Results 661 - 680 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# | |||
661 | How inspired is the NAS Bible today? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 15463 | ||
Dear Joe, When it comes to the idea that present day versions are still inspired by God, there are a couple of obvious questions that come up. You address one very well. Are all of the versions inspired, and if not how can you tell them apart. I think that discussing the relative authority of different versions would be best suited by a seperate thread. But I would generally include major versions (ie. KJV, NKJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, etc.) translated by groups (thus excluding individual efforts like "The Message", which are not intended to be translations) of Christian scholars (thus eliminating the Mormon, Jehovah?s Witness, and other cult versions). |
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662 | Where are the scriptures, believers? | Matt 6:15 | Sir Pent | 15450 | ||
I may have found a passage this morning as I was doing my regular Bible reading. I have not posted on this thread in the past, because I have not felt that I had anything of interest to add. However, without the intention of finding anything, I came across this passage, and it jumped out at me as dealing with this very issue. I would be interested in how you view it. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7:8-10 that he had written to the church there a letter, which it sounds like was one of correction. I feel that it is safe to assume that his audience was made up of believers (this is based on a myriad of statements Paul makes throughout 1 and 2 Corinthians). In the specific passage mentioned though, Paul says that he rejoices that his letter caused them "godly grief", which led to "repenting", which produced "salvation". It seems like this was a case where believers had allowed some sin to creep back into their life, and it was disrupting their proper relationship with God. God brought conviction (through Paul's correction), and they responded appropriately by admiting guilt, repenting, changing their lives, and restoring a healthy relationship with God. This is how I would interpret this passage (trying to be objective), how would you? |
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663 | How inspired is the NAS Bible today? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 15402 | ||
There seem to be three main answers to this question. The first would be that the Bible is not really inspired at all. It is merely mankind's attempt to chronicle his experiences with God. The Bible is just an ancient book, which has some good ideas in it which we can learn from. The majority of the world seems to believe this, however, very few people on this forum. The second perspective is that the Bible was originally inspired as each author wrote it. In other words, Moses was inspired by God as he wrote large parts of the Torah. David was inspired by God when he wrote most of the Psalms. Matthew was inspired by God when he wrote his gospel, and Paul was inspired by God when he wrote his letter to the Romans. Therefore due to this inspiration, the Bible was inerrant in its original Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT). However, since that time, men who were uninspired by God have copied, translated, or even paraphrased the Bible, so that there are now some mistakes. This can only be fixed by going back to studying the Bible in its original language, and in context of its original culture. This view seems to be held by the majority of our forum members. The third perspective is that the Bible is God's written message to all people throughout all time. As such God has inspired the people at each step in the process of bringing it to the masses. In this perspective, not only are the original manuscripts inspired, but also the copies, and also the translations. Therefore, when a person reads the NASB today in English, it is equally inspired as the original letter to the Phillipians was when it was read by the church there for the first time. This is the view that I believe. What does everybody think? |
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664 | More comments? | Ex 20:15 | Sir Pent | 15401 | ||
Could it not depend on what your job was. For instance, what if a person was in sales, and was paid on commission? In that case, they would not be paid for their time, but only for their accomplishments. Therefore, spending time on the forum during "job-time" would be different for them than an hourly employee at a factory for instance. Or what about a technical service person at a printer company. They are paid to be available to answer questions that customers have about their printers. If they spent time on the forum in between calls, yet always did their best while actually talking to the customers, is that wrong? I do not have either of these jobs myself, but I wanted to throw out some other possibilities to think about. |
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665 | When did God's inspiration stop? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 15398 | ||
I think we might be getting a little off of the original question of this thread. Would you guys mind if we start a seperate thread focusing on the inspiration of the Bible, past and present? | ||||||
666 | When did God's inspiration stop? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 15396 | ||
I think we might be getting a little off of the original question of this thread. Would you guys mind if we start a seperate thread focusing on the inspiration of the Bible, past and present? | ||||||
667 | More comments? | Ex 20:15 | Sir Pent | 15383 | ||
Since this was asked twice, by accident, I'm just moving it off the unaswered questions. | ||||||
668 | Has EdB hit to close to home? | Ex 20:15 | Sir Pent | 15367 | ||
It is interesting to me that when so many other threads get so much response, that this thread seemed to just drop into oblivion. Many threads are on issues which are very theoretical and abstract. On the other hand, this question is very practical, and has the potential to impact our lives on a daily basis. Perhaps so few people want to respond because it hits to close to home? | ||||||
669 | When did God's inspiration stop? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 15364 | ||
