Results 81 - 100 of 114
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Results from: Notes Author: Curtnsally Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
81 | Struggling with divorce question | Matt 19:9 | Curtnsally | 33272 | ||
I think I agree with the last post, but wanted to encourage you anyway. Here is what we know from Scripture: God hates when our lives are broken because He loves us more than we know, and doesn't want us to live in pain. God forgives us when we mess up. (1 John 1:9) God also encourages us to confess to one another and pray for one another, that we will be healed. (James 5:16) Yes, God hates divorce. But God has forgiven any transgression you have confessed, and it is not necessary to figure out the "whys and wherefors" of your situation. Accept His forgiveness, forgive yourself and know that you are loved by Him and fellow believers! In Christ Curt |
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82 | Politics source? | Mark 13:28 | Curtnsally | 33268 | ||
So your answer, then, is that you have no source that the rest of us don't know about... you just inferred your thoughts from generalities and whatever seemed right to you? Curt |
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83 | Did Satan know God's plan for salvation | Bible general Archive 1 | Curtnsally | 33262 | ||
Let me begin by saying that I am not trying too hard to argue this point... I have entered the fray to try and learn from the discussion. I do believe it is a stretch to say conclusively that Satan did not know God's plan for salvation. The best I can come to, after reading you posts and giving consideration, is that I don't know for sure. Let me respond individually to the Scriptures you quote: 1 Corinthians 2:7 Paul here is speaking about wisdom which was hidden from men. The very next verse says, "None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory". Does not this verse refer to men? Thus, in my view, it does not confirm nor deny Satan's knowledge. Colossians 1:26 Again, the same thought... "the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints." refers to man's knowledge of God's plan. Romans 16:25 "Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began". ... "now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him." Same thought. 1 Timothy 3:16 Not sure how you meant to apply this Scripture to your point. Let me postulate a few somewhat rhetorical questions: If Satan did not fully understand the diety of Christ, does this not excuse Satan for being wrong? Can Satan be the "father of the lie" if he does not know and understand the truth to be truth? What does James 2:19 mean, if it does not mean that Satan and his minions have intellectual knowledge of Christ? In Genesis, did the serpent know that he was telling a lie to Eve? How did he know? Why did Satan offer Jesus rule over all kingdoms of the earth if He would deny the Father? Is it possible that Satan had intellectual knowledge, but that his fallenness was in his failure to worship God? Do you think Satan now knows and understands God's plan for salvation? Thanks for jousting with me. Its an interesting question, for sure. Curt |
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84 | Did Satan know God's plan for salvation | Bible general Archive 1 | Curtnsally | 33242 | ||
I respectfully disagree. While there is not a specific reference that I can think of that indicates Satan foreknew God's plan of salvation, there is plenty of Scripture which infers this knowledge. In Matthew 4, Satan calls Jesus the Son of God. He specifically targets Jesus, tempting Him to worship the devil instead of God, and offering Jesus all the kingdoms of this world. Also, in verse 6, Satan quotes Scripture... indicating knowledge of the truth. Why would Satan do this unless he knew something was up? Matthew 4 1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." 4 Jesus answered, "It is written: "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: "He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." 7 Jesus answered him, "It is also written: "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." 10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: "Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only." 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. We also read that Judas was an incarnation of the devil, sitting with Christ, knowing full well that Jesus had the keys to eternal life. John 6 68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." 70 Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!" 71 (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.) Then there is this: James 2 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder. Satan fully understands who God is and who Christ is. Satan chose his path and has fought God every step of the way, knowing that his battle was lost. |
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85 | info on marriage how to treat each outh | Col 3:18 | Curtnsally | 33230 | ||
