Results 261 - 280 of 464
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Results from: Notes Author: Sir Pent Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
261 | What does Matthew 24: 28 mean? | Matt 24:28 | Sir Pent | 23553 | ||
Clarification .................................. Dear Ross, You were asked by another forum member what religion you identify with. I would also appreciate learning more about you, including this information. Would you please either respond to this post, or update your user profile (which is currently blank). Thanks in advance. |
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262 | What does baptism consist? | 1 John 5:6 | Sir Pent | 23546 | ||
Clarification ................................... Dear Tim S. I found this last post of yours to be very helpful in understanding how you see Baptism. I too think that your beliefs are closer to those of most others on this forum than it first appears. It seems to me that you primarily see Baptism as the burial view (being buried with Christ and then ressurected as a new forgiven creation). Therfore, it doesn't make sense to you for a person to be saved and then go back and be buried again. I'd like to possibly help you see it a little differently. If the water itself actually "accomplished" the burial and resurrection, then your view would be logical. However, if the water is "symbolic" of the burial and resurrection, then the timeing is less relevant. For instance, we shoot fireworks in America on Independance Day, July 4th. These are symbols. The fireworks do not grant us independance, and are incapable of earning us independance. Besides that, we actually gained our independance over 200 years ago. Yet we still shoot them off as a way to celebrate and show the world that we are free. Baptism is similar. It is a Christian's way of celebrating their salvation (through faith in Christ), and showing those around them that they have chosen to be buried and become a new forgiven creation. It is an important symbol to participate in, because the Bible says to do it, and because it gives evidence that we are not ashamed of our faith. But it is still a symbol. |
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263 | So when did "evil" start? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 23540 | ||
Contrary View .................................. Dear Lisa, You asked how many people on this forum are "bible scholars with credentials". I honestly don't know. However, I know many of them are pastors of churches. Several have seminary training. Several have a solid background in the original languages of the Bible. And all deserve respect and at least a good hearing of their ideas. If I understand your post, the idea seemed to be that we should read "extra-Biblical" texts because they too were inspired by God, but were not included in the Bible because "the compilation of the book (Bible) was still in the hands of man". I fundamentally disagree with this position. This topic has also been discussed on this forum (do a search for "inspired consensus", and check out the thread: how inspired is the NASB today). |
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264 | So when did "evil" start? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 23537 | ||
Defense of my recommendation ................. Dear Lisa, Let me first say that I did not intend to be rude to you. I have found your posts overall to be heartfelt and Biblically sound. I also am a strong supporter of treating all forum members with respect regardless of our feelings towards them. Therefore, I certainly did not mean to hurt your feelings with my last post. At the same time, I still feel that my original recommendation for you to do a search on your topic before asking further questions on it was appropriate. I understand that you don't have time in the day to take "every person's recommendation". However, that particular one happens to be a guidline established by the people who provide this site. In addition, it just makes sense to see what information is already available before asking a question that comes across as redundant. |
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265 | Should we redefine terms? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 23536 | ||
Personal Note .................................... Dear Searcher, Thanks my friend. I think that it would help if this were made more clear in the future. An added benefit of you saying "worship (which Searcher believes to be specific to prostrate submission to God)" is that myself and others then shouldn't feel compelled to contradict, becuase it clearly states that it is your opinion. |
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266 | Forgiveness of What? | Acts 13:38 | Sir Pent | 23373 | ||
Clarification .................................... Dear Searcher, It is this "still may bear the consequences of our sin" that I would like to investigate further. Perhaps you and others could elaborate on that topic. |
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267 | Should we redefine terms? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 23363 | ||
Personal Note ................................... Dear Searcher, You seem to agree that "there are times we need to explain what we mean". In that case, would you also agree that those times would include times when one regularly used a word in a different sense than either the dictionary or the vast majority of forum members? |
