Results 141 - 160 of 657
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Author: stjones Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
141 | It isn't right to eat pig is it? | 1 Tim 4:4 | stjones | 103798 | ||
Greetings, Sissy; I say eat and enjoy! To the passages Makarios cited, I would add Peter's vision in Acts 10:9-15: "... Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. Then a voice told him, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.' 'Surely not, Lord!' Peter replied. 'I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.' The voice spoke to him a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.'" Following Jesus' teaching in Matthew that Makarios cited and immediately preceding Peter's visit to the gentile centurion Cornelius, the meaning is unmistakable. My wife makes outstanding BBQ pork ribs. And I cook an Italian breaded pork chop that people seem to enjoy. Just two of the less important reasons I'm thankful for God's grace. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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142 | Do you seek God before you post? | Bible general Archive 2 | stjones | 103760 | ||
Hi, Kathy; The following was posted in response to one of Searcher's messages. I'm copying it because it does contain my (honest) answer to your original question: [reply to Searcher snipped] 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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143 | must be theologians? | Numbers | stjones | 103757 | ||
Greetings again; Thanks for both of your replies. I don't disagree with most of the substance of what you've said, though I might quibble with some words. So I'll reply to both here. I think the Trinity concept is confusing because terms such as "person", "being", and so on are not well-defined or are not well-suited to describing God. I assume that's the reason the term "Godhead" exists. The essential truth of the Trinity is the concept of three-in-one - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - one God. Conventional speech seems to generally refer to the three as "persons"; they are, after all, distinct entities with their own characteristics. Whether one uses "being" or "Godhead" to refer to the one God seems to me to be not terribly important. I suspect that parts of this thread are about terminology, not doctrine. On the one hand, I think it may be disingenuous to suggest "What is God saying to us?" as a question one might seek to answer in the Bible. The question is so open-ended that the only realistic way to find an answer is to study the Bible! But on the other hand, you have identified the key qualifier for whether a Bible scholar is worth paying attention to. Modern Bible scholars (and theologians) are faced with three powerful incentives to not approach the Bible with that question in mind - "What is God saying to us?" First there ia a century-old tradition of studying the Bible in the same way one would study any other text. By seeking the motives and underlying thoughts of the authors of the text, the question becomes irrelevant, since the real author is not taken into account. Second, the more modern acadmeic cancer of deconstructionism encourages the scholar to approach the Bible with a different question in mind - "What can I find in here to support my position?" Finally, there is the problem of tenure. God may not provide the insight in time to get some articles written and published before the Tenure Committee meets. And no one ever got tenure by publishing an article that said "With regard to faith and works, Luther had it right". Finally, I don't think teaching stops at imparting skills. In my years as a teacher (computer science), I tried to develop my students' skills but I also tried to impart principles, higher-level abstractions, and even wisdom. "Abstraction" has gotten a bad name recently, even been equated to "irrelevance". But is only through the process of abstracting themes and principles in the Bible that we can understand what God's will might be for today's world. That's what a good theologian or teacher does. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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144 | purpose of christmas | Luke 2:20 | stjones | 103712 | ||
I think the key is verse 20: "The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told." We too should do those things. And at Easter, we should follow the example of the women who visited the tomb and ran off crying "He is risen!" Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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145 | 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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146 | 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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147 | 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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148 | 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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149 | 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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150 | 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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151 | 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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152 | watch me on how to live where is this | Phil 4:9 | stjones | 102309 | ||
Perhaps this is it?: "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." Phillipans 4:8-9 [NIV] | ||||||
153 | 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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154 | 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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155 | 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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156 | 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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157 | 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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158 | Where is the edification of the pope? | Eph 2:8 | stjones | 100631 | ||
Greetings, Born2LoveHim; I pray that the Lord will keep you safe and bless your witness there, and that you and your compatriots will be able to soon leave Iraq a more peaceful and hopeful place. Thanks for your service. You spoke of one "who says he has been christian all his life and then speaks of Catholicism" as if that were a contradiction. I hope you didn't mean it that way; I assure you that many faithful Christians practice Catholicism. It's true the Bible doesn't mention a Pope. Neither does is mention Primates (Anglicans), Presbyters (Presbyterians), or synods (many). Although there are those who seem to believe that salvation depends on the organizational structure of a denomination (or the avoidance of all formal denominations, the Bible does not say so. Does your comrade know who Jesus is and has he put his faith in him? If not, you have much more important things to talk about than how a denomination is structured. If he is saved, then I'll admit many a rousing discussion can be had about how Catholics do things vs. the rest of Christendom. And if I'm reading unfairly bwtween the lines, I apologize. Peace and grace, Steve aka Indiana Jones |
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159 | 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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160 | 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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