It seems that I am being misrepresented here as trying to throw out all scholarly work throughout the centuries, and all of the wonderful things that have been discovered through knowledge of ancient languages and cultures. This is deffinately not the case. I think that this information can be very helpful for mature Christians to glean further insight into many Biblical passages. My point is quite simply that they are not necessary. In other words, they are like the dessert in the meal, they may taste sweet, but are not essential nutrients. I think that really the question becomes when did God stop inspiring His Word. If you believe that the translations that we have today are merely a "scholarly help", then I agree that regular folk can't truly read God's message to them, and that they would have to "go back to the original manuscripts". On the other hand, I believe that God loves the regular folk so much, that He has continued to inspire His message to them throughout the centuries. It just doesn't make sense that He would leave something as important as the truth and completness of the Bible to depend on the hands and minds of His fallible creation. Therefore, I believe that God has maintained ALL of the ESSENTIALS even in the current English translations of the Bible. |
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670 | May I share a simple story to help? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 15279 | ||
The main problem that I have with this theory is that it is a very static and limited view of the Word of God. If the Bible was just like any other "ancient book", then the points would be entirely valid, and there would be many gaps to fill. However, the Bible is not at all like any other "ancient book". Instead it is the living, breathing, Word of God. I believe that God has personally maintained this Word throughout changing languages, cultures, geographies, and history. Therefore, there are no gaps at all. But rather there is a book which God speaks through to people today, just like He did 2000 years ago. |
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671 | May I share a simple story to help? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 15154 | ||
I am not referring to any specific passage, but rather to an overall philosophy of interpreting scripture. You make the correct point that anytime ideas are put into words, there are rules regarding how they are to be written and read (grammar, etc.). My point is that these things are very basic, and able to be easily understood by the general population. I have a fundamental believe that the Bible is God's Word, and as such, He is responsible for keeping it accurate and understandable. Therefore, through all the translations, and changes in culture, I believe that God has caused His Word to transcend these things. I also believe that God gave the Bible to humanity at large, and not to small groups of the highly educated (to interpret for the masses). I have found in the past, that knowledge of certain cultural customs, or ancient language information has helped me to see some interesting points. However, I believe this knowledge to be unnecessary for understanding of the Bible. The vast majority of people have not had this information, and I don't think that God would so limit His audience. |
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672 | May I share a simple story to help? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 15133 | ||
Dear EdB, I wish that I could claim authorship of this story, however I am not that creative. I also wish that I could let you know where it comes from , however my memory is not that good. It is one of hundreds of stories I have heard in sermons, prayer meeting devotionals, chapel services, etc. Feel free to use this story in a class, or anywhere else that it will help. As for my user id, I regret that you aren't a big fan of it (you are not alone), but perhaps my profile will help explain why I chose it. |
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673 | May I share a simple story to help? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 15113 | ||
There once was a old farmer, whose son returned from college with a degree in agricultural engineering. The old farmer took the son on a tour of all 10 of his fields, and told him that he wanted to give them all to his son as an inheritance. Before, that though, he wanted him to do all the planting for one year. The old farmer took his son to each of the 10 fields, and told him what to plant; corn in this one, wheat in this one, potatoes in that one, etc. That night, the son decided to check up on his father's choices for planting based on all of the new techniques that he had learned in school. So he went out and tested the soil for pH, and nitrogen content, etc, and came to a surprising conclusion. His dad had actually been right at picking the best crop for 9 out of the 10 fields. The only field that was wrong was the cotton field. The soil there was just completely wrong for cotton. In fact, it probably wouldn't grow any at all. So the son planted all the fields, just like his father instructed, except for the cotton field, which he planted with peanuts instead so that the field wouldn't be wasted. As the summer progressed, all the fields grew very well, and when it came to harvest time, the old farmer decided to tour the farm. As he and his son came to the peanut field, he asked his son why there was not cotton there like he had instructed. The son explained that he had discovered that cotton would not have grown in that field, and so that it would not be wasted, he had planted peanuts instead. The old farmer shook his head and sadly told his son that he could no longer give him his farm, because the son had not followed his instructions. The son argued that he had followed his directions 9 out of 10 times, and had only disobeyed for the father's own good. But the old farmer explained that in truth, the son had just followed his own will 10 out of 10 times. It just so happened that their wills were the same 9 times. You see the old farmer knew that that cotton field wouldn't grow any cotton, but he wanted to see if the son would plant what the old farmer instructed, or what his own intelligence and study recommended. What he learned was that the highest authority for the son was himself, and not his father. Often, we treat God's Word the same way. We will take 10 passages, and follow 9 of them and then explain that the last one doesn't apply. We rationalize our interpretation by saying that it is not meant to be literal, or was only written for the people back then, or means something completely different in the original Greek or Hebrew. Then we say that God's Word is the authority in our lives. But this is not the truth. Our authority is ourselves. It is our logic, our knowledge of ancient culture or languages, our personal experiences. You see, if we can simply explain away one passage of scripture, then we could do that to any passage that we don't understand, or don't want to live by. Suddenly, we become the highest authority through which all Truth must pass to be approved, and this will inevitably cause us to lose the farm in the end. |