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268 | A divorced pastor in ministry? | 1 Tim 3:2 | Sir Pent | 22905 | ||
Personal Note ................................. Dear Raul, Thanks for sharing the Martin Luther quote. I completely agree with it, and think that it is a great maxim for Biblical understanding in general. I also want to take this chance to welcome you to the forum, and let you know that I have apprecitated your recent participation. |
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269 | N.T. circumcision? | Col 2:12 | Sir Pent | 22903 | ||
Support, Personal Note ......................... Dear Nolan, I completely agree with you on this post. It occurs to me that I don't seem to get to respond to you very much, mainly because I agree with you so often. Therfore, I thought I'd take this chance to just encourage you to keep up the good work! |
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270 | A divorced pastor in ministry? | 1 Tim 3:2 | Sir Pent | 22901 | ||
Contrary View, experience ....................... Dear Raul, You are correct in a theoretical sense that it is possible for a marriage to fall apart based completely on the faults of only one person in it. However, I have never known anyone to whom that applied, and find it incredibly unlikely that it would be the case for anyone. It has been my experience that when a relationship of any kind (and especially one with the strength of marriage) destructs, that there are at least two people at fault. I would be fairly certain that somewhere along the line, the "Christian" half of the marriage was also at fault. Maybe it would be in how they responded to problems. Maybe it would be in lacking sensitivity to even notice the problems until it was too late. Maybe it would go all the way back to making a poor decision regarding a life partner. Any of these flaws in a person (and many others that could be involved) would also be a serious hinderence to effective leadership in a church. I realize that this is rather harsh, and that I am quite possibly offending those of our forum who have been divorced. Please be patient with me, for I only share what I have observed and believe. I still love you all in Christ, and fully believe in His forgiveness for all of your and my sins. I just feel that we need to have a higher standard of leadership in the church (at least in America). The failings of prominent church "leaders" in our country have done more to damage the Kingdom of God than anything else that I know of. |
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271 | So when did "evil" start? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 22894 | ||
Clarification ................................... Dear LisaMarie, I recommended that you do a search on this topic. Obviously, you did not do that. If you had, you would have found the following posts (among many others) which are clearly speaking about the exact same books that you are talking about. For your convienence, I'll just quote several of my distinguished colleagues on this subject. 1. "Fortunately, there aren't any lost books of the Bible. There are apocryphal and pseudepigraphal which were excluded from the Old and New Testament canons. There are also gnostic writings found at Qumran. However, there isn't any historical evidence that any of these three classes of writings belonged in the Bible. Now, there are some that think some of these belong, but it is pure speculation. For instance, many liberal scholars love the Gospel of Thomas because of its New Age style theology. If you want to read some of these various kinds of texts, you can go to: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/(tilde)humm/Resources/Texts/index.html Note: put a 'tilde' where you see the (tilde) in the adress above. These are interesting historical texts to read, but please remember that they are not Scripture. Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran" 2. "There are several "lost" books; the "Gospel of Thomas" is probably the most infamous. There is also a "Gospel of Peter", a "Gospel of Mary [Magdalen]", "Pistis Sophia", and a few others. There is also a hypothetical Gospel named "Q" which is not known to exist in any form. Copies of many of these were found in Egypt at Nag Hammadi in 1945. Liberal theologians are making a lot of noise about the "discovery" of these "lost" books despite that fact that most of them have been known and their authenticity and claims refuted for more than 100 years. The reason these books were "lost", of course, is that they espoused heretical views - mostly gnosticism - that the early church firmly rejected. They are now presented as equivalent or even superior to the NT, revealing "alternate Christianities". The appeal is obvious: if you don't want to be accountable to a Jesus who sits in judgment, just hang out with one who learned his stuff in India. If you are prepared to believe that Jesus was a Buddha (please say you're not!), you may enjoy them. I recommend "Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way" by Philip Jenkins (Oxford University Press, 2001). Hope you find this helpful. stjones" 3. "Hi and Welcome to the forum! From time to time there are have been those that pop up and say they have found a lost book of the Bible. However God in His faithfulness has completed and preserved the Bible through centuries without fail. Or in other words there is no lost book of the Bible. Those that have claimed to be are the Gospel of Thomas, Book of Enoch, Book of Jasher, Book of Isaiah II, and at one time or another most of the books of the apocrypha. However after close examination all have been found to fail to meet the requirements of the Cannon of the Bible. And many have been declared actual frauds. As I said the Bible is complete. Hope this helps. EdB" |
