Results 10881 - 10900 of 11018
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Author: DocTrinsograce Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
10881 | Order of occurance | Bible general Archive 2 | DocTrinsograce | 126444 | ||
Good quote! I'm just grateful that the Spirit does the ultimate work! Wow! Three plus years is a long time on the Internet world! We will have to start calling you "presbuteros" or even "kalos epkalai!" :-) So are you the "oldest" active participant? |
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10882 | what is predestination? | Rom 9:17 | DocTrinsograce | 126442 | ||
Here's some random stuff on predestination: The Grolier's Encyclopedia states: "Predestination is a Christian doctrine according to which a person's ultimate destiny, whether it be salvation or damnation, is determined by God alone prior to, and apart from, any worth or merit on the person's part." It is a scriptural word. (Romans 8:28, 30; Eph 1:5, 11) God's eternal purpose will not be thwarted. In the end, He will be glorified, and it will have all occured just as He has purposed. (Isaiah 46:10-11, Psalm 115:3; 135:6, Daniel 4:35, Acts 4:28, Ephesians 1:11) In this process, there are some who will experience the full, unending wrath of God. (Job 21:30 2 Tim 3:8) Some things that seem bad to us, are in His plan (Ecc 7:14, Romans 8:28, James 1:17). Even things like the crucifiction of Christ (Acts 2:23). God's work in creation was "without secondary causes or processes." However, God makes use of secondary causes (Gen 50:20). |
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10883 | Order of occurance | Bible general Archive 2 | DocTrinsograce | 126437 | ||
Well, I hope I'm one of the people "that has been polite to me without just cause." I'd never want to be polite WITH just cause. Perhaps unjust cause now and then, but never just cause. :-) Sorry! Just teasing! Thanks again, Theo. |
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10884 | Order of occurance | Bible general Archive 2 | DocTrinsograce | 126423 | ||
Thank you brother Theo! :-) Today's sermon was on the Holy Temple that God is building (all of us being living stones) from Ephesians 2. So how could I possibly ignore such gracious words, without repudiating everything the Spirit was teaching through the Word today? :-) Actually, none of it was causing me distress. The doctrines I espouse stand on scripture alone, and will be validated or not by our Father, Who is the source of all truth. They are also doctrines that have stood the test of time, having been assailed, and built by far better students of scripture than any of us, especially me. (Frankly, if they were original ideas, I'd be really worried about them!) So I don't take offense, Theo. If I feet any angst at all, it is with angry, sarcastic, or pugnacious responses. I really don't want to be responsible for such reactions, even if they are predictable or "natural." But that is probably rooted in my own deficiencies as well. Now, my Grandfather used to say, "You can't reason someone into something that they haven't reasoned themselves into." In other words, when we start getting emotional, we've stopped thinking. So I watch for this in my own reaction. Its a sure sign I haven't thought something through as well as I ought to have done. I believe God calls us to deliberate carefully over the Word. I trade out as many false notions as I can since I was first saved. Things that fall out of the orthodoxy norm ought to be carefully and suspiciously critiqued. Nor should we change our postions too hastily, for that is typical of another kind of problem. So, the long and short of it is this: What unites us -- you and I, Theo -- in our love of Scripture is far greater than the things that divide us in particulars. So we might not see eye-to-eye right now, but the day is coming when we will see even as we are seen. In the mean time, we can benefit by the careful scrutiny you mentioned to the edification of us all. Besides... its fun. :-) |
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10885 | Order of occurance | Bible general Archive 2 | DocTrinsograce | 126411 | ||
Funny how we humans have to get things synched up chronologically for them to make sense to us. :-) I think this through all the time. However, you left out a couple of items: atonement, justification, and sanctification. I might add one or two others, but then it might incite fits in certain of our members. Frankly, I think that some of these things happen simultaneously. But I'll try to answer as best as I can without fomenting adverse reaction. Regeneration must come very early in the process -- Eph 2:4-5 "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)" -- which, from this verse immediately is followed by salvation Now, without faith, it is impossible to please God and because faith is a necessary ingredient to salvation, it must be gifted to us somewhere right near that same moment, else we would not be saved. The prompting of the Holy Spirit could come before, during, and after. However, we have to see repentance in the mix. But I tend to see repentance not as a single act, but as an ongoing process. Repentance is changing direction. Direction can only be deduced over time. You know, the Puritans had all this broken down into over 12 steps that I recall. I think when we insist on piecing it altogether time wise, we can over analyze the thing. I think the best example of how salvation occurs is in the analogy of Lazarus. Before Lazarus can hear the command of Christ, he must be made alive. But he must also be healed from what killed him, or he'll just instantly die again. Only after this can he even hear Christ's command. With restored life, he obeys and comes out of the tomb. Sorry... I may not have clarified things any... and probably I'll have irritated someone! |
