Results 61 - 80 of 464
|
||||||
Results from: Notes Author: Sir Pent Ordered by Verse |
||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
61 | Genesis Creation, a practical example? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20060 | ||
Support ......................................... Dear Hank, You write, "To address a passage as literal when the meaning clearly is not literal is to miss the point entirely." I completely agree. And that is exactly why we need a consistent way to tell the difference. |
||||||
62 | Genesis Creation, a practical example? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20061 | ||
Clarification ................................ Dear Charis, Thank you for joining the discussion. I value your input on this. I agree with you that the fractured nature of the Church into denominations is detrimental to our witness to the world. In fact, it is becuase of this that I seek to increase the unity of the Church (and even this Forum). That is one reason why I have suggested several improvements, and support this idea of EdB's. It seems to me that if we had a general guideline that it would help direct several different common thread ideas. For example in the American justice system, a person is "innocent until proven guilty". We could similarly have a guideline that said that the Bible was "literal until proven figurative by another scripture". That way if a person makes a post that says that the Genesis Creation is figurative, the burden of proof would be on that person to point out another scripture passage that contradicts a literal interpretation of it. Or if a person says that a specific number in the Bible is figurative and symbolizes something else, then the burden of proof is on that person to point out another scripture which contradicts it just meaning a literal number. As you can imagine, this could be helpful quite often on this forum. It would help to give direction to threads and keep everything firmly grounded in scripture. |
||||||
63 | Is there a 3rd option to Calvin/Arminian | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20105 | ||
Is there a third possibility in the Calvinism/Arminianism discussion? Could it be that neither one is entirely correct and that it is wrong for the Church to be divided because of them? If one gets past the initial disagreements on general issues, does it really lead to significant differences in application? Or do an Arminian like Tim Moran and a Calvinist like Reformer Joe have significantly different relationships with God as a result of their beliefs on this subject? If the answers are no, then possibly these discussions are really not that important. If the answers are yes, then what are these significant differences? |
||||||
64 | Is there a 3rd option to Calvin/Arminian | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20106 | ||
This tread could be deleted ..................... I meant for this to be a question, however, Tim Moran posed the same question at the same time. Therefore, I encourage everyone to answer his question and not duplicate things by responding here. |
||||||
65 | Genesis Creation, a practical example? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20197 | ||
Support ......................................... Dear Charis, Thanks for your continued input on this subject. I appreciate that you also agree with the "literal until proven figurative by another scripture" guidline. It seems like this may end up being part of the consensus of this thread. At the same time, I understand your researvation about it only taking "a few unruly persons to bring out the worst in us". However, I would disagree with your implication that this is inevitable. "It takes two to tango", as the expression goes. Therefore, if one person posts in a manner that is not constructive, we are still responsible for our choice of how to respond. There have been times when there have been some pretty negative posts directed towards me. But thus far, I believe and hope that I have always responded with self-control and wisdom (to go along with my user id). If I can do it, then I'm sure that it can be done by anyone. |
||||||
66 | Is there any practical difference? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20204 | ||
Questions Answered .............................. Dear Forumites, I will try to help this discussion by answering the questions from one perspective so that those from the other perspective will have something to compare and contrast to. 1. My personal relationship with God? I view him as my Savior and Lord of my life. We communicate through prayer, scripture, and the words of those He has put in my life. I am confident that God has my best interest at heart. 2. How accepted by God? I feel completely accepted by God. This is not because I deserve to be, but because God relates to me through the cleansing power of Jesus sacrifice for my sins. 3. How is prayer life? My prayer life is mainly conversational during times when I am alone and quiet. However, I also sometimes participate in public prayer. I do this at church, Sunday school, and before meals. 4. How is Bible study? I most often gain insight from scripture when searching it as a result of conversations with other believers. Sometimes checking a pastors sermon, or responding to a post on this forum :) 5. How to worship God? I worship God by singing praises to Him, praying to Him, and trying to live a life that is pleasing to Him. 6. How do I share the gospel with others? I try to live as a good example of Christ around them. I also at times will talk with them about how Christ has made a difference in my life. I also participate in evangelistic activities with my church in order to show God's love to the Lost. There are several more questions, but I'll answer those in the next post. What are your thoughts so far. Does anything stick out as being specifically different? |
||||||
67 | Is there any practical difference? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20205 | ||
