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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
4001 | Is it wrong to swear or take an oath? | Matt 5:34 | Hank | 15628 | ||
Good stuff, Nolan, and you know, I'd never thought about your church's view that to "swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" in a court of law does, in a real sense, bear the implication that we are somehow to be "more truthful" in a court of law "under oath" than in our everyday lives. But we as Christians believe there is a court infinitely higher than any court on this earth, with whose judgment and verdict we need to be concerned far more than any court on this earth..... By the way, unless I am much mistaken, our legal system provides for an alternative to the swearing of an oath -- something akin to saying, "I promise (or affirm) to tell the truth."...... I realize that the courts have their purpose in putting a witness "under oath" and that the penalities for perjury can be severe, but at same time one wonders whether a liar "under oath" is any less a liar at heart and in the eyes of God. --Hank | ||||||
4002 | How inspired is the NAS Bible today? | Bible general Archive 1 | Hank | 15535 | ||
Sir Pent: Your reference to a dyslexic's transposing numbers in a Betty Crocker cookbook reminds me of the story of the dyslexic agnostic who was troubled with insomnia and stayed up all night pondering the existence of doG. ..... I should hardly think that a sufficient number of copyists or translators of the Bible were affected by dyslexia or other aberrations so as to render their works spurious and invalid. ..... There is every reason for Christians to believe -- if they indeed believe anything at all about the sovereignty of God -- that God is active still in the affairs of men, as He was in the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; as He was at the moment of creation; as He has been throughout the annals of time...... The Bible presents the strongest evidence possible that it will endure. The words of Isaiah: "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever." (Is.40:8). Peter quotes this passage from Isaiah and adds, "And this is the word which was preached to you." (1 Pe.1:25)..... That the Bible will be preserved for all ages is a given, if we believe the Bible at all. But that's simply all we know. I'm neither willing to engage in vain speculation about how God goes about His business of guarding and preserving the purity of His word, nor disposed to harbor any doubt that He is engaged in doing it. God has neither revealed the intricate details through His word nor to me personally through a vision or any other tailor-made divine revelation. Therefore I have no knowledge of this process beyond what He says in His word, and neither does any one of you. Time after time Jesus quoted the words of the prophets that had been transmitted down through time. His Apostles likewise quoted the words of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. Neither Jesus nor His divinely-appointed Apostles seemed to be troubled in the least about the issue of their preservation or authenticity. Neither am I. Neither should you. ...... I am saddened and sick at heart that his forum is becoming alarmingly obsessed and derailed by wild, vain, and scripturally unsound speculations, babblings and sheer nonsense. Have we not developed a serious case of itching ears, not willing to endure sound teaching, but to engage in every controversial issue, every sensational topic, and every off-the-wall philosophical, crackpot idea that comes down the pike? This is not a salvo of digust pointed to you, Sir Pent, and no personal insults toward you or anyone else is being contemplated. This is a far wider-reaching issue than personalies or personal vendetta. We have, in my estimation, lost sight of the aim and purpose for which this forum was established -- if indeed many of us have ever troubled ourselves with finding out just what it is supposed to be..... Switching the focus for a moment: There is an excellent book that treats of the subject of the reliability of the Bible and how it has been carefully transmitted to us down through the centuries. The book is written by Josh McDowell and it is called "The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict" and is published by Thomas Nelson .... I firmly believe that anyone and everyone who is unwilling or unable to keep their focus riveted on studying and discussing with fellow members of this forum the eternal word of God, should at least demonstrate their personal integrity and civility by logging off and going elsewhere for their kicks. --Hank | ||||||
4003 | Doesn't it say that God would cause evil | 2 Sam 12:11 | Hank | 15415 | ||
Hello, charis, and greetings in Jesus' name, my friend and Christian brother. A hearty amen to your post. It grieves me that in our time so many people, including, alas, some professing Christians, hold the Almighty God in such seemingly low esteem that they want to question everything concerning not only His word but God himself. Whatever happened to the humble and contrite spirit that held God in absolute awe? Don't we need a daily booster shot from the last chapters (beginning in chapter 38) of the Book of Job in which God puts Job (and all mankind) in his place? Who are we, weak, sinful stumbling creatures that we are, to stare God in the face and dare impugn His motives, question His wisdom, or, perhaps even worse, to disagree with the transcendent God who molded us out of the dust of the earth. If we only knew what little we know, we'd certainly know more than we do now. I rejoice in your "humble opinion." -- Hank | ||||||