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272 | Should we redefine terms? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 22857 | ||
Should we redefine terms? ..................... There have been a couple of ideas in recent posts from different members of our forum that have basically made statements using words to mean something different than normal. For instance, one member uses the word "rational" to mean something other than basic intelligence. Another member uses the word "worship" to mean only a specific form of expressing reverence towards God (in a prostrate position). The problem with this is that on a forum such as this, where we all are reading these posts in one language, English, we have to assume that people are using words similarly. Thus we can go by the dictionary definitions of words to interpret what a person posts. This doesn't work if the person posting has their own private definition of the words that they use. Do others see this as being a potential problem? Would it be a good idea for us all to point out when we do this ourselves? For instance, a person could write, "I don't believe that God cares for us. This is because my definition of care is to worry about someone's well-being, and God doesn't worry." This could prevent much misunderstanding in my opinion. What do you all think? |
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273 | does eternal have a beginning? | Jer 1:5 | Sir Pent | 22848 | ||
Personal Note .................................... Dear Johnny, As you said, this is off the original topic, and therefore I generally would not wish to respond to it in this thread. However, since you mention that you have asked it repeatedly with no answer, I'll make an exception. It is my opinion that Adam had a better picture of Heaven than any of us, because he lived in a closer approximation than we can even imagine. The Garden of Eden (before the fall) seems like it was very close to Heaven. Adam got to physically walk with God and talk with Him in a much more direct sense than when we pray today. My view of Heaven is a place where we will have uninhibited communion with God. We will actually be able to see Him, and there will be no sin to muddle our relationship. Adam seems to have had both of these things to begin with. Therefore, I think that Adam knew very well, what he was choosing to reject by disobeying God, and therefore deserved to suffer the consequences. I hope this helps, and I'll refrain from adding anything else to this thread since I am off topic. |
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274 | must we eat Jesus literally? | John 6:53 | Sir Pent | 22745 | ||
Clarification ................................... Dear Joe, This last post of yours was excellent. It accurately presented the nuances of several different protestant groups beliefs regarding communion. I just want to point out that I think you meant the word "cannibal" (eaters of humans, which Christians are not) instead of "carnivore" (eaters of meat, which many Christians are). |
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275 | Are new worship songs scripturally OK? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 22726 | ||
Definition of "Worship" ........................... The dictionary defines the word worship as "to honor a divine being or supernatural power" It defines the word honor as "recognition of one's right to great respect or to any expression of such recognition". Therefore, in the English language, a person is "worshipping" God by expressing their recognition of God's worthiness. This could be done by singing the hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy" for instance. I understand that Searcher has a very rigid definition of the word worship, however, the vast majority of Christians and members of this forum believe that falling prostrate before God is only one, of many, ways to worship God. |
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276 | So when did "evil" start? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 22724 | ||
Please do a search ............................... Dear Lisa, Greetings, I have enjoyed reading your posts recently. I just wanted to let you know that there has already been some good discussion regarding so called "lost books" of the Bible. If you do a search at the upper right corner, you'll find some interesting posts ont he subject. The basic idea is that these books were never really lost, but were just left out of the Bible for good reasons. Many of them are of questionable source to begin with, and most of them contain material which is contradicted in the Bible itself. Most importantly, they are not believed to be inspired by God. Some of the previous posts include links to places on the web where you can read them for yourself. I hope this helps out. |
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277 | How to know God just from seeing nature? | Rom 1:20 | Sir Pent | 22723 | ||
