Results 101 - 120 of 494
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Results from: Notes Author: stjones Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
101 | When should a person leave a church? | Ephesians | stjones | 103710 | ||
Hi, WilBo; Thanks for your response. A dry church is no church at all. Jesus said the world would know us by our love for each other. No love, no church. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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102 | Explain the Holy Trinity-verysimple form | Numbers | stjones | 103707 | ||
Greetings, Aixen7z4; You said "But please do not believe them when they say 'the Bible describes God as one single being'. It does not. If they had seen it in the Bible they might quote the verse. They cannot." I'm not sure what you mean by "God as one single being", but if you doubt the Bible states there is only one God (not two or three or more), that's easy: "Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us?" (Malachi 2:10) In Mark 12, Jesus confirmed the Old Testament teaching that there is one God: "Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one." James also affirmed one God: "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder" (James 2:19) But of course the Bible states equally clearly that God is more than one person. Who is this one and only God? Is he the Father or the Son? Do Genesis 1:1 and Malachi 2:10 contradict John 1:3? Or are the Creator - God the Father and God the Son - one God? They must be one, the one and only one. Did Jesus contradict Genesis when he said "I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am!"? (John 8:58) Who is "I am"? God the Father who spoke to Abraham or God the Son whom John quoted? The answer is clear: both. One God, at least two persons; I'll leave it to others to make the case for the Holy Spirit. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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103 | Do you seek God before you post? | Bible general Archive 2 | stjones | 103705 | ||
Hi, Search; Possibly Kathy was implying that as Christians we may have obligations beyond merely conforming to the Lockman Foundation's rules. It is certainly possible to post a message that meets the requirements of the rules and yet is contrary to God's will. My answer is that sometimes I do indeed lean on my own understanding when I post. Other times, I seek God's will and have often re-written or simply skipped a message I had composed. The more curmudgeonly posts are mostly of my own devising. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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104 | The Forum Continues To Grow | Ps 119:105 | stjones | 103702 | ||
Hank and BradK; Thanks for the encouragement. Perhaps I won't let myself get chased just yet. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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105 | must be theologians? | Numbers | stjones | 103701 | ||
Greetings, Aixen7z4, I'm curious about your distinction between "search" and "study". As I consulted my dictionaries, I found them to be quite similar. The only real difference seems to be that "search" has more of a sense of being oriented toward a particular goal - to find or discover a particular thing or answer. I assume you don't mean to say that we shouldn't read the Bible unless we are seeking the answer to a particular question. There may not be a specific command to "study" the Bible, but there's no command to breathe either. Some things are too obvious to be explicitly stated. Ezra studied the Law (Ezra 7:10). There are many references in the Psalms to meditating on God's Law or precepts (1:2, for example). It's hard to meditate on something you haven't studied. As you observed, the Bereans examined the Scriptures (Acts 17:11). Paul wrote that "from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Tim 3:15-17) How was Timothy to "know" the holy Scriptures if he just looked up answers to specific questions? Indeed, how would anyone know where to look for an answer without having studied the Bible? To tar all "professional" theologians with the same brush is to deny the value of teaching. What are those given the gift of teaching (Romans 12:7) supposed to teach if not the word of God? Good theologians work to organize and explain concepts found in the Bible; that's what a good teacher does. The Bible is a very disorganized book in some ways, hence Thompson's chain Bible, for example. A word doesn't have to be in the Bible to be a good and useful word; "sanctification" is an "invented" word that describes a very Biblical principle. You may find the concept of a single God in three persons - "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost" - not to your liking, but your beef isn't with the word "Trinity". Besides, if you limit the scope of the Bible's teaching to the words it contains, you're going to find a whole of host of 21st-century problems that the Bible doesn't specifically address. It requires theological thinking - identifying eternal principles and trying to understand how to apply them to the here and now - to deal with the world we live in today. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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106 | Are we supposed to observe the Sabbath? | Bible general Archive 2 | stjones | 103590 | ||