4004 | What is eternal life? What is saved? | John 6:37 | Hank | 15384 | ||
Kin, thanks for your response. Upon reading it, I re-read my post wherein I made reference to Jesus' parable in Luke 15 regarding the lost son. Having done this, I stand by my analogy which you said was inaccurate. You seemed to have missed the point. Perhaps the fault lies in my lack of ability to state it more clearly or more convincingly..... If your position is, as it would appear, that salvation is conditional in that it is contingent upon good works performed subsequent to salvation, then you have also failed to be clear and convincing. A regenerate believer can in his walk toward santification stumble indeed and fall by the wayside. In doing so he breaks fellowship with Christ. But Christ does not break His relationship with His wayward child. The child remains forevermore a child of the King. If Christ "took back" His salvation and severed our relationship with Him every time we stumble and fall, our walk with the Lord would be a perpetual on-again, off-again experience, like blinker lights on an automobile. If our eternal security depended on us -- and the Bible soundly rejects that idea -- it would not be very secure..... Growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord is essential if we are to mature in our faith and enjoy the blessedness of fellowship with God. That is called sanctification. But sanctification is the growth process of the Christian. It comes in the wake of, but emphatically is not, salvation. --Hank | ||||||
4005 | What is eternal life? What is saved? | John 6:37 | Hank | 15301 | ||
Radioman, sincere thanks for this post. I'd planned to post something along the same lines and about the topic of the security of the believer, but you spared me the effort and did a far better job that I would likely have done, and so I am grateful for both. It's no secret that I'm a Southern Baptist and thus a "perpetual subscriber" to The Baptist Faith and Message. We hold that salvation is by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and that this salvation is eternal. --Hank | ||||||
4006 | May I share a simple story to help? | Bible general Archive 1 | Hank | 15297 | ||
I find nothing at all "static or limited" in availing ourselves of every reliable resource we can lay hands on that will enhance our understanding and appreciation of this most marvelous of all books, the Holy Bible. Somehow I've never been comfortable with the idea that God expects us to put the brains He gave us upon the mantle and practice some sort of voo-doo or divination in the belief that the full measure of the riches of the Bible will come to us through telepathy or mental osmosis..... Anyone who does not know a word of Hebrew or Greek and claims to have read the word of God has, in a sense, read nothing of it, because the Bible was not written in English or in any other living language of our time. So the translation of the Bible into English is, in a very real sense, a scholarly help, an aid, a vehicle through which we may come to know God and His will for our lives. If we discount and spurn every scholarly effort that has been made with the aim of transmitting God's message to us, then we must not only throw out every commentary, every map, every historical document, but every translation as well. We must go back to the original manuscripts, the autographs. But we fail there too. All that is extant in the world are copies, copies of the original autographs, not the autographs themselves. So when we in our haste throw out the works of dedicated scholars, men and women of faith and dedication who have labored long and hard to give us God's message in a medium in which we can understand it -- when we decry the scholars and cast them out, we are most assuredly throwing out the baby with the bathwater. --Hank | ||||||
4007 | What is eternal life? What is saved? | John 6:37 | Hank | 15293 | ||
Thank you, Tim, for your note and comment. Like you, I don't even pretend to understand how anyone who once having had a saving relationship with Jesus could deny Him. But Peter did. And, from your story about your brother-in-law, he apparently did. Peter came back. And I believe that so too will your brother-in-law, if his conversion was truly genuine -- and that is a matter on which we must not and dare not speculate or attempt to judge. But by faith we know that God's love is boundless and His capacity for forgiveness beyond our comprehension. We have no power but the power of prayer to bring your brother-in-law back into the fold. So we pray, we trust, and we wait on the Lord, comforted in the knowledge that with our awesome and mighty God all things are possible. Even the restoration of your brother-in-law to fellowship with Him. Blessings Tim, in the love and grace of Jesus Christ. --Hank | ||||||
4008 | What is eternal life? What is saved? | John 6:37 | Hank | 15258 | ||
