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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | evolving or devolving? | Matt 16:28 | jonp | 183798 | ||
Hi stjohn You can read your Bible because you learned the meaning of words through secular history and because secular history developd writing. You use a dictionary produced by secular history. Without realising it you are using secular history all the time in order to understand the Bible. Archaeology illuminates the Bible. But of course God arranged it all. Thus it becomes spiritual history. The Bible is full of secular history and if you are going to fully understand it then you need to know about secular history, otherwise you can interpret it in your own terms. But the Bible shows how God arranged secular history to make it spiritual history. If you did not have definitions of common words supplied by secular history you could not even begin to understand much of the Bible. Understanding how numbers were used in secular history is important because all the Bible writers emerged from secular history and used numbers in the way that their contemporaries did. Much of your interpretation of the Bible arises from your own secular background. In fact of course no history is in the end secular because God is involved in it all. So I do not understand your problem. If you are saying that I believe that knowing the thought forms of the societies from which the Bible writers came helps me to understand what they meant you will be quite right. They wrote in those thought forms. If I interpret them in the light of my own thought forms then I am likely to distort them (as so many do). Of course the message of salvation can come through even if I interpret some things wrongly. But it is spiritually lazy not to try to understand the Bible against its background. Best wishes jonp May I suggest that email is better for questions like the one you asked. Unlike you I give my email address. | ||||||
2 | evolving or devolving? | Matt 16:28 | stjohn | 183801 | ||
Hi Jonp; History, is a word that describes a concept: history is what we call everything that happened in the past. History has no power to bestow gifts or instill knowledge, history can do nothing of it's self. it's not a self, it's a concept. I believe God gave man that ability to wright and count and communicate at a high level, I don't believe Adam was some dim wit that just fell out of a tree. If Adam was created in the image of God then I believe he was a very intelligent man. who do you suppose told Adam he lived 930 years, my friend I think you're kind of putting the cart before the horse By assuming that secular history came before biblical history by the way. Saying that history somhow developed reading and writing is a pretty fantastic idea. I do however agree with your statement. "In fact of course no history is in the end secular because God is involved in it all." ' Maybe we should ponder that one. All that I know and all that I am is of or from God. Amen. You responded to my observation, and not my question by the way. peas stj |
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3 | evolving or devolving? | Matt 16:28 | jonp | 183826 | ||
Hi stj. I will agree that Adam was an intellectual giant within the world in which he lived before the Fall. But he did not know how to split the atom. God had not provided a library. And he had not developed the skill of counting. He did not need it. Life was too idyllic to want to go to school. You must not confuse intelligence with skills that have to be learned. No one is born able to count or read. It has to be learned. I doubt too whether he knew that he had reached 930 years. With all the modern resources at my disposal I find it easy to forget how old I am, for it is not important. Why should Adam want to keep a record of his age? He was far too intelligent to worry about that. I was of course using the term history metaphorically to indicate those who lived in historical times, and to indicate that we learrn from history. Let us not argue about terms. It is the heart of the matter that is important. But happily we may disagree and part friends. I did not answer your question partly because it contained loaded terms which need to be defined,and partly because I felt that you thought that you knew the answer already. Best wishes jonp | ||||||
4 | evolving or devolving? | Matt 16:28 | humbledbyhisgrace | 183828 | ||
Greetings jonp! Perhaps the discussion has reached a point it is no longer productive. It appears it has lead to assumptions that cannot be proven by scripture and therefore is only one's opinion. The fact is, none of us know what Adam's intellectual knowledge was outside of what the scriptures reveal to us. Anything after that is speculation at best. Was Adam born a child? Are you assuming what he understood was "learned" like a new born child? Assumptions that cannot be argued from scripture leads to bad teaching. Keep in mind there are many who read along with the post and when we become none scriptural we run a great risk of confusing and/or misleading others. I don't think that is your intent but unfortunately that is where we end up when we become dogmatic on things that cannot be proven by scripture. By Faith, Steve |
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5 | evolving or devolving? | Matt 16:28 | stjohn | 183832 | ||
Hi steve, I humbly agree. Thank you! peas stj |
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