Hi, Search; [DISCLAIMER: If I misrepresent anyone's training in ancient languages, correct me and I'll gladly apologize.] PMJI, but I'm trying to understand this thread. If I get it correctly, a disagreement between two people over the eternal significance of the use of passive voice in a language neither one reads "proves" that one of them is against Jesus and preaching a different gospel. Is that about it? In contrast, Tim actually does read ancient languages and can understand an entire passage in context, something I don't think either you or Kathy can do. He says (paraphrasing here) the use of passive voice neither proves nor disproves that God did the initiating. I share your distrust of experts, but I gotta go with my fellow Hoosier on this one. Neither one of you has "proven" anything. Not about the passage, anyway.... How 'bout we debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? I'm sure we're all equally expert on that topic, and it's nearly as significant as this one. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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107 | The Forum Continues To Grow | Ps 119:105 | stjones | 103042 | ||
Hi, Hank; I drop by less frequently because of the strident messages that seem to dominate so many of the threads. This saddens me because I have been truly blessed and instructed by the sometimes impassioned but always civil discussions that I have had with many people here. I have participated in thoughtful, sometimes lengthy threads on such topics as the historicity of Geneses 1, the fate of Judas, baptism, praise music, and others. In those discussions I often proposed a distinctly minority view. None of you whose opinions and teaching I respect (I hope you know who you are!) ever called a traditional doctrine I defended "Satanic" or tried to intimidate or insult me into submission. None of you ever suggested that I was too "stupid" to understand your brilliant (or divinely delivered, or "obvious") explanation. None of you suggested that I wasn't saved because I disagreed with you. None of you offered blanket condemnations of "most Christians", or "the modern church", or whatever part of the Body of Christ you might disapprove of. Most importantly, none of you who display true wisdom, humility, and grace ever seemed to think that God was so tiny he could be stuffed into a box of your own mind's making. But more and more it seems your voices of sweet reason, speaking the truth in love, are drowned out by other voices. Shrill accusations, verbal intimidation, pompous pronouncements, pride of self, and outright heresy darken the discussion. Jesus said "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35) Jesus' disciples can disagree. When we disagree lovingly, we show the world Jesus. I won't presume to question whether this form member or that is a believer. But I will say unequivocally that some here show the world Jesus while others show only themselves. I pray that I have more often been one of the former. Just my two cents' worth, although that valuation may be inflated. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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108 | Is God subject to change? | Bible general Archive 2 | stjones | 102306 | ||
Greetings, hooptrain; Welcome to the forum. I think God intends the Bible to be accessible to all believers and that he desires all believers to read and study it. There's no other way to tell if a modern-day prophet is real. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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109 | Is God subject to change? | Bible general Archive 2 | stjones | 102291 | ||
AO; Perhaps God can choose not to know some things; perhaps he cannot so choose because it would be a contradiction of his fundamental omniscient nature. I don't think, given its structure, that the passage presents enough evidence to decide the question. - Indy |
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110 | Is God subject to change? | Bible general Archive 2 | stjones | 102243 | ||
Greetings, AO; I don't read Hebrew, so I'm trusting the translators. The immediate antecedent to "nor did it ever enter my mind" is "I never commanded or spoke of". I suggest that God was not surprised that the unfaithful did these things; he was upset that they did things which were so far from his will that he never once thought of commanding or even speaking of them. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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111 | Where is the edification of the pope? | Eph 2:8 | stjones | 100640 | ||
Amen, mommapbs. What will he do with us in Heaven if we can't get along here (not accusing Born2LoveHim of failure to get along with his Catholic comrade)? Somehow I don't think he'll provide denominational neighborhoods so we can stick with "our own". Indy |
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112 | How do we preach the Gospel? | 1 John 2:2 | stjones | 100633 | ||
Hi, George; It is surprising to find one who has such a low regard for apologetics practicing it: "Did you ever hear the saying that 'the one who defends himself has a fool for a client?'". That's not in the Bible, is it? Yet you quoted it in defense of the Bible. That's apologetics. But you're in good company; Paul was quite an apologist himself. In the Areopagus, he used the beliefs and artifacts of the culture he was in to show the truth of Scripture. (Acts 2:16-34) Ravi Zacharias, Josh McDowell, and C. S. Lewis have done exactly the same thing. It's hardly "garbage". Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones (whose pathway to acceptance of the Gospel was cleared by C. S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity") |
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113 | Why little sign of power in our churches | Mark 16:17 | stjones | 93292 | ||