Questions Answered, Part 2 ...................... Dear Forumites, Here's the rest of my answers. 7. What efforts to disciple? I have a leadership role in my church's ministry to college students. I think that more people leave the Church and Christianity at this period of life than any other. Thus I feel this is a critical time for me to try to make a difference in their lives, with God's help. I also less formally am often consulted by my friends on spiritual issues and life decisions. Therefore, I also use that as an opportunity to disciple. 8. What fellowship with other believers? I am actively involved in my local church, and besides services, also regularly attend fellowship opportunities. These are with many groups including my Sunday school class, our church leadership team, small groups at times, and just having a meal with another family. 9. What involvement in church? I lead Sunday school, attend morning service, assist with Children's church 2nd service, attend evening service, occasionally serve as an usher, and often participate in sharing testimonies at a service. I also participate in discussion during congregational meetings about the church's plans for the future. 10. What involvement in missions? I pray for many friends who are missionaries around the world. I support many of them financially both personally and through my local church, which has a significant percentage of the annual budget designated for missions. I also strive to be a missionary to non-Christians around me in my own life. 11. What manifestations of the Spirit? I do not think that I have ever exhibited those that I know of. I have not spoken in toungues, prophecied, or been "slain". 12. What Fruit of the Spirit? I consistently express many fruit of the Spirit, including: love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. I sometimes exhibit patience and gentleness. So that answers all the questions from one perspective of the C and A debate. Are there significant differences in the lives of anyone on the other side of the issue. |
||||||
68 | Is there any practical difference? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20227 | ||
Clarification ................................... Dear Steve, I had never heard of an "Amyraldian" before, however, I just finished reading about it at the following webpage. http://members.aol.com/briangord/amyrad.htm I thought it was very informative. It sounds like the basic idea is that Arminias was theoretically right and Calvin was practically right. It gave the quote that "Christ died sufficiently for all but efficiently only for the elect." Does this website present an accurate perception of your beliefs? |
||||||
69 | The Plan of God in an Arminian Nutshell | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20317 | ||
Contrary View, Scripture ........................ Dear Dan K, You do bring up a good example of where God went to extraordinary means (swallowing a person with a fish) to change Jonah's will to match God's plan. However, this type of action by God is the exception not the rule. In the garden of Eden, it was God's plan for Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit. God did not make the fruit look disgusting so that they would not "want" to eat it. Instead it looked good. Throughout scripture the vast majority of the times that humans went against the will of God, He did not stop them or change their minds. Another example would be when Israel desired a king. That was against God's plan, and God even told them that through his prophet Sammuel. However, God did not change their minds, but allowed them to freely choose the wrong thing. |
||||||
70 | Is there any practical difference? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20324 | ||
Contrary View .................................. Dear Joe, Let me just examine your answer to question 4 since you said that is the most significant practical difference between C and A perspecitves. You "see the decretive will of God in all things." I think that Arminians would also see the general plan of God being revealed throughout all of scripture. You see "all of the Biblical narrative as HIS story." I think that Arminians would also agree that the Bible is God's Word, not ours. They would also describe the Bible as being God's written account of His relationship to mankind in the past and His desired relationship with mankind in the present. They would agree the God is the main character of the Bible. You read the Bible believing God "will glorify HIMSELF through redeeming the elect." Arminians also read the Bible believing that God glorifies Himself through His redemption plan. They would just say that the plan includes more people. You see "all things in the Bible working for the chief end of glorifying God above all." Arminians would also agree that the purpose of everything in the universe (including everything in the Bible) is to glorify God. It is interesting that on this "most significant" difference between the C and A camps, I don't really see much disagreement at all. |
||||||
71 | The Plan of God in an Arminian Nutshell | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20678 | ||
Clarification .................................. Dear Dan K, I also appreciate your last posting regarding the two types of God's "will". If I understand you correctly, you are saying that God has a "sovereign will" which is unstopable and perfect, and a "permissive will" which is allowed by Him to be disrupted. I think that I agree with you completely. God does have a general will for all of the universe, to glorify Him. I believe that this is inevitable. No matter what choices anyone makes, in the end all glory will go to God. I also agree with you that there are times when something that appears to be against God's will ends up working for the best (ie. Joeseph's entire life). Romans 8:28 also gives me confidence that as a Christian, God always has my best interest at heart, and that in the end things will work out well for me (eternity in heaven with Him). However, I believe that within this framework of the eternal plan we live almost completely in the "permissive" system that God has set up. In one sense, God chose to set it up that way, so it is indirectly in His control. But in the lives of individuals, the choices that they make are completely their own. God's overall plan will be accomplished in the long term, but in the short term, earthly life of an individual that may not be the case. |
