Results 261 - 280 of 701
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Author: Sir Pent Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
261 | Why did God allow Job's children to die? | Rom 8:28 | Sir Pent | 65883 | ||
My Personal Experience ............................ Dear Williw02, This is a very hard question. I am a man who has had two of his own children die, so I begin to understand the pain that Job must have felt. The only answer that is of any comfort to me, and makes any sense is that it was part of God’s overall plan. No God didn’t personally kill Job’s children, but He did allow Satan to kill them. I have to believe that this was becuase it was one small part of God’s complete plan for the universe, and as such it would all work out for good in the end. As for the children themselves, as long as they had faith in God like their father Job, then they were actually going to a better place to be with the Lord. I hope that this is helpful for you, and if you have any more questions on this subject, feel free to ask me either on this forum, or at my email address listed in my personal profile. |
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262 | When and how EVIL came about? | Rom 5:12 | Sir Pent | 65751 | ||
A Different View ............................................. I think the question is flawed to begin with. "Evil" is not actually a thing at all. Therefore it was never created by anyone or anything. Instead what we think of as "Evil" is really nothing more than a perversion of something good. For instance, God created sex as a good thing between a married man and woman. However, when mankind takes that good gift and takes it out of the marriage covenant, then it becomes sin and is viewed as "evil". God created all good things, man has perverted many of them. |
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263 | A word that appears only 4x's in bible | Gen 1:21 | Sir Pent | 64203 | ||
Welcome to the forum .............................. Dear Tammy, This riddle is an oldie but a goodie, and the answer is “Whale”. The four verses in the King James Bible that it appears are: Genesis 1:21, Job 7:12, Ezekial 32:2, and Matthew 12:40. It was made before mankind, swims thousands of miles from North to South Poles, once had a living soul (Jonah) inside it, but then it came out again. Whales provide light to people because their oil is burned in lamps, and they will not go to Heaven or Hell because they are animals. |
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264 | baptism for the dead? | NT general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 63835 | ||
Please Do A Search .................................. Dear Kaatje, Welcome to the forum. Please do a search before asking a question to make sure that it hasn't already been answered. Your question has already been discussed on this forum. Please type in the number 12962 or the number 47941 in the Quick Search box (top right). These are two good responses. |
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265 | What does "send her away" refer to? | Matt 1:19 | Sir Pent | 63564 | ||
Personal Note ..................................... Dear John and EdB, I did not originally intend to post again to this thread since my comments on the subject are already pretty well developed in another thread. However, since you both have mentioned me, I felt it would be rude to not at least say hello to my distinguished colleagues. ..................................... Thanks to both of you for your compliment that my case is "strong". I am glad that we all agree that we can trust the Bibles that we have today as the True Word of God. |
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266 | What does "send her away" refer to? | Matt 1:19 | Sir Pent | 63563 | ||
Personal Note ................................................. Dear Hank, Greeting to you as well, my friend. Thanks for your agreement, and I am glad that you have found such success with the NLT. I am not personally acquainted with it, but it sounds helpful :) |
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267 | What does "send her away" refer to? | Matt 1:19 | Sir Pent | 63456 | ||
A Different View ............................. Dear John, In your post, you mentioned that you believe that “even the best translations are not infallible for infallibility is ascribed to the original manuscripts alone.” I would just like to point out that I disagree with that statement. I believe that since God went to the trouble of leaving a permanent record of His message to mankind (the Bible), that He would also protect that message across time, copies, and translations. Otherwise the only people who would be able to really trust God’s message would be the very small number of Greek and Hebrew scholars in the world. .......................................................... I believe that the major translations of the Bible are completely accurate, truthful, and trustworthy today in whatever language a person reads them in. This issue has been discussed before on the forum, and I would recommend reading that thread which started with post number 15402. |
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268 | Imputed sin | Rom 5:12 | Sir Pent | 63450 | ||
Webpage Reccomendation ........................... I found the following website, which deals with this question. I think that I agree with the ideas that it presents, and would recommend that my colleagues on this thread check it out. http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-f006.html |
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269 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62960 | ||
Clarification .............................................. Dear John, Are you trying to be evasive and dodge resonding to the point that I make in my posts, or do you just happen to be ignoring them and continuing to suggest sidelines? We’re not talking about what people deserve. That is a whole other issue within the Calvinism and Arminian debate. Let’s not go there. Please stay on topic and respond to the points that I made in my post. .............................................. “As for the NIM game example, you said that because you can’t win the game that you don’t really have any choice. That is false. Just because you can’t choose to win doesn’t mean that you can’t make other choices. Within the rules of the game, you have the ABILITY and FREEDOM to choose to remove 1, 2, or 3, toothpicks each turn. This is a real choice. You can really remove 1, 2, or 3 toothpicks. The reality of that choice is not negated by the fact that any of your choices will not effect the outcome of the game. .............................................. Similarly, Arminians believe that God allows individuals to be ABLE to choose whether to love God or reject Him. However, regardless of what any one individual chooses, the overall plan of God will be accomplished. We know the end of the book. God wins the game. Heaven will be full of people who chose to love God. Hell will be full of people who chose to reject God. Everyone will be where they deserve to be, and God will be glorified. This is the perfect ending of the universe, and God is still sovereign. He is still in absolute control of the final outcome even though within the game we each can make our own choice.” |
