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Results from: Answers On or After: Thu 12/31/70 Author: tlewis Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | What is an acceptiable "Biblical questn? | Bible general Archive 2 | tlewis | 134068 | ||
I agree. I certainly do not want to be discussing purely political issues. But clearly a Christian is one who believes and declares Jesus as Lord over every aspect of his life. This includes the Christian's reponsibility to fulfill his obligation as a citizen to vote. Thus since our decisions are suppose to be guided by our Counselor, the Holy Spirit, I see no reason why issues that necessarily determine the way in which we effect our body politic should not be openly discussed in light of the Word of God. Christianity does not espouse a segmented life, but a life that in every part is consumed and united by a desire to honor Father and Son. |
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2 | God chooses our time of birth and death? | Job 14:5 | tlewis | 134064 | ||
I'll give a couple references and you can take them how you like. Job 14:5 "Man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed." Genesis 2:7 "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." My logic (note: not necessarily truth; the sole authority for truth is the Bible) follows on life and death. Man is body, soul, and spirit. In my opinion the soul is the merging of the body and spirit, i.e. the way in which the body and spirit communicate and thus who we really are as people. We know where the physical comes from (the union of the male sperm and female egg), but where does the spirit come from. Many believe that the Genesis passage (cited above) refers not only to the physical respiratory process but the moment when God furnished Adam with a spirit. The origin of the spirit must be God; there can be no other source. And since the soul (i.e. who man is) is uniquely determined by both body and spirit, each person was born at the time God chose to give a unique spirit to a body thus creating the person, a living soul. For clarity I also believe that each spirit that makes up each individual had no history before conception; that is, I believe the spirit is created at the moment of conception (i.e fertilization) and the uniting of embryo and spirit is a living soul. On death, this is somewhat tricky because it gets into a free will vs election type argument that we are apparently suppose to avoid. But let me say that it is clear that God knows the moment of our death and knows how long we will live and in fact I believe he does set the day we die according to his sovereign choice but also based on his preknowledge of how we will live. I can think of the first command with a promise Ephesians 6:1-3, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother"--which is the first commandment with a promise-- 3"that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." Thus I think it is clear that our decisions can effect the length of our lives; in God's foreknowledge, He already knew our decisions and thus our date of death was set (i.e. man's days are determined). [Note: I am not saying that someone who lives a short life has not honored God. God is sovereign and his ways are higher than our ways and his thought than our thought.] Again, I stress that this is my interpretation. |
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