The Neverending Story (The Christian Chronicles)

AP ^ | 3/24/01

[malakhi]

The Neverending Story
An ongoing debate on Scripture, Tradition, History and Interpretation.

Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams

Previous Thread

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I continue to admire your stamina, your righteous Biblical knowledge, your incisive, logical and Scriptural rebuttals, and your patience.

I had no idea these threads were filled with so much "oh-yeah-sez-who-make-me-what's-it-to-ya?"

[White Mountain]

Your #2470: To grant the request on his time frame would be a CONDITION. No condition was stated. Just that 'he would do it'.

Do it for whom? Just the eleven who were present in the room? (Judas Iscariot had just left to betray Him.) All Jews living at the time? All Greeks, Romans, Buddhists and Hindus also? Living, dead, and yet unborn? The governing body of His Church in any age of the world?

Read the rest of Holy Scripture and there are lots of conditions: faithfulness, obedience toward God, unity with God in heart, mind, purpose, action, etc., eye single to the glory of God, doing what God says, receiving the prophets and apostles He sends, enduring in faith to the end, that kind of thing.

I have noticed that the LORD does not add reams of fine print to every verse. We are expected to study all of Scripture and not wrest the meaning we want out of a couple of verses. (Or, if you want, you could consider all of Scripture appended as a footnote to each verse.)

Conditions are often indicated by "if", as in: if the desire is righteous. "In the LORD's own due time" is when, not if.

>> I wonder how many devout christians have wondered why their prayers and pleas to Yehoshua so save their infant children from (physical) death... failed, or the children that have prayed for a parent to be spared (physical) death... were let down, felt they'd been lied to.

That goes right to my point. Through the power of Yehoshua's atonement, their loved ones will be saved from physical death in the resurrection, and be immortal ever after. That is better than if they should live ten thousand years here in mortality. In the meantime, we learn a lot from the experience of being born and the trials and tribulations of mortality, including our own death, the loss of loved ones, opposition in all things. That is why we are here, away from our heavenly home, to learn and grow from these experiences by spending a short time in this fallen state.

Again, my understanding of the Scriptures is that the LORD will grant all the righteous desires of the faithful -- in His own due time, and in His own way, and according to His own will. His generosity is astonishing, boundless, beyond our current ability to comprehend it.

Isaiah 64:4 For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.

1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 17:16 And after this manner do they bear record: The eye hath never seen, neither hath the ear heard, before, so great and marvelous things as we saw and heard Jesus speak unto the Father;
(Western Hemisphere, a few months after the resurrection and ascension of Christ)

[Dr. Eckleburg]

After spending only a few hours on this thread, I've concluded I'd prefer Soothing Dave's calling me a "Schmuck" and his apology to ANY of your posts.

Your vocabulary is as vapid as your theology.

Perhaps a vacation or some new friends or a long bus ride to Costco would cheer you up, and help to break these bad habits. It's never too late to improve your self-esteem.

I realize the road seems long, but you can do it. And we're all behind you.

Waaay behind you.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

You'll notice that Dave apologized before you went crying to mama.

No, I only noticed you can't tell time in addition to not knowing the definition of "schmuck" and why it's not an appropriate word for a Judeo-Christian forum.

I pinged the moderator at 7:16 a.m. this morning, and Dave apologized one hour later. No abuse buttons were ever pushed.

You just can't seem to get anything right.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I grant nearly the totality of the Calvinist position as true on a cosmic level.

That's an interesting post. And the concept is, like you said, almost "incomprehensible."

I think the "practicality" it provides us, however, is worth considering as part of God's gift to us; to know that we are His, and that He has "covered us in the shadow of His hand" from the foundation of the world.

[White Mountain]

Your #2504: John 14:13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
Isaiah 42:8 I am YHWH, that is My name; and My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images.

There are lots of places in the Tanakh where YHVH/Elohim (Elohim customarily read as singular but it is plural) speaks out against pagan gods, saying there is but One God that true believers must worship, and He will not give His glory to pagan idols.