Kin, I have problems with your analogy. In comparing the relationship of a regenerate child of God to the marriage bond between husband and wife, you say, "I can't force my wife to stay with me if she ever wanted to walk away." That's perfectly true, of course, but she nonetheless remains your wife, though estranged, until legal divorce is effected..... But doesn't the analogy somehow break down here, unless we're willing to accept the premise that God "divorces" those whose blood Jesus the Christ shed for their redemption? And would not one be hard pressed to support that premise by Scripture?...... Would it not be more scripturally accurate to use the analogy of father and son, as Jesus did in Luke 15, the parable of the lost, or prodigal, son? The son, although he wandered far from his father's care and acted in a manner that could hardly be said to bring honor to his father, remained the son. The fellowship was broken awhile, but the relationship remained: the son was still the son and his father still his father. Whether the son returned to his father's household or stayed on in the far-off country feeding the pigs for the rest of his life is a moot issue when it comes to who his father was. He was born as a son of his father into his father's household. That act, of being born a son, seals for all eternity his relationship as son in that household. Whatever the son does with his life after that does not and cannot change his son-ship with his father..... When we experience the new birth into God's kingdom that Christ makes possible by what He did on the cross, we are in a spiritual, but very real, sense the children of God, from that moment on, for all eternity. That is what is meant by the eternal security of the believer. Christ shed His blood on Golgotha's tree, once and for all, as redemption for our sins -- all of them -- past, present, and future...... To propose a doctrine that holds to the idea that salvation is a day-by-day thing, dependent upon how much and how often we sin, and that God must "save" us over and over is to say that Jesus must be crucified over and over..... Frankly, I've never heard of, and find it most difficult to believe, a single example wherein a truly redeemed child of God who said to God, "Look, I've changed my mind. I don't want your salvation. I want to die and go to a devil's hell and live with the devil and his angels for all eternity." Have you? --Hank | ||||||
4009 | Should the Bible be taken literally? | Bible general Archive 1 | Hank | 15222 | ||
Hello, Tim..... Kay Arthur heads up what she calls "Precept Ministries" and is based in Chattanooga, Tennnessee, where I was born and lived for over 30 years. Her Bible-study method has been given the name Inductive, by which she means comparing Scripture with Scripture. Although the high sounding word Inductive conjures up images of complex mental processes such as Sherlock Holmes employed to catch his villain, the concept of inductive Bible study is anything but new. Kay Arthur dressed the method up in new verbal clothing and gave it a new name, but the formers of the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1646 promulgated essentially the same approach to biblical interpretation as Mrs. Arthur does...... Said the Westminster Confession in Chapter 1, Article 9: "The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture, is the Scripture itself; and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture (which is not manifold, but one) it may be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly."..... Kay Arthur has expanded on this idea, and gussied it up somewhat, but the core of her teaching is essentially no different than what the venerable old formers of the Westminster Confession wrote more than 350 years ago.... Basically, Tim, it's all about context, a theme you and I have sung duets about time after time on this forum. --Hank | ||||||
4010 | What is eternal life? What is saved? | John 6:37 | Hank | 15220 | ||
"A toothless old lion" -- is that what you are, Radioman? Not a flattering self-portrait, one must admit. So what then does that make you -- Lionweak? Not to be confused, of course with Lionstrong. Your admiring friend, Hank | ||||||
4011 | What is eternal life? What is saved? | John 6:37 | Hank | 15193 | ||
My dear Sister D: You write that it is what we choose to do about our sins that determines our final resting place. I beg you to consider that it is what God through Christ chose to do for us when He chose us that determines our final resting place. This is no mere play on words or a semantic exercise; it is a fundamental doctrine that God draws us to Himself; our only "choice" is acceptance of His offer of salvation. The salient point of it all is that we ourselves are totally powerless to "do" anything at all about our sins. That is solely in the domain of Jesus Christ. Perhaps that is the thrust of what you really meant to say. --Hank | ||||||
4012 | Should the Bible be taken literally? | Bible general Archive 1 | Hank | 15163 | ||
Lionstrong, thanks for posting the statement on interpretation from the Westminster Confession. I know of no other words in the English language that speak so clearly and definitively, yet so succinctly, on the interpretation of Scripture as this one beautiful sentence. --Hank | ||||||
4013 | If the shoe fits... | 2 Tim 2:15 | Hank | 15130 | ||
Excellent points and observations, Radioman, and it is a sad commentary that they must be made, and made again, and again, and yet again on this forum. Are we so vain, presumptuous and naive that we expect to be taken seriously when we bash the scholars and replace their wisdom and learning with what frequently is nothing more than our wild guesses and outlandish speculations, which are often unabashedly and shamelessly posted as the oracles of God Himself? Oh, and thanks in allowing for the benefit of the doubt in saying that we are "only humans" :-) --Hank | ||||||
4014 | holding the light with dirty hands? | Matt 5:20 | Hank | 15126 | ||
Radioman, you heard it. It's "samantics" but what is "samantics?" Antics of Sam? --Hank | ||||||
4015 | Should the Bible be taken literally? | Bible general Archive 1 | Hank | 15125 | ||