Hi, Ken; Thanks for the reply and the interesting analogy. I certainly agree that being a rectifier (in the electronic sense) is part of what the Holy Spirit does. After I replied to Suede67, I realized that there is another passage in 1 Corinthians that is very relevant to this discussion - one I just preached on two weeks ago! That is the previous chapter, 12, in which Paul clearly links spriritual gifts to the body of Christ. If we are to believe that spiritual gifts have ceased, we must also believe that the body of Christ has also ceased to exist or at least lost the power of its parts. Taken as a unit, chapters 12 and 13 make it clear that the Holy Spirit is still busy and still distributing his gifts in accordance with the Father's will. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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114 | Why little sign of power in our churches | Mark 16:17 | stjones | 93189 | ||
Hi, Suede67; I'm a little late to the conversation, but your reference to 1 Corinthians 13:8 caught my eye. The passage makes even more sense if you read it in context, especially the next four verses: "For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." Are you suggesting that "then" has already come? Has the event that Paul referred to - "when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears" - has already happened? Has perfection already come a second time? That is when gifts such as prophecy and tongues will disappear. 1 Corinthians 13 makes perfect sense apart from any discussion of whether or not God has suspended spiritual gifts. Among the things that the Bible says will last forever is, according to Jesus, our fellowship with the Holy Spirit: "... I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you." (John 14:16-17) I'd be interested to know what you think the Holy Spirit is supposed to do "in" us. It seems to me that anything he is likely to do "in" me will probably manifest itself in some outward way - as a gift of the spirit. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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115 | Effect of Christian Universalism ? | John 14:6 | stjones | 92465 | ||
Hey, John, take it easy on the faithful remnant in the PC(USA). There are many congregations fighting to right the ship. If we depart, there will be thousands of immature Christians left behind to be swallowed up by the liberals who infest our denomination. Afer all, Paul didn't tell the faithful Galations to abandon the church he planted to the Judaizers and go start a new one; he told them to stay and fight. But to be honest, that's what I think this week. Last week I was ready to bail out myself. It's a terribly difficult decision; I know the founding members of neither the OPC nor the PCA found it easy. I can really sympathize with what our Anglican brothers and sisters are facing now. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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116 | Why are some ancestors not listed? | Matthew | stjones | 87388 | ||
Agreed. - Indy |
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117 | Why are some ancestors not listed? | Matthew | stjones | 87377 | ||
Hi, EdB; Thanks for the reply. It may be that Matthew was commenting on the perfection and symmetry of God's plan - something much more important than the genealogy of a man, Joseph, who was not Jesus' genetic father anyway. God is superior to and larger than his creation (even though his creation is currently less than what he created). Similarly, his plan of reconciliation through a covenant stretching from his calling of Abraham to his gift of Jesus is superior to and larger than mere generations of men. If the human numbers don't work out quite right, what does it matter? God's plan is still perfect. Perhaps Mattew's message was that in all things, we must conform our understanding of this imperfect world to God's perfect plan. We must never (as happens so frequently in mainline denominations like mine) conform God's perfection to the reality of this fallen world. Counting Jeconiah twice may have been Matthew's way of conforming the reality of this world to the greater reality of God's perfect nature. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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118 | Biblical support for your statements | Bible general Archive 1 | stjones | 86162 | ||
Greetings; You said: "... it is hard to understand how Christian people who claim to be civilized to such an extent that they would not tolerate parents roasting their children in an oven, or roasting or otherwise practicing cruelty to dumb animals, and who claim to have too much love in their own hearts to torture their own children in fire, no matter what the children would do, can truly worship, reverence and love a God who they claim is not even up to their own standards of civilization and love and compassion, and who they claim will eternally torture and torment the great bulk of His human creatures." Very smooth; very glib. But this distortion of God's character reveals more about your beliefs than anything else you've posted. You reduce God to the level of humans and then judge him by human standards. If by "Christian people" you mean Christians, I can assure that this Christian does no such thing. Christians accept God's absolute sovereignty, his perfect righteousness, and his perfect love. In faith, they seek to understand God's wrath within the context of his sovereignty, righteousness, and love. They don't put him in a box and judge him as you have done. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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119 | William Marrion Branham | Rom 3:4 | stjones | 82534 | ||
Hi, CDBJ; I'm confident the Pope is a Christian who has read the Bible. Branham is suspect on both counts. Indy |
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120 | The tomb is empty! | Matt 28:6 | stjones | 82525 | ||
Amen, fran1947; amen. | ||||||
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