||||||
72 | Amyraldianism, a 3rd choice or not? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 20680 | ||
Personal Note .................................. Dear Tim, Yes, I agree that the names they come up with for these things are not entirely helpful or easy :) I see your point about how the contradiction could be explained by a conditional election. However, I don't think that the Amyraldian viewpoint would support that type of election. Therefore, the contradiction seems to still be there. Hopefully someone else (perhaps Steve, who I think identifies with this perspective) will be able to explain this. |
||||||
73 | Who were the witnesses? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 21056 | ||
Support and Question ........................... Dear Angel-7, Welcome to the Forum :) I agree with your hypothosis that the two witnesses are Elijah and Enoch. I have thought the same thing for a long time. However, I also have a question regarding your suggestion that each person can literally only die once before the "judgement". How do you reconcile that belief with people like Lazarus, Jairus' daughter, and Dorcus? Each of them died, was ressurrected, and assumedly died a second time. I am curious what you think about them. |
||||||
74 | Who were the witnesses? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 21134 | ||
Personal Note ............................... Dear Angel-7, Don't worry about it. I was actually hoping you had an idea about how to reconcile those verses, as I have wondered about them for a while. Perhaps I'll start a new thread on that subject since it is not really the point of this thread. |
||||||
75 | Why do people lose interest and leave? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 21161 | ||
Personal Note ................................ Dear EdB, Thank you for such a helpful post. You seem to have a very complete list of reasons why people left. I am interested to hear what you think of my idea to combat some of these reasons. Also, since it seems that you have e-mail contact information for many of our lost contributors, do you think that you could invite them back? If we are able to make significant improvements, they might be interested in rejoining the group. |
||||||
76 | Why do people lose interest and leave? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 21162 | ||
Personal Note .................................. Dear Hank, I would just like to say thanks. You have been here since practically the beginning of this forum, and I would like you to know that I appreciate all of the time and effort that you have put into it. You will probably not know (until heaven) the difference that you have made in some people's lives. Thanks again for sticking around, and keep up the good work. |
||||||
77 | Why do people lose interest and leave? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 21167 | ||
Personal Note ................................... Dear Waldo, Thank you for sharing your sincere and heartfelt experiences. I would appreciate your thoughts about my idea to have people go through individual books of the Bible? |
||||||
78 | Why do people lose interest and leave? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 21193 | ||
Personal Note ................................. Dear Schwartzkm, While I of course appreciate the honor of your nomination, I must respectfully decline. I am considering going through a book, however, I would probably prefer one a little less ... well, you know what I mean :) |
||||||
79 | Why do people lose interest and leave? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 21194 | ||
Support ..................................... I completely agree with Tim on this issue. I think that having some of our leading members (on a volunteer basis of course) author studies on books of the Bible would accomplish both of these goals. |
||||||
80 | Why do people lose interest and leave? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 21198 | ||
How can it work?................................ Dear Forumites, Waldo brings up a good question. How could we implement such a large undertaking. It would require a significant commitment to provide commentary on an entire book of the Bible. At the same time, there is a solution. To begin with, each person could choose a book whose size and complexity would be suitable for the amount of time that they were willing to put forth towards this goal. Someone with little time to contribute could do one of Peter's letters, while someone with more time could do a gospel, while someone else with a ton of time could do Genesis. There could of course be some circumstance that would cause a person to not be able to finish, but even if that were the case, progress would still have been made. Having commentary on half of Romans is better than just having it on the 20 verses that everyone talks about all the time. I would also recommend that a person who wanted to be responsible for a book of the Bible have some sort of minimum number of posts to the Forum already (perhaps 100). Of course, there's nothing to stop anyone from doing this sort of thing on their own, but I think that it would be important to have some sort of way to ensure that such an important task was handled respectfully. Also by having a history of posts from the author, one would be able to see where that person was comming from more clearly. This would help us all take individual comments that a person would make about a book in the context of their overall beliefs. This would also probably diminish "knee-jerk" objections to that often have led to long debates that are eventually discovered to be based purely on a misunderstanding. So what's everybody think? Could we make this work? Are you willing to try it? I think that God has assembled a collection of very gifted and Godly Christians in this Forum, and would like to see this happen. Are there people ready to make some commitment? |
||||||
Result pages: << First < Prev [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ] Next > Last [24] >> |