Just a thought... (initiated by SRN's comment)... what does convenience have to do with anything? Whether a thing is convenient or not has no bearing on our lives as Christians. God does not call us to a life of convenience, does He? Jesus' life wasn't very convenient... nor Pauls', nor the disciples' ... what right do we have to convenience? Back to the subject at hand, I think that God's plan is often simple in concept, but difficult in application because of our sinful nature. This applies to marriage as much as any other part of our life. Could you expand on what you mean when you say that these passages "must be taken in context". Does that mean in the context of the whole of Scripture, or in context of our society, or in the context of the setting of that particular verse? |
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86 | Who? What? When? Where? How? Why? | Bible general Archive 1 | Curtnsally | 33228 | ||
Here is a question for you... why do you ask? | ||||||
87 | Is satan a spirit? | Ezek 28:14 | Curtnsally | 33216 | ||
Woah! So... who exactly is Jesus talking to in Matthew 4? Some mythological creature? A figment of His imagination? Not! Matthew 4 1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." 4 Jesus answered, "It is written: "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: "He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." 7 Jesus answered him, "It is also written: "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." 10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: "Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only." 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. Satan has the power to tempt us... nothing more, nothing less. God gives us power over Satan if we call upon His name. Corinthians 10:12-14 No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. In the Lord's prayer... Matthew 6:13 "And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. If Satan has no power, why does Jesus encourage us to pray in this way? Do we need delivery from a myth? You are correct, we should take responsibility for our sin. We have free will to fall to Satan's temptation or to call on God for power against temptation... our responsibility is to choose wisely. |
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88 | info on marriage how to treat each outh | Col 3:18 | Curtnsally | 33207 | ||
Any woman married to a man who follows this advice: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" has nothing to worry about. If we think about the relationship of the church to Christ, I think we get an accurate portrayal of God's plan for marriage. Christ is the head of the church. The church willingly submits to the authority of Christ. Why? Because we know that Christ loves us and wants the best for us. The church is actively engaged in the work of Christ, and He wants it that way... just as the wife is actively involved in the work of family. Of course, this model breaks down if the husband does not love his wife as prescribed in Scripture... which occurs more than we like to admit. When this happens, we tend to blame the model, but the real culprit is faulty execution. The model exemplified throughout Scripture is that of the wife undergirding her husband... a team, seeking together to glorify God. While this doesn't jive with modern pop culture, I don't think our culture has shown us a better way. If anything, the failure of marriage in our culture proves Scripture to be right. Proverbs 31 is worth a look. |
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89 | which came first the chicken or the egg | Gen 1:20 | Curtnsally | 33204 | ||
In my humble opinion, Genesis is not a "how" story. If God wanted to tell us how He created everything in the universe, it would take a lot more than one book. Genesis is, I believe, a "who" story which tells us "God created". This is the message we take from the book. "In the beginning, God created..." thus the "who" is established. As to evolution: in the study of living things, there is no question that things evolve. This observation is a far cry from the ill-conceived notion that somehow all living things were created through evolution, which is a non-starter both theologically and in the fossil record. This is where scientists and believers get confused. Some scientists try to take micro evolution and turn it into creation. Some Christians try to disavow all evolution as a communist plot... a serious mistake on both sides. We don't have to commit intellectual suicide to be Christians, nor do we have to be atheists to be scientists. Science and theology are both a search for the truth, and in God's world, they are in perfect harmony, as God is the author of all truth. When we seek truth, we should reconcile what we see in science with what we know theologically. If they don't match, we need to review our thinking to see where we are wrong. We should not settle for for bad or contrived "truth" on either side, but seek to find harmony of all truth as best we can... not by disavowing portions of theology or science, but by digging deeper to get to the "real" truth. As Christians, we must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water. Just because some folks in the scientific community try to wrongly assert creation through evolution, we should not assert that there is no such thing as evolution just to prove them wrong. I am perfectly comfortable saying, "Living things have evolved (generally within species), but God created them first". This is consistent with Biblical theology and modern science. As scientists, we must not follow those who assert false truth in order to rationalize their own personal theological (or a-theistic) position. We should examine the scientific truth and let facts speak for themselves. God gives us wisdom to understand the knowledge we collect. The beauty of our faith is that we don't have to be ostriches. We can examine theological truth in the full light of science and scientific truth in the full light of Scripture... we know that God makes it all work together... real "truth" is inseperable. To the extent that we can explain the consistencies of Scripture and scientific knowledge (which, as Christians, we believe are harmonious), we gain credibility both as scientists and as theologians. |