Now the time comes for YHVH to come to earth to redeem His people as prefigured in the Pesach sacrifice. He is born of woman like anyone else. He walks among men like any other man, except this is YHVH, the Redeemer, in the flesh. The angel Gabriel instructs Joseph to name the child Yehoshua, meaning "savior".

So apparently the problem for you arises when Yehoshua comes to Earth, because He speaks of His Father in Heaven and says They are One. So this is what One God means! But you (along with most Jews and most Christians) say One God can only mean the number one -- rather than a perfect unity of heart, mind, purpose, thought, action, etc. -- so therefore you say our Father in Heaven is YHVH and therefore Yehoshua cannot be God, nor can the New Testament be anything more than commentary.

Creed-believing Christians know that Yehoshua is YHVH come to Earth in the flesh and the New Testament is the Word of God, but have gone off in an unBiblical direction since the fourth century to try to explain why God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are One in the number-one sense.

But God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (the Spirit of YHVH) are One God in the perfect unity sense.

John 17:20-21
20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

Isaiah 44:6 Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

Psalm 110:1 The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

Book of Mormon, Mosiah 13:33-35
33 For behold, did not Moses prophesy unto them concerning the coming of the Messiah, and that God should redeem his people? Yea, and even all the prophets who have prophesied ever since the world began—have they not spoken more or less concerning these things?
34 Have they not said that God himself should come down among the children of men, and take upon him the form of man, and go forth in mighty power upon the face of the earth?
35 Yea, and have they not said also that he should bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, and that he, himself, should be oppressed and afflicted?

[IMRight]

I didn't hit the abuse button. I have never hit the abuse button.

You're filled with misconceptions.

Misconceptions like "pinging the moderator in a complaining post is precisely the same thing as hitting the abuse button"?

Yeah.

[IMRight]

Ah. No. It would merely seem that you went crying to mama more than once.

[Wrigley]

The Mormon is not my brother.

[IMRight]

After spending only a few hours on this thread, I've concluded I'd prefer Soothing Dave's calling me a "Schmuck" and his apology to ANY of your posts.

Allow me to run the semantics thorough my secret Calvinist decoder ring.....

Translating................. "I... can... not... respond... to... any... of... the... points... made..."

Your vocabulary is as vapid as your theology.

Translating............... "Lost.... argument... resort.... to... insults..."

Whoops! Sorry, I didn't realize this thing had the secret Calvinist playbook built in too.

[SoothingDave]

My obtuseness could be traced to the fact that there are no Lutheran jokes; at least none that we understand.

Well, somebody is supposedly making Lake Wobegon a hit.

SD

[SoothingDave]

Yahoo mail to you.

SD

[SoothingDave]

it obviously says that a wife can be a witness simply by how she lives her life and that the unbelieving husband can "without the word be won by conversation." ... I believe that preaching the Gospel is part of evangelism. In fact it will comprise the bulk of the "heavy lifting" of evangelism. Without the message of the Gospel, we are little more than penny-ante moralists. It is, however, not the only way that the Gospel, the good news of the Kingdom, is revealed, taught or preached. Clearly, our lives are a witness to others.

One of them saints, maybe Francis, is famous for saying "preach constantly, use words if necessary."

SD

[SoothingDave]

I'm wondering if his quietness isn't possibly due to adult circumcision.

Naw. I got fixed as an infant.

As far as I understand conversion to Judaism, you're not out of the woods yet.

SD

[SoothingDave]

Dave, I had a dream last night that Al, Steven, Mack, Becky, Reggie and I dropped in unannounced at your favorite local pub. In my dream, Steven knew where to find you, because he had visited there before.

