Results 341 - 360 of 464
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Results from: Notes Author: Sir Pent Ordered by Verse |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
341 | What evangelist ran to meet an official | Acts 8:26 | Sir Pent | 117005 | ||
Personal Note....................................................... Hello again JaniceTillman, Thanks for explaining your purpose. We have had people come in the past who attempt to use this forum to ace their tests for them. Naturally, we do not wish to assist in cheating, and so must be cautious. However, it sounds like you have a great activity there of searching the scriptures with your daughter. That is a great way to spend time together and learn about God at the same time. Some of the questions in the quiz book seem to be about relatively unknown trivia in scripture though. It makes me curious what age level the book is designed for. It's good to have you here at the forum, and I look forward to your continued participation :) |
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342 | Resurrection Sunday or easter? | Acts 12:4 | Sir Pent | 113261 | ||
Personal Note................................................... Hello my forever friend, I think that your post reflects wisdom and balance. I like the name "Resurrection Day" myself, but I agree with you that it's not worth worrying about. Instead we should focus on spreading the news of what Easter means in our lives and can mean in the lives of the people around us. |
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343 | 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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344 | Forgiveness of What? | Acts 13:38 | Sir Pent | 23555 | ||
Clarification .................................. You also said that "sin does have its consequences", and then went on to talk about how after forgiveness we should no longer be angry with a person. I agree regarding the anger, however, what are the consequences that you speak of? For instance, if you owned a bank, and a forgiven, formerly convicted thief applied for a job, would you hire them. Yes you should not harbor anger towards them, but do you treat them as if it never happened? What about a child molester who turned their life over to Jesus in prison? Would you let them be your son's Boy Scout Leader? |
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345 | Forgiveness of What? | Acts 13:38 | Sir Pent | 23569 | ||
Clarification ................................. Dear Nolan, Yes you are most definately "on topic". This is exactly what I am wanting to explore. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the long-term punishment (ability to get a particular job) would vary depending on the number of times that a particular sin was committed. So let's say that a certain person was a Christian, and they became an drug addict. Although it is theoretically possible that this could happen after only experimenting once, that is almost unheard of. It would be a safe assumption that this was the result of a large number of bad choices. Then let's say the person repented and asked for forgiveness. Would you then after say 1 year of being "drug-free" hire them to run a Pharmacy that you own? This would be a case where they were not a repeat offender after repentance, but were one while claiming to be a Christian before repentance for that sin. |
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346 | Forgiveness of What? | Acts 13:38 | Sir Pent | 23571 | ||
Personal Note .................................. Thanks for the compliments on the thread, and I agree with you that remembering the lessons that we learned from past sins can keep us from repeating them. I would encourage you to "hug" the truths that you learned, instead of the sins themselves though. God puts them as far as the East is from the West, and I'd recommend following His lead :) |
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347 | Forgiveness of What? | Acts 13:38 | Sir Pent | 24067 | ||
Clarification ............................... Dear Nolan and other forumites, The general idea seems to be that our actions towards a person after they have been forgiven should depend on how reformed that individual person was. The problem that I see with that is that it is very subjective. It also is based on the idea that we as humans can accurately determine the heart of another person. Brian G. brought up a good point that unlike God (with Saul/Paul's conversion), we can't really know how changed another person is. Due to this limitation, wouldn't it be better to have objective guidelines for these situations. For instance, if a person has been a child molester then even though they are forgiven of that sin, and have eternal life, there remains an earthly consequence. They could serve God in many ways with adults, but would be prohibited from being a Boy Scout Leader for instance. Or a former drug addict could work at a automobile company, but not at a pharmacy. Does this sound reasonable, or is it too harsh, cold, and legalistic? |
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348 | Forgiveness of What? | Acts 13:38 | Sir Pent | 24068 | ||
Anwer to Question (I think) ................... Dear Lisa, I must admit that I had a somewhat difficult time understanding your last post. I think that you meant to ask if I had ever had an experience where I obeyed God and received a blessing as a result. I think that this happens all the time (even when we don't recognize the blessing right away). However, one time that comes to mind is the verse in the Bible that commands believers to "not stop meeting together". I interpret this verse to be God's way of telling us that, as Christians, we need each other's fellowship. This is why I feel that it is so important to regularly attend church and to not just sit in a service once a week, but to truly participate in worship and fellowship there with other Christians. So I have obiediently gone to church for many years now, and not just the morning service, but the evening service as well. So where does the blessing come in this obedience? Well it just so happens that at one of these evening services at my church, I met my future wife. And she has been the biggest blessing (besides salvation) that God has ever given me :) |