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90 | Question about Genesis 6:6 | Genesis | Curtnsally | 32717 | ||
I believe this is an accurate conclusion. Rights emanate from God, who establishes the order of all things. We read: Gen 1 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so. Man is given dominion over the animals and plants... this is pretty clear. The concept of rights for animals is not found. In fact, the concept of rights for humans can only be inferred. There is nowhere in the Bible that we find God saying, "The rights for all humans are... blah blah blah". We could, however, infer rights from the "shall nots" as in the 10 Commandments, for example. If "thou shall not commit murder", we could conclude that we have the God given right not to be murdered by someone else. But I don't see anything in Scripture that would give animals similar inferred "rights". It is also interesting to note that this order was established before the fall of man, thus it cannot be argued it is the result of the fall. It is the perfect order established by God at the time of creation. We are to grow crops and livestock to be harvested for food and other purposes for the benefit of mankind... this is the way God intended it to be. By the way, my experience with animal rights activists is that they are generally not drawing on Scripture for their position. They are most often in the secular humanist camp (whether they know it or not), drawing on philosophies of humanism to make their case. In its most basic form, humanism says that mankind determines the order of things and God is not a factor. Humanism leave us with laws that protect the eggs of the bald eagle, while permitting the taking of the unborn human life through abortion on demand. When makind makes up rules outside the guidance of Scripture, stange and often scary results can occur. Your thoughts? Curt |
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91 | Question about Genesis 6:6 | Genesis | Curtnsally | 32674 | ||
Was it not the serpent that tempted Eve? Also, there is no "doctrine of fairness" with animals in the Bible. Animals are just animals, plants are plants, etc... just part of the physical world. Yes, we live in the era of Disney with make-believe animals that have human characteristics, but this is not the reality of creation. Animals are a subserviant part of creation, and God gave man dominion over them. Further, God has dominion over man and the rest of His creation. Sometimes, we don't get to ask "why?" The answer is simply "because He's God!" Oh well... maybe we'll find out some day. | ||||||
92 | One God, many faiths? | Acts 4:12 | Curtnsally | 32347 | ||
I had forgotten that... thanks for the reminder Tim! Blessings, Curt |
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93 | Born on the way to destruction ? | Matt 7:13 | Curtnsally | 32346 | ||
The root question is this... at what point is a person saved? Is it when they first trust God... or is it when they trust God always in every part of their life... or is it some other point... or is it a process over a period of time? I believe that the answer may be "all of the above"... that is, God works in different people's lives in different ways. Paul surely had a conversion experience that occured at a particular point in time. The disciples, on the other hand, seem to have a conversion experience that was much more of a process. They followed Jesus, yet often did not understand Him and even denied Him (which indicates a lack of trust). Even after the Resurrection, we have "doubting Thomas" who needed physical proof that Jesus was who He said He was, showing a lack of faith (ie, faith defined by Jesus as "believing what we have not seen"). The answer to your question is this... I don't know! But I opened this debate to make a point: I think Christians have to be careful about judging the salvation of fellow seekers, as often God takes people on a faith journey that leads a person to profess Christ, but does not include a dramatic point where the person reaches that conclusion. Just as it is difficult to tell exactly when each of the disciples made a decision to trust God, it is often difficult to know the same about the rest of us. The important issue is that we profess Christ, however God brings us to do it, and that we grow in our faith to trust God in all things. Thanks for the input! Blessings Curt |
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94 | One God, many faiths? | Acts 4:12 | Curtnsally | 32343 | ||
Interesting history, some of which I knew... some not. While it is clear to believing Christians that the god of islam is not the God of the Bible, I think we need to learn more of the things you have pointed out to be able to provide clear answers as we proclaim the Good News. Thanks! Curt |