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10886 | Why do good things happen to bad people? | Matt 5:45 | DocTrinsograce | 126408 | ||
Theologians call this "common grace." It is in the nature of our God to be bountiful with His many blessings. However, keep in mind, that there are none of us that are good. The wonder is that God does anything for any of us. Jonah was quite concerned about just this thing. He wanted judgement -- the harsher the better -- to rain down on Nineveh. And those guys in Nineveh were pretty rotten! They actually bragged of the clever way they broke every treaty they ever made. In addition, they were known to delight in horrible tortures of captive people. Tortures that we only see in the world again until the Inquisition and among early Amerinds. However, as you study that little book of Jonah, you will see that God explains to the prophet His mercy. Since we are all evil in the sight of the Lord, what if He withheld mercy to us before we finally learned to submit to Him? Now, I've been guilty of this myself, asking God, "Why don't you just stop those people!" But when we do that, we've missed the point of the wonderful mercy of God. We are not operating in the Spirit when we ask Him to withdraw His blessings! | ||||||
10887 | reference to praying for the dead | Heb 9:27 | DocTrinsograce | 126405 | ||
I can't find anything in scripture that instructs us to prayer for the dead. The only example where we have prayer associated with dead people is in those rare cases where Christ or an apostle prayed and life was restored. My brother died of lung cancer at 42. Often I have thanked the Lord that my brother is now in the bossom of Abraham. I often think, "What joy, to actually behold the Object of our adoration!" and that causes me to thank and praise God all over again. I find the scriptures rife with prayers for the living and injunctions on us to pray for the living. I'd have to say that that was the emphasis of scripture. |
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10888 | Baptised if living together with fiance? | Matt 18:6 | DocTrinsograce | 126401 | ||
Hi, Lillian. In this instance, it sounds like the appropriate question would be "Why do you want to be baptized?" You'd have to work through all of their assumptions. Somewhere along the line you will find an error. Clearly they do not fully understand what baptism means. They probably do not understand what it means to be a disciple of Christ. Clearly, if they are saved at all, there first step would be to set aside this behavior for the glory of God. I'd take threm through a careful exegite of Baptism, with an emphasis on the Gospel and what it means to lay down our lives for our Lord. My own "denomination" often tends to get people baptized and then worry about their commitment to obedience later on. I think this is an error. Its also why 3 out 5 of our "members" are not in the pew on Sunday morning! I'll be praying about all of this for you. | ||||||
10889 | Christ Sometimes Taught in Greek | Mark 12:30 | DocTrinsograce | 126365 | ||
Although the bar mitzvah was formalized less than a thousand years ago, its roots (along with the 613 mitzvot) have their roots in the Mishna, the oral tradition of the 70 elders of Moses. At the time of Christ the Mishna was not written, but was passed as an oral tradition. You can verify this from various Jewish sites on the web. A prejudice that finds its roots in the last couple of hundred years assumed that literacy was uncommon among the ancients. The fact of the matter is that many ancient civilizations prized literacy. Even as far back as ancient Sumer, literacy rates probably exceeded that of our own culture today. In fact, some estimates of Greek literacy 2,500 years ago were as high as 90 percent. Although the educational emphasis for Hebrew boys in ancient Palestine differed from the Pharisee to the Sadducee, both groups were almost universally literate. (You can find discussion of this by Josephus in his "Contra Apion.") Vast amounts -- especially by today's standards -- of memorization was common in ancient times. Even here in the American Colonies the average six-year-old child had the Westminster Shorter Catechism (over 170 questions) memorized. There is a variety of indirect evidence that Jesus' family had roots more influenced by the Pharisee than the Saducee. For example, Mary's Magnificat clearly