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What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. (Romans 3:1-4)In Romans 1 and 2, Paul has shown that all men, godless and pious, gentile and Jew, pagan and religious, are in desperate need of Righteousness with...

“I want to believe God cares about me; I really do,” she told me, wiping tears from under her darkened, bloodshot eyes. Under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital corridor, Marci barely resembled the vibrant girl I remembered, that kid I’d watched grow up in our youth group at church. When she was a teenager, Marci was outgoing, fun-loving, and full of life, even as she was growing more and more serious about her faith, coming early to youth group and staying late. No one loved to worship and talk about God more than Marci.Then, in her early 20s,...

Please join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for President Trump, Vice-President Pence, and for America: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (I John 5:14) Religion forum threads labeled “Prayer” are closed to debate of any kind.

FAITH GOLDY FOR TORONTO ***On October 22, vote for the only candidate who is TOUGH ON CRIME & EASY ON TAXPAYERS*** www.faithfortoronto.ca

The New York Times’ Frank Bruni really upped his game this week. In an atrociously brutal piece, he called Vice President Mike Pence a “holy terror,” claiming he’s multiple degrees more sinister than President Trump, the otherwise most sinister person on the planet. Bruni actually warns the best case against impeaching Trump is the much greater danger of Pence. Think about that a moment though. For all the venom and apocalyptic hysteria being spewed at everything Trump has ever said, done or probably even thought — and there is plenty there of concern — there is someone even “worse” than...

Morning Reading "As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord."—Col 2:6 The life of faith is represented as receiving— an act which implies the very opposite of anything like merit. It is simply the acceptance of a gift. As the earth drinks in the rain, as the sea receives the streams, as night accepts light from the stars, so we, giving nothing, partake freely of the grace of God. The saints are not, by nature, wells, or streams, they are but cisterns into which the living water flows; they are empty vessels into which God pours His salvation. The idea...

My beloved, ALWAYS remember what Almighty God has told us in His precious Word; that ALMIGHTY GOD LOVES YOU (John 3:16, Eph. 3:17-19, Rom. 8:35-39), to be STRONG and of GOOD COURAGE (Josh. 1:9, Eph. 3:17-21), to FIGHT the GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH (1 Cor. 15:58, Eph 6:10-19, 1 Tim. 6:12), PRAY WITHOUT CEASING (John 14:13-14, Col. 1:9, 1 Thess. 5:17, Heb. 4:16), that we ALWAYS have the VICTORY (1 Cor. 15:57-58, 2 Cor.2:14, 1 John 5:4), to REJOICE in the Lord ALWAYS (Hab. 3:17-19, Phil. 4:4), to give THANKS in ALL things (2 Cor. 9:11, Eph. 5:20, Col 1:12),...

"In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to stop!" The night of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, Jesus told Peter - who had just assured Jesus that he would never be ashamed of their relationship - that (Saint, yes) Peter would in fact deny Him, that very night, three times before the rooster had finished crowing. And that is exactly what Peter did. Peter’s third denial was even made with him swearing at the person who had put the two of them together! By the time the cock had crowed twice, Peter, hearing that, wept bitterly lamenting...

Pro Football Hall of Famer and former Buffalo Bills star Jim Kelly accepts the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance and urges all to never give up no matter what they are battling.

The Nazi fascination with fantastical science and the occult has long made for spectacular entertainment. From Indiana Jones trying to save the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant from the Nazis, to comic-book super-soldier serums, to the reoccurring use of supernatural charlatanism to dupe the Germans in Hogan’s Heroes, pop culture has propagated the idea of the Nazis as obsessed with mysticism and mad science. And pop historians have eagerly provided background for these tales.How much of it is true?Quite a lot, it turns out. Recently released in paperback by Yale University Press, Eric Kurlander’s book Hitler’s...

We hear this on a daily, if not hourly basis. Evangelicals have hurt their witness by voting for Trump. Evangelicals have lost their credibility by supporting Trump. Evangelicals can no longer be taken seriously because they're in bed with Trump. And on and on it goes. It doesn't matter who he appoints to the Supreme Court. It doesn't matter if he improves the economy. Or strengthens the military. Or helps stabilize the Middle East. Not at all. Trump is a heartless, misogynistic, immoral, narcissistic, xenophobic monster, and whoever voted for him (or continues to support him) is not worthy of...