Ah, but Radioman, have you forgotten? When we were young and used to play doctor, we took medicine figuratively all the time. It never seemed to help me much though. I always took a turn for the nurse..... I'd venture to say there's an on-line course on Figurative Medicine which offers a degree, a degree with as much authenticity as the degree offered in Internet Theology. --Hank | ||||||
4016 | Should the Bible be taken literally? | Bible general Archive 1 | Hank | 15121 | ||
Ed, needless to say we have an enormous burden in our undertaking of "accurately handling the word of truth" as Paul told Timothy to do. But literalness is hardly the only issue. "Literal" as it pertains to Scripture means "according with the letter of Scriptures" (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary) and the Pharisees were experts in keeping the letter of the law, but Jesus rebuked them soundly. It is not a blind, mechanical adherence to the letter of Scripture that is at issue; it is diligent application to dig for meaning and proper interpretation that is, in the final analysis, the proper object of our study of Scripture..... I'm not talking about looking for loopholes that would seem to negate sound doctrine and support heresies of one kind or another. Improper handling of the word of truth can lead us down any number of dark paths. Taking passages out of context to "prove" some unorthodox fantasy or to "disprove" clearly orthodox teaching is not the proper way to study Scripture..... There are some few passages in Paul's letters that were meant to be "literal" for the people of his time and circumstance, such as the custom of women using head cover in worship or the eating of meats by Christians. It is highly arguable whether these proscriptions have any force or meaning in our society. But issues that pertain to Christian ethics and morals, to the organization of the church, to prayer, to theology -- these constitue eternal truths and are just as binding today as they were in the initial days of the church. Homosexuality, adultery, fornication, incest, bestiality, bearig false witness, stealing, idolatry, murder, profanity, gossip -- the list goes on -- were condemned then and they are condemned still. There is a vast difference between condoning a woman's lack of headgear in a worship service and condoning homosexual leaders in a church. There is a real difference between permitting Chrisitians to eat meat and permitting children to be murdered in the womb...... I'm keenly aware, Ed, of the problems of which you speak, the problems inherent with some liberal teachers or preachers who seemingly go out of their way in their attempt to explain away some hard saying of Jesus or Paul with which they feel uncomfortable. I've heard far too many watered-down sermons that had about as much oomph and punch as a wet dish rag. I admire two things in a preacher most of all: (1) His careful and accurate handling of the word of truth and (2) His boldness in proclaiming it in its fullness without fear or favor...... I think we should do a better job to approach Scripture humbly and prayerfully; put aside our obsession about categories like literal, symbolic, figurative, fact or illustrative parable; keep uppermost in our hearts and minds that whatever Scripture says is the eternal truth of God; and seek first, last, and always to learn the meaning of what God's will for our lives and the church really is, thus to accurately handle the word of truth..... It's a large order but with God's help not an insurmountable task. It requires the best that is in us. It demands our all. But then when Jesus said to take up our cross and follow Him, He never meant that we should assign Him to the role of second fiddle in our orchestra. --Hank | ||||||
4017 | Do you have to be baptized to be saved? | Rom 6:3 | Hank | 15069 | ||
If water saves us, Jesus shed His blood on the cross needlessly. The clearest message in all of Scripture is that Jesus Christ shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. It is absolutely foundational to Christianity. To promote any other doctrine than that, to suggest any saving agent but the blood of Jesus Christ, to introduce any saving act or works that we can perform ourselves, is to deal in heresy. --Hank | ||||||
4018 | What is meant to be baptized by fire? | 1 Pet 1:7 | Hank | 15068 | ||
The New Testament speaks of four kinds of baptism. (1) The baptism of repentence performed by John the Baptist (2) The baptism of fire, meaning judgment (3) The baptism of the Holy Spirit which comes to every believer at the time of his salvation and has nothing to do with speaking in tongues, and 4) water baptism, or believer's baptism, which is in obedience to Christ's command and is the result and manifestation of salvation, not the means of it. --Hank | ||||||
4019 | What is meant to be baptized by fire? | 1 Pet 1:7 | Hank | 15066 | ||
1 Peter 1:7 clearly does not refer to Acts 2 in which Luke speaks of the tongues as of fire appearing at Pentecost. In this passage Peter is speaking of the trials of faith as being essentially productive and to illustrate his point he is referring to the common practice of subjecting gold to intense heat to refine and purify it. Thus, when trials and difficulties assail the life of the believer, he is made purer by the testing. This analogy has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of Acts 2. --Hank | ||||||
4020 | How many verses are there in the Bible? | Esth 6:1 | Hank | 15063 | ||
Well, Nolan, you'll have to admit that counting verses in the Bible is better than counting sheep for us night owls. And the odds are a good deal higher that we might learn more from the verses than from sheep! --Hank | ||||||
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