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270 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62947 | ||
Clarification continued ................................................... Dear John, Yes, we all SAY that everyone chooses freely. However, the point is that Arminians believe that everyone has the ABILITY to choose either way, and Calvinists don’t. This is not a breakthrough, we’ve been over that ground already. Let’s keep moving forward, not backward. My point there, was that Calvin was saying that God could use any circumstance to bring about His overall plan. This supports my proposal that God could allow people to have the ABILITY to choose either direction on an issue and yet God would still be sovereign. Anyway, what is your response to the rest of my post? ................................................... “As for the NIM game example, you said that because you can’t win the game that you don’t really have any choice. That is false. Just because you can’t choose to win doesn’t mean that you can’t make other choices. Within the rules of the game, you have the ABILITY and FREEDOM to choose to remove 1, 2, or 3, toothpicks each turn. This is a real choice. You can really remove 1, 2, or 3 toothpicks. The reality of that choice is not negated by the fact that any of your choices will not effect the outcome of the game. .............................................. Similarly, Arminians believe that God allows individuals to be ABLE to choose whether to love God or reject Him. However, regardless of what any one individual chooses, the overall plan of God will be accomplished. We know the end of the book. God wins the game. Heaven will be full of people who chose to love God. Hell will be full of people who chose to reject God. Everyone will be where they deserve to be, and God will be glorified. This is the perfect ending of the universe, and God is still sovereign. He is still in absolute control of the final outcome even though within the game we each can make our own choice.” |
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271 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62944 | ||
The road goes 3 ways ................................................... Dear John, You said in your last post that “It is not my intention to sidetrack our main discourse, But sometimes the quickst route is the longest way about.” Unfortunately, I perceive your question about what God’s ultimate goal for the universe is, to be just that, a sidetrack. Therefore, I see three ways we could proceed on this specific part of the thread (POINT ALPHA): ................................................... Option 1. You decide that the Tom and Jerry analogy is sufficient for describing the Calvinist viewpoint of the human perspective and then explain how Jerry is making a REAL choice to not walk to the ice cream store if he doesn’t have any legs. ................................................... Option 2. You decide that you are unwilling to use the Tom and Jerry analogy for whatever reason, and therefore present your own alternative analogy, and we discuss it instead. ................................................... Option 3. You give a very clear explanation as to why in the world I should go down this side road about God’s ultimate goal for the universe. This explanation should include exactly how this relates back to the point we are talking about (whether Tom or Jerry are making a real choice). This explanation should also include why I should be redundant by discussing this subject again, when my thoughts on that exact question are already documented on another thread of this forum. (search for post #13788) |
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272 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62937 | ||
Clarification .............................................. Dear John, I obviously need to clarify a couple of points here. First of all, I did not say that I agreed with Calvin that God is in absolute control of all things. My actual quote was that “God could allow humans to have the ABILITY and FREEDOM to choose either way on an issue, and yet still control circumstances regardless of their choice to bring about God’s own final outcome.” There is an important distinction. I am saying that God does NOT control a person’s choices, but rather controls the overall situation so that regardless of their choice, God’s plan is accomplished. .............................................. As for the NIM game example, you said that because you can’t win the game that you don’t really have any choice. That is false. Just because you can’t choose to win doesn’t mean that you can’t make other choices. Within the rules of the game, you have the ABILITY and FREEDOM to choose to remove 1, 2, or 3, toothpicks each turn. This is a real choice. You can really remove 1, 2, or 3 toothpicks. The reality of that choice is not negated by the fact that any of your choices will not effect the outcome of the game. .............................................. Similarly, Arminians believe that God allows individuals to be ABLE to choose whether to love God or reject Him. However, regardless of what any one individual chooses, the overall plan of God will be accomplished. We know the end of the book. God wins the game. Heaven will be full of people who chose to love God. Hell will be full of people who chose to reject God. Everyone will be where they deserve to be, and God will be glorified. This is the perfect ending of the universe, and God is still sovereign. He is still in absolute control of the final outcome even though within the game we each can make our own choice. |
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273 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62933 | ||
