Results 6881 - 6900 of 6970
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Author: Hank Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
6881 | Where is Plan of Salvation Found? | Not Specified | Hank | 3792 | ||
Suppose you have been asked to give a talk to a group of non-Christians about God's plan of salvation. You are allowed to choose your text from only one chapter of the Bible. What chapter would you select and why? | ||||||
6882 | Where is Plan of Salvation Found? | Isaiah | Hank | 3794 | ||
Suppose you have been asked to give a talk to a group of non-Christians about God's plan of salvation. You are allowed to choose your text from only one chapter of the Bible. What chapter would you select and why? | ||||||
6883 | Dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible? | Job 3:8 | Hank | 3775 | ||
Hi, Nolan. The Leviathan of Job 3:8, Psalm 104:26 and Isaiah 27:1 has been seen by some students of the Bible as possibly being of the dinosaur family. Beyond that, the best I can do is recommend a superb Web site that I believe you will find helpful and absorbing now that you're "in" to the creation story, the Noah's flood story and all the flora and fauna of that epoch. Try icr.org. I won't elaborate further except to say I recommend this organization without any reservation. They too believe in the young earth idea and, believe me, have lots and lots of good information on dinosaurs! If you want more on this organization, e-mail me by all means. Yours in Christ. --Hank | ||||||
6884 | Infallibility of the Bible questioned. | Ps 119:160 | Hank | 3771 | ||
Before I'd venture to answer your question, I'd need to know wherein you see conflict in the creation account and in the account of Noah's flood. Can you be more specific? Furthermore, how do you support your phrasing "so many contradictions"? How many have you found? What are they and how how do you view them as being contradictory? Please cite as many "contradictions" as you you can and be as specific as you can regarding why they seem contradictory to you. I view your question as a serious and important one indeed, and I among others on this Forum will give it our best. --Hank | ||||||
6885 | Was Jesus a reformer? | NT general Archive 1 | Hank | 3766 | ||
Bravo, reformedreader (Sam), Bravo! If Jesus were nothing more than a starry-eyed young Jew seeking to cure the ills of the religious establishment of his day and, failing that, deciding to start a new religious organization -- then He would surely be an interloper, a fake, and a sham, not to mention the greatest liar in history. We must accept Jesus for who He said He was -- the Messiah -- or reject Him altogether. He leaves no room for any middle-of-the-roaders. I liked your answer: firm, unequivocal, and solidly grounded in Scriptural truth. --Hank | ||||||
6886 | Bible and evolution both? | Gen 1:1 | Hank | 3760 | ||
Good, Ron, I'm glad to know you are a creationist! As you no doubt discovered, I tend to come down hard on the unbiblical theory of evolution. I think it is shameful that evolution is taught as a well-established fact in most of our schools today while the Bible cannot be read nor prayers prayed. There is a Website that can be of invaluable help to any Christian grappling with evolution and I cannot recommend it too highly. It's icr.org. The "icr" stands for Institute for Creation Research, a sound Christian organization based in El Cajon, CA. I have met and had several conversations with its president, Dr. John Morris. I also own a fine study Bible called the Defender's Study Bible, edited by John's father, Dr. Henry Morris. I appreciate your very prompt response, and don't forget to log on to icr.org. --Hank | ||||||
6887 | Bible and evolution both? | Gen 1:1 | Hank | 3757 | ||
Dear Sir or Madam: While I respectfully agree with virtually nothing in your note, I defend your right to say it. Your use of the word "species" is not scientific. What is meant is varieties within species that make individual adaptions to environmental demands. The assertion that totally new species have evolved since creation has no valid scientific proof. It is theory. May I submit that the business of the Christian is not to attempt to defend the unfounded assertions postulated in the Darwinian theory, nor try to reconcile them with the Biblical account of creation, but rather to accept God at His word to the exclusion of man's futile guesses. Hank | ||||||
6888 | How was books in KJV compiled? | OT general | Hank | 3755 | ||
Among Jews the oldest canon appears to be the one defining the Torah (the first five books of modern Bibles), which we also call the Pentateuch (from two Greek words meaning "five scrolls." The Torah was generally accepted by Hebrews as authoratative some 500 years before Jesus' time on earth. Most Jews of the first century A.D. appear also to have accepted a second canon called the "Prophets". But the Jewish sect called the Sadducees accepted only the Torah. The remaining books of the Hebrew Bible -- that rounded out the total list corresponding to the Protestant Old Testament canon -- are what the Jews called the "Writings". The entire list of books -- the Torah, Prophets, and Writings -- reached final form probably not until around 70 A.D. Some minor debates may have continued beyond this time, but the canon prevailed, and by the middle of the second century A.D. the Hebrew Old Testament canon was considered closed. It contained the same material that we know today as the 39 books of our Protestant Old Testament Bible. During the Reformation Protestants on the European