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349 | Is there middle ground? | Romans | Sir Pent | 21645 | ||
Clarification ................................... Dear EdB, Just to make sure that I am interpreting your last post correctly, are you being sarcastic? Or have you actually decided that you agree with the Arminian interpretation of scripture? |
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350 | Ninevah did. | Rom 1:18 | Sir Pent | 20785 | ||
A new perspective ............................... I just wanted to throw in an insight that an elder at my church shared with me about this appearant contradiction on God's part. At first He says that He will destroy the city of Nineveh, and then He doesn't because they repent. The idea that was helpful to me was that the fact that God sent Jonah to preach to the people there, is a strong implication that the final outcome is not completely determined. If God decided to destroy the city no matter what, then why waste time by sending Jonah to preach there. Not to mention all the trouble that had to be gone through to even get Jonah there. Therefore, since God sent Jonah to begin with, it indicates that He was at least giving the Ninevites the chance to repent and be forgiven. They responded to this call and repented, so God forgave them. |
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351 | God repented | Rom 1:18 | Sir Pent | 21136 | ||
Personal Note ................................. Dear Joe, I think you bring about some good thoughts here. There are many threads which are either of minimal value (see Kalos' questionable question post), or which leave little room for discussion. I think I will start a new thread to work through this problem. I have some ideas, but they don't really relate to this thread's original purpose. Thanks for provoking my thinking though. |
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352 | God repented | Rom 1:18 | Sir Pent | 21139 | ||
Personal Note .................................. Dear Lionstrong, I'm pretty impressed that in just over a week, just the two of us have been able to take a thread into the realm of being mocked in other posts. It took about 50 people, several months to do that with the "wife of Cain" posts. Please don't be offended by others who think that the rationality of animals thread is superfluous. I must say that I can see their perspective. However, I linger, in the hopes that this will eventually get somewhere of significance. This seems to be an important issue for you, Lionstrong. And I respect you enough to assume that therefore, it must have some relevance. |
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353 | How to know God just from seeing nature? | Rom 1:20 | Sir Pent | 22209 | ||
Finding God in Nature, part 3 .................. The second thing that I notice about the universe is that there is an enormous amount of energy and matter in it. The laws of entropy state that systems always go from a state of order and high energy to a state of disorder and low energy. A good example of this is a child's bedroom, but we can see this in nature constantly. The lesson that we learn from this is that it is not possible to for a creative force to make something with more energy than it had to begin with. Therefore, the "Eternal Power" that made the universe must have more power than all the energy in the universe combined. In fact, that "Eternal Power" must be practically infinitely powerful. Thus one can learn that there is an "Omnipotent, Eternal Power". |
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354 | How to know God just from seeing nature? | Rom 1:20 | Sir Pent | 22327 | ||
Finding God in Nature, part 4 The third thing that I notice about nature is how complicated it is. From my studies in biology, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, and physics, I have seen how we humans have only begun to understand the complexities of the world around us. Yet it is not even neccessary to have this level of education. Just from experience of watching seasons change, flowers bloom, and children grow, one can clearly see the how much more intellegent the "Omnipotent, Eternal Power" must be than we humans. In fact, the more one learns about how the entire world is connected and interacts, the more impressed one becomes. Then, by extrapolating that to the entire universe, it becomes clear that the "Omnioptent, Eternal Power" must also be of practically infinite intellegence. Therefore, nature shows us that there is an "Omniscient, Omnipotent, Eternal Power". This brings us to an important point. Now that we have discovered these things from nature, we can now begin to call this "Omniscient, Omnipotent, Eternal Power", a being. The fact that there is that level of intellegence forces us to accept that this Power is a living persona. And being so much smarter, more powerful than humans, as well as breaking the laws of nature (by always existing) would cause us to classify this being as "supernatural". |
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355 | How to know God just from seeing nature? | Rom 1:20 | Sir Pent | 22368 | ||
Personal Note ................................... Dear Kalos, Apology gladly accepted. I am glad that you and Nolan both value my experiences of discovering clues in nature that point to God. I also appreciate all feedback from everyone regarding my observations. In addition, I would add that as a general comment, your warning is appropriate. We should all be careful to always worship the Creator and not the creation. I think that we all agree that it is wrong to worship nature in and of itself. |
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356 | How to know God just from seeing nature? | Rom 1:20 | Sir Pent | 22371 | ||