Perhaps we’re at an impass .............................................. Dear John, .............................................. Tom and Jerry’s lack of legs may have been a direct result of the sin of Adam. But the sin of Adam was a direct result of God creating the universe in a way that He knew would lead to Adam’s sin. Please remember that you have already agreed in a previous post that God knowingly created a universe that WOULD be full of people who were unable to choose to love God (unless God changed their hearts). Thus Tom and Jerry’s lack of legs MUST BE BY DESIGN according to your own belief system. Therefore, the hat is straight again :) .............................................. If you are truly determined to never agree to use this analogy despite my efforts to show that it accurately reflects your belief system, then perhaps we are at an impass here after all. I regret that it is the case, however, I did commit to discussing some analogy of your own making, dealing with this issue, and will follow through with that commitment. I will try to remain open to your perspective and learn from what you present. For the sake of organization, perhaps you could add your analogy as a response to post #62527. |
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274 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62932 | ||
Clarification continued ........................................... Dear John, It seems that you are a bit confused here, which I take some responsibility for. This thread has actually branched into two related but distinct and seperate discussions. The first discussion includes the Tom and Jerry analogy and deals with whether a person could accurately be described as having a FREE CHOICE within the Calvinist viewpoint. Let’s call that POINT ALPHA. The second discussion includes the Dollar Store analogy, the NIM game analogy, and your John Calvin quote. This second discussion deals with whether God could still be sovereign if He (as Arminians believe) allowed people to have both the ABILITY and FREEDOM to choose to love God or reject Him. Let’s call that POINT OMEGA. ........................................... Here in this last post you are saying that you have this big problem with the parent / scientist in the Tom and Jerry analogy because it doesn’t do justice to God’s sovereignity. The reason why I said that this is not relevant to our discussion is because I was referring to only POINT ALPHA. Since that is the part of the thread which we are currently adding posts to, I thought that it was obvious, however, I see now that you were confused. So to clarify, it doesn’t matter to POINT ALPHA what the parent / scientist is like in the Tom and Jerry analogy. All that really matters is that one boy has legs and the other doesn’t. The question is about Tom and Jerry. Do they really have a choice to walk to the ice cream store? Please remember that this part of the thread is only about FREE CHOICE, NOT about the SOVEREIGNITY of God. ........................................... P.S. I am still very interested in continuing our discussion on POINT OMEGA, which was the original intent of this thread, but I am still waiting on you resonse to my most recent post on the subject #62857. |
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275 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62921 | ||
Now hold on a minute :) .............................................. Dear John, .............................................. Don’t worry about making things difficult for me. My Mom always taught me that “anything worth doing, was worth doing well”, and “the most important things in life, don’t come easy”. Now in your last post, you made a general statement that I have been saying that you must believe my analogy because “it is what Calvinists believe”. I feel that is an unfair and inaccurate description of the points that I have been making. I have not been backing up my analogy with generic ideas that I think Calvinists believe. Rather, I have been backing up my analogy with specific quotes from you, John Reformed, about what you believe. I have quoted from a definition of Calvinism that you agreed to, and I have quoted from multiple posts that you have made on this forum. I am not putting words in your mouth, I am just repeating what you have already said. .............................................. Please try to see this from my perspective. It appears to me that I have presented an analogy which represents the calvinist viewpoint fairly and accurately. Then you point out why it is inaccurate and unfair. I respond to each of your objections with direct quotes from you, yourself. Then when it appears you have run out of reasons why the analogy is inaccurate, you switch the discussion to claiming that I shouldn’t come up with the analogy to begin with. This is probably not your intent, but I hope that you can see that it naturally comes across that way. .............................................. Now you did mention one more objection in your last post as to why the analogy is inaccurate. You said that God is not the Father of all people. I would disagree, but that is not relevant to our discussion, therefore, let’s use your idea. Feel free to change the word “parent” in the analogy to “scientist”. After all, the point is just that they are a person who creates both Tom and Jerry without any legs. In your post, you also said we weren’t getting anywhere. It seems to me that we are making good progress. We have ammended the analogy on several occasions to make it even more accurately reflect your beliefs. This is another reason why I don’t want to start all over with a new analogy that you make up. I’ll be happy to do that later, but let’s finish this one first. |
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276 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62914 | ||