Continent used the Hebrew canon to define their Old Testament canon. The Anglicans granted a secondary canonical status to books, some fifteen in number, not found in the Hebrew canon, the so-called Old Testament Apocrypha. The KJV translators, being Anglican, translated the Apocrypha and included them in the original publication of the King James Bible. Roman Catholic translations, Anglican translations, as well as some translations that are neither Catholic nor Anglican, include the Apocrypha. The Revised Standard Version is an example. It can be purchased with or without the Apocrypha. In addition to the Hebrew canon (same as the Protestant) and the Apocrypha there is a third group of writings, some 65 in number, that is known as the Pseudopigrapha. These documents are often attributed to one or another of the Hebrew patriarachs. While they contain valuable information regarding the history and development of the Jews and Judaism, few if any Hebrews ever considered them on a level with the books that comprise the canon. In summary, what we know today as the Bible is a product of centuries of scholarly criticism of the most exacting kind. No collection of writings has been so carefully scrutinized by so many for so long. The plain and evident fact that the Hebrew canon has withstood the severe test of time, having gone virtually unchallenged for nearly two thousand years, is in itself a remarkable attestation to its authenticity. Moreover, people of faith down through the centuries and even to the present day believe and affirm the promise of the Lord who said that His words would never pass away. --Hank | ||||||
6889 | Who's talking? | John 5:37 | Hank | 3737 | ||
This verse is part of a lengthy discourse between Jesus and the Jewish leaders who were persecuting Him for healing on the Sabbath (verse 16 of John 5).Clearly their hearts were hardened against Jesus and all He claimed to be. Now let's parse the two sentences that comprise verse 37. The first statement is: "And the Father who sent Me, He has born witness of Me." Jesus is clearly saying that it was the Father who, at His baptism for example, said "This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased." Now the second statement, apart from the first, would seem to say that at no time has God's voice been heard by human ears. But we know that this cannot be the right way to view this second statement of Jesus. God spoke many times and in many ways to the Old Testament prophets and Jesus is not saying that the Father did not. What is being said is that the self-righteous Jews are so spiritually deaf and spiritually blinded that they "have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form." And then Jesus continues to develop his case against their hypocrisy and spiritual poverty when he says in the next sentence (verse 38), "You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent." Jesus was so fond of using the expression, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." In this passage Jesus makes it quite clear that these Jewish leaders had never heard the voice of God, even though their Creator had provided them with ears to hear. And what a lesson that is for us to ponder in our own hearts! --Hank | ||||||
6890 | For or against? | Gal 3:28 | Hank | 3732 | ||
JVH, I read for a third time Cyberbob's reference to Aimee Semple MacPherson's having started the foursquare church and he does not appear to look with disfavor upon this event. Mary Baker Eddy, also a woman, founded a church too. So did Joseph Smith, a man. And, for that matter, so did a lowly carpenter from Nazareth. Isn't the crucial question that begs an answer, "Whose church do I want to be a part of?" --Hank | ||||||
6891 | Woman head covering valid for today? | 1 Cor 11:10 | Hank | 3724 | ||
Dear Dave, your Christian humility that so clearly comes through in your question should be the envy of us all who call ourselves Christian. My heart is touched by it. Now, to your question. The clear point the apostle Paul is making in these verses to the church at Corinth embraces a theme far more extensive that wearing or not wearing head covers. In the culture of Corinth the covered head of the woman during worship was a symbol of her subordinate relationship to her husband. The apostle is not laying down an absolute law for women to wear head coverings in all churches for all time. In the Corinthian church of Paul's time, it would have been a sign of a wife's rebellion against her husband's divinely directed role in the marriage relationship for her to show up at a worship service with her head unadorned by a veil or other covering. The issue then is not head coverings per se. The broader issue is obedience to God's commands. In other cultures of Paul's day wearing head coverings or not would have been a moot issue because it held no symbolism for them. The same holds true today. A wife wearing a hat in a church in Chicago may have a good relationship with her husband, but a wife sitting bare-headed in the next pew may have an even better one. In our culture, the hat has no symbolic meaning; it says nothing. But it did to the Corinthians at the time Paul wrote this letter to them. It is the symbolic meaning, not the hat, that Paul is addressing. Hank. | ||||||
6892 | Is old testament of KJV same as Jewish | OT general | Hank | 3721 | ||