You know, the NRA convention is in Pittsburgh next weekend. ;-)

Yes it is, if you hadn't woke up before the dream had ended you would of seen that we all stopped by to pick up Dave who was handing out Chick track's at the pub it was a Wen night, and then we all went to church down at the Independent Fundamental Bible Believing Church and at the end of the service you, Steven and OLD REGGIE went down for the alter call and accepted JESUS as your savior (REGGIE admitted Jesus was God) and after that Dave and al_c (who had just renounced the Catholic church and joined the IFBC) led everyone in the hymn "Bringing in the sheaves" and closed with "Kum bye yah"

You don't hear a lot about "sheaves" anymore. Is one a "sheaf"? If we re-made that hymn is would be "Rolling Out the Combine."

SD

[SoothingDave]

That's an interesting post.

Thank you, I try.

And the concept is, like you said, almost "incomprehensible."

It is beyond our understanding how our free will and God's pre-determining work together. We are too limited to understand it. It's a mystery. Where you guys err is by emphasising the one to the exclusion of the other.

Your error is relatively small, but very significant.

Since you are here, can you explain why Unconditional Election and Irresistable Grace are 2 points and not just a re-statement of the same thing?

SD

[SoothingDave]

I continue to admire your stamina, your righteous Biblical knowledge, your incisive, logical and Scriptural rebuttals, and your patience.

Since you think that, can you explain in a Calvinist context, what Terry meant by saying that those in hell are there cause they have rejected God's mercy? I thought those destined for hell did not have the grace given to them to choose the good, to respond to God? Isn't the point of Calvinism that the reprobate is totally dead, totally unable to respond unless God elects the person? And if God does do so, the election is unconditional and irresistable? So in what sense is the reprobate "rejecting" God's mercy in order to deserve hell?

SD

[ksen]

You see JonnnyM when you give the calvinists an answer like this one, they disappear ksen went on to post to Dave later on in the day and never even addressed this post, he CAN"T refute it.

Give it a rest Mack. Just because something doesn't get answered immediately doesn't mean we've cut and run for the hills. We have lives outside of FR that need to be lived just like you do.

Here we see that Adam knew he was naked (a sinner) and he knew this of his own accord, God did not tell him. Adam even tried to cover himself up in his own clothing (works), but even with those he still felt naked and the need to hide himself. From this we see, I believe, that Adam's knowledge of his nakedness led him to realize his need for the clothing which God gave to him.

JM, yes Adam was aware of his sinful condition. Romans 1 tells us that all of Mankind should have this awareness from the testimony God has given of Himself in the Creation.

However, where did Adam come to God and ask God to cover him in that passage? It's not there. There was no choice on Adam's part. In fact Adam kept trying to cover his sin his own way. God had to step in and provide the covering for Adam.

Yes, Adam recognized his sin, but recognition of sin does not equate to making a choice for Christ. God made the coverings and covered Adam and his wife on His own.

[AlguyA]

Well, keeping with the more humorous vein you've introduced, allow me to offer the following questions for the consideration of the folks here at the NES.

_________________________________________

Theology 911 * Final Exam

1. Summarize Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae in three succinct sentences. You may use your Bible.

2. St. Martin of Tours, Pope Clement VII and Karl Barth were not contemporaries. Had they known each other, how might the history of the Reformation have turned out differently?

3. Define a moral system that satisfies Liberals, Conservatives, Moderates, and the entire population of Ancient Rome, ca. 3 BCE.

4. Memorize the Bible. Recite it in tongues.

5. Imagine you have the stigmata. Would it affect your productivity at work? Would you still be admitted into fine restaurants? Would it be covered by your medical insurance, or should it constitute a pre-existent condition?

6. What would it mean to be eternal, co-eternal, and non-existent all at once?

7. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo decide to rob a bank. The note to the teller is 1,200 pages long, not counting footnotes, complete with a promise of damnation if the teller does not accept immediate Baptism. In the middle of the heist, they engage in an extended debate as to whether or not the money really exists.

Are they committing a mortal or a venial sin?

8. Speculate on what the current status of salvation history might have been if Abraham had just stayed in Ur.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Could Adam have refused to let God dress him?

Becky