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674 | Are we do pray to Jesus? | Matt 6:9 | Sir Pent | 14944 | ||
Welcome back Nolan, It takes a great person to be able to humble himself and admit when he has made mistakes. I appreciate your willingness to examine yourself and find ways to be a better example of Christ by "using good judgement" and "being a servant". May we all learn from this example. |
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675 | Sir Pent and GeneralWas, notice please. | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 14530 | ||
Greetings Bill Mc, Appearantly I have offended you, which was not my intention. I was truly curious as to how there could be such a similarity of views. This does not neccessarily mean that GeneralWas is also Bill Mc. In fact it is more likely that GeneralWas is James A. Fowler, who actually wrote the article on the webpage that Bill Mc cited. However, neither of these possibilities could be true, and all three people could be completely independant. I was just unfamiliar with that particular theory and was surprised to suddenly find it repeated from so many different places. |
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676 | How could Jesus increase in wisdom? | Luke 2:52 | Sir Pent | 14526 | ||
My personal belief on this is that when Jesus became a man, He put aside temporarily some of His Godly abilities (Philippians 2:5-7), in order to identify more fully with mankind (Hebrews 4:14-15). I believe that omniscience was one of these things, which Jesus, temporarily gave up. For instance, in Mark 13:32, Jesus claims to not know the exact day and hour of His return. With this perspective, there is no conflict with Jesus growing in wisdom. P.S. Steve, please do not take offense to this, for in fact I have defended you before in other threads on this forum. However, I am curious. It seems that certain forum members have an inclination to attack your posts. I must admit that it seems a large number of your questions, do relate to very difficult (and often controversial) questions, such as this one. As I looked at your profile, I recieved little clarification as to your background. Would you mind giving a little more information about yourself, and why you ask so many questions that could be dangerous to less mature believer's faith? |
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677 | GeneralWas and Bill Mc? | Bible general Archive 1 | Sir Pent | 14479 | ||
Greetings GeneralWas, This is a very interesting post, but I can't help but notice the uncanny similarities between this paper and a website referred to in a previous thread (composition of man) by Bill Mc. Is there any reason for such extreme similarity, or is this purely coincidence? |
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678 | Where are these three chronicles? | 1 Chr 29:29 | Sir Pent | 14465 | ||
The Gad referred to was a prophet during the reign of king David (not to be confused with the son of Jacob who was the father of one of the 12 tribes). 1 Chronicles 21:8-19 (also in 2 Samuel 24:8-19) recounts a couple of encounters the prophet Gad had with King David. He is also referrenced in 2 Chronicles 29:25 and 1 Samuel 22:5. | ||||||
679 | stones in both your hands | 1 John 4:1 | Sir Pent | 14450 | ||
There are very few passages in the Bible which come close to that image. The one that I would lean toward would be when Moses came down from the mountain after receiving the Ten Commandments. He probably held one of the stone tablets in each hand. (Ex 34:1-4) There is also a reference in Jeremiah 43:8-10, where God tells the prophet to take large stones in his hands, bury them, and issue a warning of comming destruction. One final word of caution would be that, God is a God of peace, not of confusion. If the message was truly from God, I would greatly expect that God would make clear to the one receiving the message, what was expected. If there is confusion, the message may not be from God, and should be dealt with very carefully. |
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680 | Offices today? | Matt 15:9 | Sir Pent | 14413 | ||
Dear Charis, I apologize for seeming to limit the responsibilities of the offices that I mentioned to only administration of man-made institutions. I was merely trying to define the positions based on the structure they are a part of. In practicality, I believe that these positions are very important to fulfilling God's will and sheparding the flock. I mentioned that the lower office of "Deacon" was to be held by people within a church that can be looked to as examples. This is very important for a church. It is important for people who attend any church to be able to not only learn about God in sermons or Sunday School, but to also see how the Christian life is to be put into practice. It is also important for there to be people in a church who can be sought after for spiritual counsel and advice. This is an important "service to the faithful". As for the office of "Bishop" (or what we now call pastor), I believe that they too have an important role. I Timothy 3:5 speaks of them "taking care of God's church". Titus 1:7 calls them "God's steward", which seems to say that they are responsible for the faithful in thier congregation. This is such an important "ministry to the Lord" that it can be overwhelming at times to many of these people. I would like to also mention the third category of higher denominational administrations (what we now call Superintendants, etc.). I do not know of a Biblical precedent for such positions, and many denominations are consistently attacked for being merely man-made instituions. However, I believe that there is value to having a connectional body of Christ (although that should be a seperate thread). I also believe that these higher administrators are being of service to the faithful by setting a vision of how they can effectively accomplish the will of God here on earth. Of course I believe that God can give individuals direction for how to follow His plan, but often much more can be accomplished when a large number of people are working together for the same goal. |
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