Posted on 12/19/2016 7:24:12 PM PST by DWW1990
Pleased with the efforts of his demonic protégé, Screwtape nevertheless cautioned Wormwood not to waken his waffling churchgoing “patient” to “a sense of his real position.” In chapter XII of C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, Screwtape further warns Wormwood that his patient “must not be allowed to suspect that he is now, however slowly, heading right away from the sun on a line which will carry him into the cold and dark of utmost space.”
Screwtape goes on to contend that the man’s church attendance could even be used as an advantage in their demonic schemes. He explains,
"As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself as one who has adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is much the same as it was six weeks ago [before he became a Christian]. And while he thinks that, we do not have to contend with the explicit repentance of a definite, fully recognized, sin, but only with his vague, though uneasy, feeling that he hasn’t been doing very well lately."...
Fewer and fewer Americans these days seem willing “to contend with the explicit repentance of a definite, fully recognized, sin.” Of course, to a great extent, this is because fewer and fewer Americans are able to recognize what is sin—or, many Americans are simply becoming comfortable with their sin, and are eagerly strolling along the “gentle slope” to hell.
Thus, no one should be surprised that a nation so deceived about sin is steeped in “fake news.” Tragically, peddling what I’ve dubbed “fake Christianity,” many in the church today are responsible for this widespread confusion and deception.
(Excerpt) Read more at trevorgrantthomas.com ...
I suspect that many posting here have a different biblical understanding of what repent means than I do.
Repent simply means to change. Change from not accepting Jesus as your savior to accepting Jesus as your savior. Once you accept Jesus, you are born again in the spirit.
God forgave you over 2,000 years ago so the notion that you need to ask is moot.
Jesus saved us from all sin- past Present and Future. Here is Paul on the subject. Romans 7:18-20. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”
BTW what are the sins we must avoid in the future? Do you have a list of sins we can use as a guide? Please list not only sins of commission. List all sins of omission. !! Did Paul go to Heaven ya think?
Pretty simple. Romans 8:1
Only mortal Men and Women are saved through belief in Christ. That was easy.
Give me a complete list of all we must do and must not do. I thought Jesus died for our sins and you don’t . What did he die for? I’m curious as to how you possibly answer that?
I do not believe that what you have been told is correct. Let me suggest that you do your own study on the topic. There is every good reason to accept that Paul wrote the letter to Hebrews. And the reasons are Scriptural ones. Before reading the rest of this note, please review the chronology of the New Testament books and keep it at hand.
Some comments about the letter are as follows:
(1) Obviously it was written to the Hebrews everywhere
(2) It was written from Italy (Heb. 13:24)
(3) It was written and sent in the time frame that Paul was there (63 AD, had been there since mid-62 AD known from the origin of other letters Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians 4:22, and Philemon 1:23-24, all of which came from Rome)
(4) Luke was also in Rome at that time, writing the history of the Acts (63 AD), doubtlessly conferring with Paul, Timothy, John Mark, and others who were there in those years (see Col. 4:7-17).
(5) Though Luke might have been the source of more refined Greek as Paul's amanuensis, he was by no means a theologian of the Jewish religion, so he would not likely be counted the author were he the one who put Paul's words down.
(6) They most certainly were not the words of Simon Peter or John Mark, who summed up Peter's Gospel account, but neither of which were trained by Rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), as Paul was at the time he was preparing to be a master teacher in the Sanhedrin.
(7) The reference of Heb. 13:22 shows that the author has already sent another brief epistle to his Jewish audience.
(8) Furthermore, he expects Timothy to join him, and thence both planned to go back from Italy to Macedonia or Colossae (Philemon 1:22). That would agree with the timing Paul's travels.
(9) A telling aspect rests on the fact that subsequently, about 65 AD, Peter sent out an epistle addressed to all the dispersed Jews in Asia Minor, establishing a particular Hebrew audience; to wit, the same audience to which the second general of Peter, the Apostle whose purview was the Circumcision (Gal. 2:8-9).
