wrong to swear or take an oath? | Matt 5:34 | Hank | 15635 | ||
Your comment about wedding vows and rates of divorce reminds me of a definition I read once of our rootless society. It pointed out that our definition of commitment is when a man and a woman live together without a marriage certificate in a rented house furnished by rented furniture and drive a rented car. Now, that's real commitment, isn't it? --Hank | ||||||
4000 | Is it wrong to swear or take an oath? | Matt 5:34 | Hank | 15630 | ||
Nolan, another follow-up to your answer about taking oaths. You may be too young be familiar with the expression, "A man's word is his bond." But it was very much in vogue when my father and mother were young, and I've heard them use it many times. In the "good old days" major business deals were consummated merely by verbal agreement and a hand shake. And they were carried out, too, just as agreed, because then a man's word was truly his bond....... In our time it has become commonplace to read of deception, deceit and lies in high places in business and government, even in spite of oaths of office or written legal contracts. --Hank | ||||||
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