The original King James Version included a group of writings called the Apocrypha, a group of fifteen books which were never accepted in the Hebrew canon and not accepted by most Prostestants. Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches include them however. The Hebrew Old Testament canon is similiar to the Protestant canon, but the order of the books is different and some books are combined as well. There are English renderings of the Old Testament written from a Jewish perspective. You ask "was it the same during the life of Jesus on earth?" I'm not sure what the antecedent of "it" is, but I assume it to be referring to the books of the Old Testament that were considered Scripture in Jesus' time. If that is your question, the answer is no, the Jews of that day were not in agreement on what constituted Scripture and what did not. The religious sects of the time, the Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes were not in unanimity about which of the Hebrew writings were the inspired word of God. To complicate things still further, the Hellenists (Jews who had adopted the Greek culture and language) had their own "Bible" called the Septuagint, which was a Greek translation of the Hebrew writings. No official canon was established for either the Old or New Testaments until some years after Jesus' ascension. The King James Version, although we hear the joke about its being the one Jesus and His disciples read, came along much later, in 1611. Hank. | ||||||
6893 | What is the Holy Spirit? | Bible general Archive 1 | Hank | 3662 | ||
Al, in orthodox Christian theology the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity, and being a Person, not a thing, personal pronouns like Who (not what) and He (not it) are used in reference to Him. It is through the Holy Spirit that God acts, reveals, empowers and discloses His presence. The Holy Spirit was present at creation (Gen. 1:2), at Jesus' baptism (Lk.3:22), on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4) that marked the birth of the church. These are but three of numerous accounts throughout the Bible of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. All of the apostolic writers bear clear witness to the reality of the Holy Spirit in the church. The apostle Paul, above all others, gives us the most profound theological insights on the nature and function of the Holy Spirit. See Romans 8; 1 Corinthians 2, 12, 13, 14); 2 Corinthians 3; and Galatians 5. .... Closely allied to and part of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is the distinctive Christian doctrine of the Trinity, a theological term used to define God as being in His nature threefold -- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Attempts have been made to explain this concept in terms that the finite human mind can grasp. None have been quite adequate nor can they be, because God is transcendent, meaning that there is none like Him and therefore we can never say with definitiveness, God is like this or like that." God is God. He Himself said in response to Moses' request for the name of the God of the patriarchs "I AM WHO I AM." (Exodus 3:14). One illustration that has been offered in an attempt to help us understand the nature of the Trinity is this: A man is a father to his children. He is a son to his parents. He is a husband to his wife. He is the same man, he is one person, but he is viewed differently by, and plays different roles in the lives of, his children, his parents and his wife. This illustration falls far short of explanation of the Trinity, but perhaps it serves to open a small window to give us a pale, dim view into the mysteries of the Trinity. Paul's fine words in 1 Corinthians 13:12 reflect the human condition in which we all of us find ourselves, "For now we see in a mirror dimly...now I know in part, but then I will know fully..." ... The "nenowned theologian" to whom you refer as stating that the three (persons of the Godhead) are separate and distinct appears as if he may be espousing tritheism, one of two (unitarianism being the other) doctrines of the Trinity that are viewed as flawed and unorthodox. The orthodox view of the Trinity attempts to balance the concepts of unity and distinctiveness, that is, that God is one as the Shema affirms in Deut. 6:4: "Hear, O Israel! the LORD is our God, the LORD is one!" While that is true, God is one, he nonetheless manifests Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- three in one, three yet one, the triune God. Tritheism, on the other hand, stresses the distinctive nature of the Godhead to the point at which the Trinity is seen as three separate Gods, which amounts to a Christian polytheism. Unitarianism by contrast focuses exclusively on the concept of God the Father, thus relegating the Son and Holy Spirit to a lower category and made less than divine. Hank. | ||||||
6894 | Is it ok to hunt Easter eggs at church? | Eph 4:3 | Hank | 3636 | ||
There is no book, chapter, or verse in the Bible that speaks of hunting Easter eggs on church grounds or off. You say that your church does not believe in hunting Easter eggs and add that for the past three years you have watched your children look forward to this pastime. Have they hunted eggs at church for the past three years? If the activity has taken place at church, has the church changed its mind on the issue or have you changed churches?Have you talked with your pastor? No doubt he will be able to explain the church's thinking about church-sponsored Easter egg hunts. This is one of a great number of relatively minor issues that church leaders are called upon to set church policy for. Argument can be advanced pro and con for virtually any issue, of course, including this one. Proponents could argue that this is a harmless activity for children in the church which provides them an opportunity for fellowship in a wholesome church environment. Opponents could easily argue the question, "What does hiding eggs have to do with the Lord's resurrection?" And so the debate goes on. The central issue, it seems to me, is not about hiding or not hiding Easter eggs on church property. The central issue of all these minor issues on which there is hardly clear-cut Bible authority one way or the other is in how the church leadership deals with them in order to maintain harmony and unity within the church. Churches have been torn apart over petty issues no more weighty than Easter egg hunts. The Bible may indeed be silent about hunting eggs but it is far from silent about preserving unity in the church, the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:3). Hank. | ||||||