demonstrates her intimate knowledge of scripture. Joseph and Mary's careful compliance with the Mosaic Law in terms of sacrifices, etc. The honor of reading of Torah in the synagogue is a tradition that stretches back well before the time of Christ. It is no surprise, then, that we see Jesus being passed the book of Isaiah in Luke chapter 4. This book was written in Hebrew. Without any hesitation, Christ reads a specific passage for the book. No one is surprised that a son of a carpenter can read. As was pointed out, Christ could read Hebrew and speak both Hebrew and Aramaic. For the purposes of doing business throughout Palestine, a grasp of Greek would have been quite useful. I doubt very much Latin was spoken except by the Roman officials and in their correspondence with Rome, etc. In fact, we find all kinds of papyri with grocery lists, family mail, and contracts written in Greek all up and down the middle East, even as far South as Egypt. (Please see, for example, William Barclay's commentary on the epistle of Romans for an extensive discussion of common ancient correspondence.) At the time of Christ, Jewish communities existed all over the known world, in every direction of the compass. At the time of the feasts, Jews would converge on Jerusalem. The number of Jews coming to the feast would number in the millions. Aramaic was spoken predominantly in Palestine. The dispersed Jews did not speak it. The only language that was truly everywhere -- thanks to Hellenism -- was Greek. It was during Passover that Christ was crucified. The fact that many of His hearers thought he was calling to Elijah was because of their ignorance of spoken Hebrew with the local accent. Although I am sure that Christ frequently spoke Aramaic, it is equally evident that He could speak Hebrew. It is not beyond the realm of credulity to envision Him also speaking Greek. There is no proof of this, as EdB reminds us, but there are hints to that effect. While I am pontificating (I wonder if anyone ever really reads this stuff?) I might as well add that I find it odd that people assume that primitive technology automatically assumes ignorance or -- perhaps worse -- a primitive mind set. If Moses or Paul or even Peter were alive today, I could well imagine them reasoning circles around today's intellectually elite. The preponderance of evidence paints a different ancient world than what you are describing. (Or, for that matter, than what was portrayed in "The Passion.") |
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10890 | God the Son as a confession of faith | John 17:22 | DocTrinsograce | 126330 | ||
Ed, I was wondering if you knew the historical reason that this single group of Pentecostals changed from the orthodox position? Based on your explanation of the tennets held by the other denominations that are similar in other respects, this must have caused quite a falling out. Without getting into any controversial details, I'm just curious to know how this came about. | ||||||
10891 | God the Son as a confession of faith | John 17:22 | DocTrinsograce | 126329 | ||
Thank you for that clarification. I had been operating under the assumption that this was true of all Pentecostalism. I appreciate being corrected! | ||||||
10892 | Christ Sometimes Taught in Greek | Mark 12:30 | DocTrinsograce | 126328 | ||
There is a difference, Ed, between proof and evidence. Proof is conclusive. This is only pointing to the possibility. It is unlikely, however, that John Mark would have put words into Jesus mouth. He wrote based on Peter's eye-witness account (and we know that Peter frequently spoke and wrote in Greek). The Gospels are explicit when Christ spoke Aramaic and even Hebrew. (See Mark 5:41, 15:22, for the Aramaic and Mark 15:34 for the Hebrew example.) Since Hebrew had primarily become a language of the temple and synogogues. Aramaic was what conversational Hebrew had evolved into. Hebrew was learned by every young Jewish boy. It was read as well. Thus, we know that Christ read and spoke Hebrew from the verse mentioned above as well as Luke 4:17-20. Greek was the terra lingua of the day. The diaspora made it necessary for Jews to use it. Because of Helenism even the Romans used Greek in dealing with their subjugated peoples. |
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10893 | what is a restorer of the streets? | Is 58:12 | DocTrinsograce | 126316 | ||
Here's a good place to start... www.monergism.com | ||||||
10894 | Christ Sometimes Taught in Greek | Mark 12:30 | DocTrinsograce | 126313 | ||
The command Christ was quoting is Deuteronomy 6:5 "And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Note that Christ added the phrase "with all your mind." To the Hebrew, the word "heart" included the emotions, will, and intellect. But that is not the case in Greek. To the Greek the heart is simply the seat of the emotions. To Greek speakers the word mind was needed to make clear the extent of this command. This is one of the clearest evidences we have that Christ spoke Greek and must have frequently taught in Greek. |