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95 | One God, many faiths? | Acts 4:12 | Curtnsally | 32313 | ||
Couldn't agree more. I often postulate to Muslims... if God is God (which they believe very strongly) and He wanted to manifest Himself in three ways, could He? They can't say no, otherwise they would make God out to be less than God. At that point they can't argue the theology of the Trinity, only the source of information... and we win that battle (one guy's word -- Muhammed -- against 6000 years of theological harmony in Scripture). Grace to you as well! Curt |
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96 | One God, many faiths? | Acts 4:12 | Curtnsally | 32312 | ||
Thanks... If you look up verses on BibleGateway.com ... once the verse comes up, there are languages listed at the top of the page. By clicking on the language, it will convert the verse to the language you selected. In arabic, it actually converts it to arabic alphabet and all. Pretty amazing! What fun is how fast you can do it during an online chat setting. Someone can ask a question and within a minute I can look up a verse convert it to arabic, clip it and paste it into the chat window. It gets their attention. By the way, I also use an online searchable Koran and will find relevant verses to support Christian principals. For example, the Koran says: [2.87] And most certainly We gave Musa the Book and We sent apostles after him one after another; and We gave Isa, the son of Marium, clear arguments and strengthened him with the holy spirit, What! whenever then an apostle came to you with that which your souls did not desire, you were insolent so you called some liars and some you slew. (FYI, Musa is Moses, Isa is Jesus, and Marium is Mary) I follow that with... Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. In Arabic (if it works here) ÝóÃóÌóÇÈóåõ íóÓõæÚõ: «ÃóäóÇ åõæó ÇáØøóÑöíÞõ æóÇáúÍóÞøõ æóÇáúÍóíóÇÉõ. áÇó íóÃúÊöí ÃóÍóÏñ Åöáóì ÇáÂÈö ÅöáÇøó Èöí Then I ask... If jesus (Isa) was a prophet, and He claimed to be God... why don't you believe Him? Makes for a lively discussion on the Islamic chat line! I, too, love all people and enjoy sticking my neck out when the Spirit leads. Cheers, Curt |
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97 | One God, many faiths? | Acts 4:12 | Curtnsally | 32311 | ||
Thanks again! I saw Josh McDowell at a Young Life weekend retreat in 1972 (when he and I were a lot younger)... he was a major influence in my decision for Christ. I still have my original "Evidence" that I got that weekend, and have worn it out. I also have the "More Evidence" book, and have used it likewise. While we're on book reviews, one that is current that I highly recommend is "The New Reformation" by Greg Ogden (Head of the DMin program at Fuller seminary). The thesis is this: now is the time for the completion of the Reformation started by Martin Luther... "all Christians are gifted, empowered and called to ministry by the Holy Spirit". I believe this book could be the foreward to a real reawakening as churches take this message to heart. I am well aware this has been said many times before, but having seen real change through the Holy Spirit in my own church in the past few years, I am very encouraged (you have to understand I am in a PCUSA Presbyterian church... not exactly the first denomination that comes to mind when you think of Holy Spirt fired churches). Yet our church is on fire and really seeing fruit, primarily based on Ogden's New Reformation concept (which isn't really new... just Biblical principals applied in the current setting). Anyway, if you haven't seen it, check it out... its really good stuff! Cheers, Curt |
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98 | One God, many faiths? | Acts 4:12 | Curtnsally | 32307 | ||
Thanks! I often debate Islamic college students on the web at ummah.com. They have an Islamic chat forum. Its a lot of fun, though fruit is in short supply. I often download Scripture from BibleGateway and convert it to arabic before throwing it on the chat window. They can never figure out how I do this, and I get a few chuckles out of it, but mostly hope I am planting seeds. I'll have a look at the site you recommended, and see if I can use some material for my online escapades. Cheers Curt |
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99 | One God, many faiths? | Acts 4:12 | Curtnsally | 32305 | ||
Thanks! Excellent use of scripture, and particularly strong for the Muslim, as they believe Jesus to be a prophet. John 14:6 is also strong, as it is Jesus himself speaking. In light of current events, it is important, I think, to have a clear understanding of these things so we can make a case for the Gospel when the opportunity arises. Cheers Curt |
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100 | One God, many faiths? | Acts 4:12 | Curtnsally | 32303 | ||
Thanks for you response, but consider this... The Muslim (and I suppose Jews for that matter)would love your answer... they think Christians are polytheists, and would use this Scripture to say "see your Bible supports our position... there is only one God". They have a tough time with the concept of the Trinity, "three in one". Muslims see Isa (Jesus) as a prophet, not God. Cheers Curt |
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