6895 | God can use woman in the ministry? | Gal 3:28 | Hank | 3620 | ||
Sam, I appreciate your comment. Let me attempt to make my point clearer by recasting the sentence. Given the situation in which one translation stands in opposition to all the others on some crucial issue, wouldn't you agree that that particular translation might well be suspect? My point is that it seems to me highly unlikely that all the other scholars of all the other translations would have erred so miserably. Doesn't that make sense to you? If all history books but one say that George Washington was the first U.S. President, and the one refuted them by saying Abraham Lincoln was, what are we to beleve? Hank | ||||||
6896 | Is Bible study important? | 2 Tim 2:15 | Hank | 3618 | ||
This question is intended to stimulate thought and comment from users of the Forum. How important is it for Christians to engage in regular and serious Bible study, and why? Please refer to 2 Timothy 2:15 and 1 Peter 3:15. In your comment please use these verses or other Biblical references that speak to the question. | ||||||
6897 | Jesus condemn soldier to life on Earth? | Amos 1:1 | Hank | 3615 | ||
JVH has responded to your question with the correct Biblical reference: There is none. Is the movie to which you refer a Hollywood production or a private production under the auspices of some religious or special-interest group? In either case, of course, it would appear to have its basis in fantasy and not fact. Some plays and movies about Biblical themes contain just enough factual material to give them a hint of truth, but are in reality dangerously misleading for one who is not sufficiently versed in the Scriptures. Some are nakedly blasphemous, e.g., Jesus Christ, Superstar. There's a lot of wild stuff out there, and Christians must ever be on guard. We are not immune to being deceived. Hank | ||||||
6898 | God can use woman in the ministry? | Gal 3:28 | Hank | 3613 | ||
I've been following this line of dialogue with some interest. I offer two brief observations. When one translation differs materially from all other accepted translations, should not the one rather than the many be suspect? And, as a caveat to us all, should not we make every effort to make doubly sure our facts are indeed facts before we publish them for all the world to see? It is all too easy and perhaps tempting to air opinion or heavily skewed sectarian bias as irrefutable fact. Hank | ||||||
6899 | Allowed to wish all a Happy Easter? | Acts 12:4 | Hank | 3586 | ||
The Japanese term for what we call Easter which you kindly translate for us who flunked Japanese 101 as "Resurrection Celebration" comes much closer to the real meaning of of what the occasion is all about than the word "Easter" does. One wonders what we'd call it had the KJV translators rendered the word in Acts 12:4 as "Passover" the way modern English translations do. The Hebrew for Passover is "pesech" and the Greek is "pascha" -- hence the term "paschal Lamb" referring to Christ. The name "Easter" derives from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of Spring (Eostre). Easter was originally observed on the day following the end of the Passover fast (which was the 14th of Nisan according to the Jewish calendar) regardless of the day of the week on which it fell. It is also interesting to note that the date of December 25, our Christmas, may well have had its origin in paganism. The most widely accepted theory is that December 25 had already been a major pagan festival, that of Sol Invictus, the "birth" of the "Unconquerable Sun." With the triumph of Christianity, Christians replaced the pagan festival with Christmas, thus the "Unconquerable Sun" became the "Victorious Son" or perhaps the "Sun of Righteousness" (Malachi 4:2) Isn't it interesting that neither word -- Christmas nor Easter -- is mentioned in the Bible (except "Easter" once in KJV which means "Passover"? Furthermore, the Bible gives no instruction to observe them as church ordinances, as it does for baptism and the Lord's Supper, for example. It's hard to find real fault with the custom of setting aside a special day on which to center our thought on the birth of our Lord and another on which to pause and reflect on His resurrection. But in a real sense every day in the life of a Christian is, or indeed ought to be, a celebration of the true meaning of both Christmas and Easter. Hank. | ||||||
6900 | Whatever happened to Joseph?? | NT general Archive 1 | Hank | 3388 | ||
Bible scholars and historians are generally agreed that Joseph likely died before Jesus' public ministry. Our information about him is indeed sketchy, but then he is not the focal figure of the gospels. | ||||||
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