Finding God in Nature, part 11 (the end) ........ So to wrap up everything, the God of the Bible is the only TRUE god. The Bible is God's message to mankind, and everything in it is true and authoritative for our lives. Therefore, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and the only way to come to a healthy relationship with God. Therefore, this is done by confessing our sins, trusting in Jesus to save us from the punishment for them. Therefore, it is also essential to commit ouselves to God by allowing Jesus to be Lord of our lives, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, to live according to His will. If you have any questions about any of these points, please either respond to them on this forum, or contact me personally through email. Also, if you have enjoyed reading this and it has been helpful in you own decision-making proccess, or your quest for truth, then I'd appreciate it if you also could let me know. My email address is markundy@hotmail.com |
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278 | How to know God just from seeing nature? | Rom 1:20 | Sir Pent | 22687 | ||
Finding God in Nature, part 10 .................. So how do the beliefs of Christianity about God line up with the characteristics that we can learn about god from nature? To discover this, let's compare our own observations about god with what the Bible says. Nature shows us that god is eternal. Romans 1:20 says, "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Nature shows us that god is omnipotent. Jeremiah 32:17 says, "Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you." Nature shows us that god is omniscient. Psalms 147:4-5 says, "He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit." Nature shows us that god values life. Mathew 10:29-31 says, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." Nature shows us that god loves humanity. 1 John 4:8 says,"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." Nature shows us that god wants to communicate with us. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world." In addition, the entire Bible claims to be the message of God to mankind. It quickly becomes appearant then the the God of the Bible has the exact same characteristics that we know to look for from observing nature. Therefore, the most logical religion to choose to believe is Christianity. To choose to believe in any other religion, or even in no religion at all, is therefore unreasonable. |
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279 | How to know God just from seeing nature? | Rom 1:20 | Sir Pent | 22548 | ||
Finding God in Nature, part 9 ................... So if god's message is in one of the major world religions, which one is it? Once again the process of elimination is very helpful. Hinduism the most unlike the other three, because it is polytheistic. Going back to the very beginning of our thinking, we figured out that it made the most sense to have as few things as possible existing without a beginning. Similarly, having a whole bunch of gods makes a lot less sense than just having one. There are of course other reasons why Hinduism doesn't make sense, but this is a good enough reason to look elsewhere. This leaves Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Of these three, it is interesting to note that Buddhism and Islam are both based on a person (Budda and Mohommed respectively) who, during there lives, told people not to worship them because they were not God. Both religions also base their salvation on specific works that a person does. And most importantly Both religions worship a god that is impersonal. They do not teach that god loves them but that god is to be simply feared and obeyed. This does not fit the characteristics of god that we have found by looking at nature, therefore, I think that once again, we must look elsewhere. The last major religion is Christianity. So what does it say about God? |
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280 | How to know God just from seeing nature? | Rom 1:20 | Sir Pent | 22517 | ||
Finding God in Nature, part 8 ................... Just to recap so far, we have learned that there is a Supernatural, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Eternal Being, who values all life, but most of all cares about humanity. We have also figured out that it is most likely that this S,O,O,E,B would communicate in some way with humanity about Themself. For simplicity, I will now call this being "god" with a lower case "g". It is not necessarily the Judeo/Christian God, but is definately a god of some sort. The problem is that there are myriads of religions in the world that all claim to reveal the communication of god to mankind. So the next question is, "Out of all the religions of the world, how do we know which one expresses the TRUE communication of the god?" The best way to go about this is process of elimination. The first thing that I would point out is that based on the qualities that we have already discovered about god, it is reasonable to assume that such an intellegent and powerful being would be able to communicate effectively. The importance of this is that the vast majority of religions in the world are very small, and only a few people believe in them. It seems most likely that if the true message of god was found in one of these small religions, that god would be very unsatisfied with the small number of people who were getting the message and would try something different. Therefore, it seems most likely that one of the major world religions (Buddism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam) would contain this TRUE message of god. |
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