At the start of the fall semester of my senior year of college, I was receiving the Eucharist every day. The problem was, I was not Catholic. I had begun attending daily Mass four months before, drawn less by the Catholic faith than by the soothing regularity of the liturgy. Whenever the host was administered, I went up with the rest of the parish and received it without a second thought. But by September, I could no longer plead ignorance. I had begun to participate in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and was learning about church doctrine and...

In a recent talk for the C.S. Lewis Institute, Os Guinness laments, "It isn’t ideas which have caused the main damage to the church,” Guinness says. “Modernity itself has done more damage to the church than all the persecutors put together..." The Chinese church survived the most brutal, vicious, systematic persecution any church has probably ever faced under Mao Ze Dung. And yet now, when they’re not persecuted so visiously….as they’re moving to big cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, the challenge of the church negotiating these big modern cities is actually causing many to fall away. The challenge of negotiating...

As globalization blurs boundaries (both national and sexual), and as social media and American-style consumerism flatten cultural differences, the thinking goes, Russia and her church stand for sovereignty, authenticity and Christian vigor. No thanks. Even if you, like me, concur in the underlying diagnosis—that the West has becomeunmoored from its Judeo-Christian foundations, that liberalism has gone too far in eroding traditional authority and moral precepts—the Putin Option is no cure. And it entails hazards that could prove ruinous to the cause of reversing the West’s spiritual fortunes. Despair over the cultural left’s stridency and triumphalism in recent years should not...

Against a grim backdrop of rising suicide rates among American women, new research has revealed a blinding shaft of light: One group of women — practicing Catholics — appears to have bucked the national trend toward despair and self-harm. Compared with women who never participated in religious services, women who attended any religious service once a week or more were five times less likely to commit suicide between 1996 and 2010, says a study published by JAMA Psychiatry. [snip] Among devout Catholic women — those in the pews more than once a week — suicides were a vanishing phenomenon. Among...

Teleios conducted a survey regarding faith and politics on two Instagram accounts frequented by Christian adolescents and millennials. Of the 336 responses the majority were: female (62%), <34 years old (79%), from the United States (80%) and evangelical (76%). The majority of respondents (70%) indicated their faith was 'somewhat' to 'very outreach oriented' with only 19% saying it was private. Almost 80% 'somewhat agreed' to 'strongly agreed' that their country was founded on Christian morality and ethics. Further, over 92% noted it was important to maintain Christian morals and ethics in society. Regarding the current American president, Donald Trump, 63%...

The Supreme Court’s ruling this Monday on my case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, helped determine that people of faith remain free to pursue our chosen vocations. . . . after decades of developing my craft, my home state took it away from me. My case started in 2012 when I was asked to design a wedding cake celebrating a same-sex marriage. I politely declined that request because of my religious beliefs about marriage. But I told the customers that I would sell them anything else in my shop, or create a cake for them for a different...

If Jesus is the Son of God, if God became man and walked among us, if the incarnate deity suffered and died to pay for the sins of the world, if He descended into hell and took the keys of death from the devil, if He rose again from the dead justifying all who become one with Him, if He rose into heaven and anointed the ultimate altar with His blood offering up the payment for the fall of man, what is there that can be of more importance than that? If out of all the millions of books ever...

A federal court has ruled that four Christian universities based in Oklahoma will not be penalized for refusing to provide health care coverage for the birth control services they consider contrary to their religious beliefs. In 2013, Mid-America Christian University, Oklahoma Baptist University, Oklahoma Wesleyan University, and Southern Nazarene University filed suit against the Obama administration over their mandate that forced most employers, regardless of religious convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs and contraception. A decision released Tuesday by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma granted relief for the four universities, in large part...

As part of its Spring 2018 regulatory agenda released on Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Education signaled that it is considering rule amendments to expand the eligibility of faith-based institutions for federal grants. In a release titled Eligibility of Faith-Based Entities and Activities, DOE said: Various provisions of the Department’s regulations regarding the eligibility of faith-based entities to obtain grants from the Department or to participate in State-administered programs and the activities that they may perform unnecessarily restrict participation by religious entities in the Department’s grant programs by including requirements specific to such entities.