Posted on 08/30/2021 2:16:10 PM PDT by 11th_VA
Thanks.
Lady, you are most welcome!... see you int he clouds.
You don’t. The beauty of mega churches are that they function as large towns or small cities. They provide a lot. The intimacy comes from small groups and organizational involvement.
So, all of those people believe everything in exactly the same way?
LOL ... you know they don’t.
Grace Chapel was my family’s home church for years. Pastor Steve’s Biblically-sound and uncompromised expository preaching stands as an exception in today’s world. I can honestly say that he is the only pastor where I learned something more from God’s Word in every sermon he preached.
The above is not to say Steve is perfect and has not made mistakes - as he will be the first to admit - but the discord at Grace has nothing to do with it being a “mega church” and much to do with the attacks both from within and outside the church on Steve’s uncompromising stand with Scripture and truth against the anti-God cultural heresies and lies so prevalent in our nation and world.
This evening Steve announced his resignation from the leadership of Grace Chapel (https://www.facebook.com/PastorSteveBerger). Hopefully, both Grace and the Berger Family will continue to be used to the glory of God’s kingdom in the days ahead.
We went 2 years between our senior pastor’s exit and a replacement. We had enough staff depth we didn’t need an interim. We got to hear a lot of great (and a few not so great) preachers during that time.
I visited a megachurch with a lobby set up to resemble like a mall. It had a coffee shop called “HeBrews.” I didn’t go back.
Why would you think something like that?
Beth is good people. Even as a kid. She lived a block away from me in middle and high school. But she hasn’t aged a bit.
“Most folks do not know that history.”
Yeah. Heard that. Booga-booga.
Inventions of the mind of man.
The history of drums and rhythm — different things people have used them for — has ZERO impact on the present day.
WHY?
Because drums and rhythm are inert.
NEITHER carry ANY inherent power.
They are dead, lifeless tools.
Only the hands that use them give them meaning. And the same thing can be given different meaning by different people. Hammers were used to build war machines, gulags, and Hitler’s death camps. Hammers nailed Jesus to the cross!
I don’t see you running around wringing your hands over the Hellish history of hammers. So enough of your damning of drums!
A rhythm line can support music of any nature, from the sacred to the profane. ANY drum at all can be used to play that rhythm line. Any drummer with the skill to play that rhythm line on that drum cam full the role.
You wanna save a soul?
Get a good agnostic to help out your worship team on drums. Won’t be but a matter of time and that soul will meet the Spirit in worship, and be changed.
There are two core doctrines to which Christianity adheres. Who God is and what is his plan of salvation. If you get those two things right, then yes. You can have all manner of misinterpretations and heretical beliefs but you you get those two right and you’re still considered Christian.
If you get either of those two wrong, you tend to get labeled as a cult. But cults tend to get both wrong. They usually demote Jesus from being God and add their own conditions to the plan of salvation.
Grace or Dallas Baptist?
Do you believe that people who are not Christians - Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, born into another religion - are ‘doomed’?
John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 3:5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[c] must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”[d] 9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. 10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.[e] 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,[f] 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”[g] 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
The problem is that God doesn't judge on a bell curve of humanity where if you are within a standard deviation of average or better, you're okay.
Neither does He judge on a sliding scale, where if you are closer to Mother Theresa than to Adolf Hitler, you're okay.
Nor does he judge on the Islamist scales of Justice where if your deeds are 51% good and 49% evil you are okay. You can't stand before a Holy God who knows no sin with 49% evil deeds, or 9% evil deeds or 1% evil deeds and expect to live. That's a recipe for toast.
Scripture says "Be Holy for I am Holy", and "Be Perfect for I am Perfect"".
There are two ways to be perfect. Either never sin, and scripture records that "none are righteous" or be forgiven. There is only one way to be forgiven, and that is through the sacrifice made by Jesus on our behalf.
Now I'm a little uncertain with regard to Jews, as they do look to God for forgiveness, and there is one Old Testament verse that indicates that they might be saved. But if He saves them it will be through Jesus, somehow.
As far the rest, they will be judged on their works, and without forgiveness, they will be found wanting and are in fact already condemned. They are doomed if they stay in that religion. I believe God will attempt to reach out to them. But if they don't respond, then they are indeed doomed. The world's false religions teach that man can become good enough to enter Heaven. Judeo-Christianity teaches that you need to be perfect and that to do that you must be forgiven.
Green Acres.
Well, I don’t believe that in the same way that you do.
Jesus could well be saying that what he TAUGHT was The Way; and he could have been speaking from a higher mind within him - I believe there is a higher mind in all of us, and that is what Jesus meant when he said that ‘the kingdom is within you’.
What do YOU think he meant by that?
She has a very good mind, and keeps a good attitude no matter what.
Well, people are different. They understand and interpret things in different ways because of their unique experiences, viewpoints, or the cultures they were born into (God made us that way; and I think it’s for a good reason.)
A lot of people here have seemed to think that one isn’t ‘really’ a Christian if they don’t believe everything from the NT literally, in the exact same way that they do.
But even Jesus felt that the religion he was born into needed an ‘update’ - and he offered one. The Truth didn’t change - just the expression and symbolism. Human beings need that, as they evolve and develop. And the teachings of Jesus have changed the world for the better, even for people who don’t ‘believe’ in him.
There will probably be another new dispensation soon - if it hasn’t already come along but as yet hasn’t gained traction.
I don’t want to disturb anyone’s faith - we all see things in our own ways. But I don’t believe that people who probably believe in the same basic Truth but understand it through very different avenues are ‘doomed’, as DannyTN seems to believe.
I don’t believe anyone is ever doomed - God is too generous for that. An intelligence that created this Universe of wonders and beauty couldn’t possibly have condemned a little kid in some backwater of China or India or Arabia to ‘no salvation’ just because the child never heard of the ‘Christian Savior’.
I’m not even sure what fundamentalist Christians even mean by ‘salvation’. Do they mean ‘eternal life’?
I believe we have that already, and there’s no escaping it.
Maybe the only real ‘hell’ is having to learn from our experiences and work to correct ourselves.(I apologize to those who believe in ‘vicarious atonement’...I don’t.)
She also has a conservative pedigree. Her brother ran the conservative newspaper in Greensboro NC.
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