(10) In this second epistle, Peter reminded the Hebrew audience that Paul also had written to them (2 Pet. 3:15) the circumcision, of things hard to be understood, even when found in the then written Tanakh (v. 16), in the possession and control of the Jewish rabbinical schools at Jerusalem, and the even greater one in Babylonia, which Peter visited with John Mark, 1 Pet. 5:13).
(11) There is no other Apostle personally selected by Jesus, or disciple of these First Apostles (Paul being included with them) that could have been a Rabbinically trained expositional teaching of the Christian principles hidden in the Tanakh, but revealed in the written New Testament.
(12) Even if one disagrees as to the person who actually put the words down on paper, the doctrines are those taught by Paul, and the words are inspired by the Holy Ghost. It is fair to take various observations into account leading to Paul's authorship, but wrangling over it is neither required nor desired.
Nonetheless, I firmly believe and teach that Paul was the writer of the book that interprets the meaning of the Law to Hebrews for whom Jesus is both Messiach and Lord.
If your sources can prove that this approach is wrong it will be interesting to hear their slant on it.
Also his letters are the oldest part of the NT.
They are earlier, but not the earliest. You might want to revise this assumption, also. The book of James is probably the oldest, written about the same time as Levi's non-canonical Aramaic Gospel (Matthew, in the Greek). The Greek version of Matthew and Paul's Galatians epistle are about the same time.
I trust the Lord will give you a doubly-blessed Christmas Eve and Day of Remembrance of His Arrival into the World!
To the best of my memory, that Paul did not write the Letter to the Hebrews comes from scriptures scholars. Do not know why, but that is what I was told. Thank-you for the information. God Bless.
To the best of my memory, that Paul did not write the Letter to the Hebrews comes from scriptures scholars. Do not know why, but that is what I was told. Thank-you for the information. God Bless.
A good and blessed Merry Christmas, Jesus is born, give Him GLORY!
Amen
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3503111/posts?page=20#20
I tried to find that thread in question by doing a look back for it. With no sucess and having seen your posting had decided to respond. Considering that I do get a lot of posting responses.
http://biblehub.com/luke/23-43.htm doesn't show a single translation of the Bible where Jesus refers to the thief's faith. What translation are you using?
Success is the word.
And also "hostile" from earlier.
Your war with the English language is not going well.
Of course, You don’t think I would argue with that? Faith is tantamount. That has nothing to do with our discussion about continual repentance when it is absolutely NOT important!!
Seems like you discombobulated. I’m Sorry. Rest and come back later.
Yes, Jesus died for mankind - not angels or demons.
But, when you think about it...those demons were speaking the truth. They could not deny that Jesus WAS/IS the Son of God. They knew Him from before their fall.
Metmom isn't denying Jesus died for our sins and we are saved by grace through faith and not our works. She is talking about what happens AFTER we come to faith in Christ. Jesus said we are "born again". It is that new spirit nature within us that spurs us to holy and righteous living. We show the kind of faith we have by how we live our lives. We don't avoid sin in hopes it will make us worthy of God's grace and lead to salvation, we do so because we are a new creation in Christ and we cannot help but want to please Him out of gratitude for what He has done for us.
There's no need to list all the possible ways we sin - I'm sure we are all well aware of how short we come to God's perfection. But we ARE made righteous IN Christ.
I agree completely with you on that. The explanations you provided for Paul's authorship of Hebrews are excellent. No other Apostle had the knowledge and experience he had and we should not forget that the early Christian churches received the sacred and Divinely-inspired Scriptures from the Apostles and disciples of Jesus and they would not have accepted an "anonymous" epistle as part of the rule of faith.
Thanks for your observation on this, BB. Actually, what I've seen in studying this out for several years only adds a tad bit to that which was carefully researched by the old missionary/scholar who has discipled me for about 25 years. This topic was one that he wrote up in a paper for his doctorate many years ago. He still studies and writes daily, even in his late '80s. I acknowledge that most of what I wrote regarding the Hebrews authorship is really based on his work.
Nobody ever said it was. Why do you keep putting words in people's mouths?
You keep making a lot of unfounded accusations about what you claim others said or meant that they never said and then demanding they defend it.
You need to unwind more than a little bit and stop attacking everyone.
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