You make a good point .............................................. Dear John, You have made another good point here in your last post. You said that the analogy is missing the sacrifice of the parent. Therefore, I will make another ammendment to the analogy to reflect that very important aspect of the Calvinist perspective (which the Arminians would agree with, I might add). This newest version of the analogy is thus: .............................................. Imagine a parent who has twin children, Tom and Jerry, who are consistently disobedient. The parent, through genetic engineering, caused both of their children to be born without any legs. Then when they were both 10 years old, the parent had his own two legs amputated to make a set of artificial legs for Tom so that Tom could walk. But the parent did not get any legs for Jerry. Then one day the parent (whose legs miraculously grew back) decides to go for a walk to the ice cream store. The parent invites both children to walk with them, but says it is their choice. Tom can’t pass up the opportunity for ice cream, and gladly accepts. Jerry however doesn’t have any legs, and so he doesn’t have the ability to go. The question is, “Does Jerry really have a choice to walk to the store if he has been born without any legs?” For that matter, “If the ice cream is truly irresistable, then does Tom have a real choice either? .............................................. The rest of your post basically said that Tom and Jerry are both terrible people who DESERVE to be legless. But that is irrelevant to the question. Whether they DESERVE to be legless or not, the point is that only one of them is given legs. Whether humans DESERVE to be ABLE to choose to love God or not is not the point. The point is that in the Calvinist perspective only a select group of humans ARE ABLE to choose to love God. My question is NOT whether they get what they deserve. My question is whether their choice is TRULY FREE, since it is determined by the ABILITIES that God gave them. .............................................. P.S. I’m still waiting for your response to my post #62857. |
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277 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62859 | ||
One thing at a time ................................................. Dear John, In you last post, you felt that I had tied your hands behind your back by asking you to answer my question within an analogy that I made up. However, if the analogy accurately reflects the Calvinist viewpoint, then it shouldn’t matter whether I make up the analogy or you do. And unless you have thought of another reason why the analogy doesn’t fit, then I’d appreciate if you would answer the question. After we finish talking about this analogy, I’d be glad to talk about a second one that you make up, but let’s just do one at time. So are the choices that Tom and Jerry make TRULY FREE? |
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278 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62857 | ||
What about the rest ................................................. Dear John, I’m still curious about your thoughts on my overall point that God could allow choice within a framework while still being in control of the final outcome. What did you think of the NIM game example? What did you think of my interpretation that John Calvin was actually agreeing with me in the quote that you shared? |
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279 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62854 | ||
You make a good point ................................................. Dear John, Part of any truly good discussion is not only sharing what you think, and listening to what the other person thinks, but also being willing to admit when you are wrong. In your last post, you pointed out an error that I had made. I had said that everyone agrees that all humans have to choose to love God or reject Him. That statement was wrong. It is an oversimplification of the situation. You are correct that there are some exceptions to the general rule (ie. babies that die before birth, tribes that never hear the gospel, the people who lived and died before Christ’s sacrifice for us). You are also correct that there are different beliefs about these abnormal situations. I was wrong on that point. ................................................. That being said, rather than getting side tracked on these unusual situations (which are talked about in other threads on this forum), I would request that we focus our discussion to talk about the vast majority of people in the world today, who have been born, have reached an age that they can make rational decisions, and have been exposed to Christianity to at least some degree. I would like to talk about people like you, me, and anyone else who would read this thread. Would it be possible for God to allow us to have the ABILITY and the FREEDOM to choose to love or reject Him, yet still remain sovereign? |
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280 | Is God in absolut contrl over all things | Acts 4:24 | Sir Pent | 62837 | ||
Don’t give up so soon ................................................. Dear John, We’ve had such a good discussion so far on these issues, I was dissapointed to read your last post. I couldn’t find any response to any of my clarifications as to why the Tom and Jerry analogy was an accurate representation of the Calvinist viewpoint. I also couldn’t find that you had answered whether or not Tom or Jerry’s choice was truly FREE. Basically, I couldn’t find anything relating to our thread at all. ................................................. Instead, I found statements that “God created all things” (OK), Adam and Eve “had the liberty (FREEDOM) to do good but also posessed the ABILITY as well” (OK), “God was not taken aback” by the fall of mankind (OK), and God was not forced to “go to Plan B” (OK). These are all fine statements, but both Calvinists and Arminians agree on them. So I don’t see how they relate to why Calvinists think that the Arminian viewpoint negates God’s sovereignity. ................................................. Then I found the statement, “You and I are way out of our depth. I for one am very leary of bringing God Almighty before the Court Of Human Reason. We must rely on that which has been revealed in Scripture and shun mere conjecture. “ You then went on to say that if it was in the Bible then you would believe it, but it’s not, so you don’t. That sounds great, but I believe it to be a “cop out” in this case. The Bible says that we should “reason together” (Isa 1:18), and it is not bringing God before the court of reason for two believers to discuss together how to make sense of some ideas in scripture which are widely recognized as being a bit tricky to understand :) And as for whether it’s in the Bible or not, both perspectives seem to be in the Bible. That is why there have been so many Christians throughout the centuries who have interpreted it both ways. ................................................. Please don’t take this post as an insult. In fact, the reason that I was dissapointed by your last post, is because I have come to expect good things out of you. Your other posts have been excellent for staying on topic, and making consistent progress as we explore these issues together. I hope to encourage you to keep up the good work of the former posts, and avoid posts in the future that just “push the mystery button” and say, well we can’t fully understand God, so why try? |
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