Results 1 - 4 of 4
|
|
|||||
Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Who decided that the extraordinary gifts | Acts | DocTrinsograce | 197927 | ||
Dear Ex, Let me ask a rhetorical question: How do you know that God intended you to be alive this Christmas Day of 2007 AD? Answer: You live. If God had intended otherwise, you wouldn't be alive. So let me repeat from many previous posts: God is sovereign. He brought the church into existence and He chose the apostles -- gifting them and empowering them by the Holy Spirit -- to lay its foundations. Now He providentially guides the church. God chooses those who will comprise His church, the Holy Spirit draws and regenerates the elect, and Christ, the cornerstone, is the head of the church (see Ephesians 2:20-22; cf 1 Corinthians 3:9-11). So who else could have made such a decision? God led us to these conclusions by giving us explicit qualifications for the Apostolate that no one later could meet. Also, the apostles themselves, through their epistles, prepared the church for the day when they would be absent. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit instructs the invisible body of Christ with the consensus of studied godly judgment of the Biblical truth regarding the church. Finally, the church walks out that truth -- in some periods of history better than in other periods -- in a way that allows us to see His clear involvement. Don't you suppose that He who spared not His own Son (Romans 8:32), but gives us all things unto both life and godliness (2 Peter 1:2-3), wouldn't also give us signs if we really needed them? Instead, we are told to live by faith not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Indeed, Christ warns that only the wicked seek for a sign (Matthew 16:4). Aren't the signs that God gave the church in times past sufficient for us today? Or will we insist to God that we have to see with our own eyes? Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29 ESV) In Him, Doc |
||||||
2 | Who decided that the extraordinary gifts | Acts | Ex32 | 197936 | ||
Dear Doc, Thank you once again for your wonderful insights and study. I do appreciate them. I somehow feel an unsatisfactory, almost an uncomfortable feeling about your answer. I mean nothing by it, only to say that is what my conscience is saying to me inside. I was doing fine when I was reading the Bible on my own. I read it and believed it as it is written. I'll continue to push onward and learn as much as possible. Thank you once again. |
||||||
3 | Who decided that the extraordinary gifts | Acts | DocTrinsograce | 197938 | ||
Dear Ex, You're welcome... I'd be careful about feelings... There is no other thing in creation more deceiving than the human heart (Jeremiah 17:9). Notice that Ephesians 4 says absolutely nothing about feelings being a contributing factor to our maturity and our avoidance of error. Nor does it say we go off on our own. But what does it say He has gifted us with? (Ephesians 4:11) In Him, Doc |
||||||
4 | Who decided that the extraordinary gifts | Acts | Ex32 | 197943 | ||
Thank you for your cautions. I'll certainly heed them. Bless you friend. |
||||||