Finding God in Nature, part 5 .................. Summarizing the last four posts, nature has shown that there is an "Supernatural, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Eternal Being" (S,O,O,E,B). The fourth thing that I observe about nature is that the universe has been created in a way that values life. In fact, it appears that the S,O,O,E,B has done so much to sustain life, that it is most reasonable to believe that this being cares extremely about that life. There are many examples, but let me share just a couple. On a large scale, if our planet were just slightly (on a interplanetary scale) closer to or farther from the sun, there would be no life on Earth. On a smaller scale, let's think about density. Almost all materials on earth become more dense as they get colder. However, there is one notable exception in nature to this rule of science, and it is water. This is due to complicated issues dealing with molecular bonds, and energy levels of electrons in molecules, but that isn't the point. The question is not how does this happen, but why does this happen. Why would the S,O,O,E,B create practically everything else one way, and then make water differently? The only reasonable answer that I can come up with is that is saves life. Think about a pond or even lake that is filled with fish. If water was like everyhing else, and became more dense, then there would be serious problems in the winter. The top layer of water would freeze and sink to the bottom, then the next layer would freeze and sink to the bottom. This would keep happening until the entire pond or lake was frozen, and all the life in it was dead. But this is not what happens. As you know from seeing ice cubes float in your drink, the frozen water becomes less dense, and floats on the top of the pond or lake. This creates a shield from the cold, and keeps the rest of the pond or lake from freezing. Thus all the fish and plants are able to survive. Therefore, nature shows that there is an S,O,O,E,B, who cares extremely about all life. |
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357 | How to know God just from seeing nature? | Rom 1:20 | Sir Pent | 22388 | ||
Finding God in Nature, part 6 .................. So if this "Supernatural, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Eternal Being" (S,O,O,E,B) values the life of a fish or even water scum on the bottom of a pond, what are Their thoughts about humanity? One of the first things that a person learns in science class at school or through pure observation is the food chain. The cow eats the grass, the human eats the cow. The fish eats the plankton, the duck eats the fish, the human eats the duck. There are of course many different food chains, however, it quickly becomes obvious that humans are at the top. This observation, even made by a completely uneducated tribesman on an island somewhere, points to the fact that the Earth is designed for supporting humanity. Of course the regretful thing about this is that often humanity has gotten a big head about the whole thing and concluded that they were the ultimate creature in the universe (humanism). However, this discovery does show us just how much the S,O,O,E,B cares about us. In fact, based on how much the S,O,O,E,B cares about pond scum, a good case can be made through extrapolation that it approaches "Love" by the level of humanity. Therefore, from just observing nature, one can discover that it is most logical to believe that there is a Being who is Supernatural, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Eternal, and who values all life, but most of all cares about humanity. |
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358 | How to know God just from seeing nature? | Rom 1:20 | Sir Pent | 22486 | ||
Finding God in Nature, part 7 ................... We are now ready for the next critical jump in our reasoning. From nature we have learned that there is a Supernatural, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Eternal Being, who values all life, but most of all cares about humanity. The question is, "Would such a Being desire a relationship with the supreme creation that had been made, and that was cared so deeply about?" I think that it is most logical to assume that this desire is true. I find it very improbable that any being would go to such lengths to create something (especially something with the capability for forming relationships) and then just leave it alone. All relationships are based on communication, so the question becomes, "how would this S,O,O,E,B who loves humanity communicate with us?" There are I think four main ways that would make sense. 1. First of all the S,O,O,E,B could have left signs in the nature around us. I think this is true, and is what got us to this point to begin with. 2. A second way would be to actually come visit humanity in person. The difficulty here would be that if the S,O,O,E,B came in his natural state it would be like one of us visiting an ant hill. We would be so much bigger, stronger, smarter, etc., that the ants would be completely unable to comprehend our purpose or even what we were. Of course, the S,O,O,E,B could take the form of a human, but that would mean other problems. For instance, he could only be at one place at a time, so it wouldn't be an efficient way to communicate with the entire world of people. 3. The S,O,O,E,B could just directly communicate with the minds of all the individual humans. However, if this was done to a slight enough degree that it didn't blow their brains, it could also be misunderstood. Also the S,O,O,E,B would have to repeat the process over and over to each person. This would get extremely redundant. 4. The fourth way, and in my opinion the most likely way, would be to send a more permanent message that could be shared with all the people in the world. This could also have the important benefit of being consistent throughout time so that all people would receive the same message. It could be accomplished by a letter or book. |
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359 | 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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360 | 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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