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10895 | Whose Name is on #12 | Rev 21:14 | DocTrinsograce | 126310 | ||
The disciples drew lots in order to pick the 12th apostle (Acts 1:26). This they did prior to Pentecost, in spite of the fact that Christ had instructed them to go to Jerusalem and wait (Acts 1:4). We never hear of Matthias again. Later, however, we find that Paul becomes an apostle (see the first verse of the first chapter of most of his epistles). Paul clearly tells us that God chose him to be an apostle. Will Matthias or Paul be on the 12th foundation stone? If Paul, then the disciples must have erred in trying to move ahead of the Lord's will. |
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10896 | Good/Bad Come from God's Hand | Eccl 7:14 | DocTrinsograce | 126309 | ||
All things come from God's hand. Both the good things, and those things that seem bad to us. In both of these extremes, God is carefully working out His will (Acts 4:28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done) for His ultimate glory. | ||||||
10897 | The Sovereignty of God | Ps 115:3 | DocTrinsograce | 126308 | ||
God does whatever pleases Him. Nothing can thwart His purposes. Nothing can interfere in the performance of His will. In other words, God does whatever He wants to do. God does as He pleases, exactly as He pleases, and only as He pleases. God does not need nor does he seek the counsel of any creature. God created this universe for His pleasure. | ||||||
10898 | God the Son as a confession of faith | Rom 9:5 | DocTrinsograce | 126306 | ||
Good, succinct answer, kalos! :-) I ended up not liking my last paragraph in my last post. But, too late, I had hit the "post" button. I meant that scripture clearly establishes the nature of God, but not in as precise a way as we moderns like by having the label "trinity." I hope that was clear. |
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10899 | God the Son as a confession of faith | John 17:22 | DocTrinsograce | 126305 | ||
G'day, Leslie! No, we are not all Roman Catholics here... but I guess we are all catholic (little c) as being part of the universal body of Christ. We're quite a motley crew, though! I for one welcome you here very hardily! :-) If you can suffer through my poor spelling, here's the rest of your answer: Both Martin Luther and John Calvin affirmed the triune nature of our God. So, as you would expect, Lutherans and Presbyterians have confessions that state this. You will the Canons of Dort (Reformed), the Thirty-Nine Articles (Episcopalian), the Savoy Declaration (Congregationalists), and the Baptist Confession of 1689 (Baptist) all affirm this truth. Of course, this was commonly held by the Roman Catholic Church prior to and since the Reformation (at least, I don't see a repudiation of it in their most recently published Catechism). In the United States there are a few groups who call themselves Christian, but who deviate greatly from orthodoxy. I'm thinking of Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses. These two groups deny the diety of Christ in the orthodox sense. The Mormons hold that Christ was born as a result of a sexual act involving their version of diety and Mary. The JWs hold that Jesus is a god (little g). Their drift from orthodoxy is so great that it is difficult for most to accept them as Christian at all. One other group, the Pentecostals, believe in something they call Oneness. This idea is that Christ, the Father, and Holy Spirit are not distinct, just different names for one God. They vigorously deny the Trinity. However, orthodoxy has held the Trinity as truth since it was articulated clearly at the council in Nicea in 325 AD. That council came together to deal with a heresy called Arianism, Apollinarianism, Manicheanism, Modalism (and maybe a few more that I can't remember). (Other heresies have attempted to assail this doctrine before and since.) Thus was born the Nicene Creed. This creed does not represent the discovery or invention of the idea of the Holy Trinity. It simply articulated it. Scripture does not use the term, but it is inescapable. Apparently the apostles and early Christans thought this way because of the things they wrote. However, it might have seemed so obvious to them, that they never explicitly articulated this truth. |
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10900 | How our Loving God commanded such things | Bible general Archive 2 | DocTrinsograce | 126286 | ||
Sometimes destruction is the most merciful act. God is the Creator, He can do as He pleases with His creation, and that without seeking any counsel but His own. We do not see how utterly heinous is sin, nor how monstrously it offends a holy God. Every time we see what God does and we think, "No fair" we are demonstrating that we do not appreciate just how holy He is and just how wicked man can be. If one sin warants death, it is amazing that God is not killing us off wholesale! The Hebrew 5:13 reference is using babies as an example. The author is wondering at why his audience have not matured more than they have in the proper handling of the word. |
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