Posted on 12/04/2006 7:52:47 PM PST by Pyro7480
Satan wagered that he can make Job curse God for misfortunes Satan would cause. The first thing all sorts of Evangelical ministers said when tsunami hit Thailand was "God's wrath!" (morons) I have seen many a "Christian" figuratively shake his hand at God for misfortune saying "How can God allow this? I am a good Christian, I go to church and pay my tithe..." Even Adam blamed God for giving him "that woman." Don't be spouting "official theology" at me, but take up reading comprehension, and NEVER blame God for anything.
I believe it but it is wholly irrational.
For us all, my Prayer is that we will 'Grow in Grace, and in the Knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.' (2Pet.3:18)
Peter stumbled quite a bit as he matured. Paul hit the ground running. John and Mary (Luke 10:38-42) in my view found the good part.
The last will be the first.
Jesus did not open the eyes of the Apostles to this Truth until they had to know it. They could only handle so much at a time
That much is obvious.
You are quibbling over the translation
No, I am merely putting it in the context. That verse has been misleadingly used over and over to show that Peter knew Jesus was God. And for that he received the keys?
Like I said, no one, not even John not even the Mary said "I knew it!" when the news of resurrection arrived.
The point is that Peter was the first to receive this revelation from the Father
He did not see Jesus as God. He was simply stating that He is the future king (of Israel) He claims to be. There was no revelation there.
There is a physical body and there is a spiritual body
Yeah? And what exactly is a "spiritual body?" A spirit, by definition, has no body.
No, not unlike the entire OT and good part of the NT, where magic ("miracles") were used exclusively as "proof" of divine power necessary for others to believe.
Like the part when Peter's shadow passing over someone is enough to heal them. It says, people would line the streets with sick. Do you think if any of this were true that Christianity would have failed in Israel?
Amen, KM. God bless.
And I read the first chapter of Job and it says:
Job never did, not even after he lost everything.
Christianity was quite successful in Isreal until the diaspora.. When it REALLY began to spread.. like wildfire.. The pagans could'nt murder them fast enough.. It still spread..
Jews then were never really populous, anywhere.. Wonder how many Jews became Christians for the last 2000 years.. Not to speak of the fact that you can be a Jew and a Christian at the same time.. many Jews were Christians also.. Even today some Jewish familys will disown and shun a family member for becoming a christian..
AMEN! The natural world conspires to keep this truth hidden. But Scripture tells us that once a man is quickened by the Holy Spirit, that man is "different." He is spiritual rather than carnal, confident of his redemption by Jesus Christ who sacrificed once for all the sins of His flock, according to the will of God.
I would that every congregation or assembly would spend some time in discussing the Holy Spirit especially with newborn Christians.
They say opposite things. That much is certain.
Cherry picking Scripture can result in a perception of paradox which is not real
Every time there is a clear contradiction we call it a "paradox" and move on.
This is not know in the sense of recognize
I am aware of that.
And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God...Luke 4:41
Two things about this: first, demons were not what we think of "demons" (that had to wait until the Middle Ages), and two, what they are saying is that he is the Jewish messiah, the anointed of God, not that he is God himself.
What's the point of that verse anyway?
But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: - John 10:26-27
Look, this clearly contradicts Luke 4:41 where the demnons say they believe...yet John says I don't know you because you don't believe...which is it?
To paraphrase, if we declare Christ, He will declare us if we deny Him, he will deny us
And here I though faith was a free (unconditional) gift of God as they say. Seems like there are some heavy ropes attached to this.
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead
Only Paul (and one verse in Acts, probably under Pual's influence) says that Christ was raised by God. The Church professes that Christ rose on the third day. At no time was there a separation between His human and His divine nature. Christ did not need "God" to raise Him any more than He "needed" the Spirit to lead Him into wilderness. Christ's divine nature was suffcient to lead him and to raise Him.
and how shall they hear without a preacher?
Obviously, reading wasn't an option. So much for sola scriptura.
Oh, what a joke! There is no historical record of any massive Christians anywhere in Israel. There are no historical records of Jesus, His ministry, His trial, or anything. And pleas don't bring up Josephus, because his "reference" is doctored and corrupted in several versions.
Christ commissioned His apostles not to go to the Gentiles, but only to the tribes of Israel. They weren't terribly successful. And even Christ predicted that they would be thrown our of synagogues (it's in the NT).
As far as pagans murdering Christians, Saul was no pagan, he was a Pharisee. Obviously, the Jews were doing well hunting down their own apostates and killing them.
The Church in Israel was literally dying. The only way it was going to survive was to convince pagan Greeks and Romans by including them in the Gospel.
There were quite a bit of Jews in Diaspora dating back to the Babylonian capture of Jerusalem. Alexandria and Asia minor were full of diaspora Jews who no longer spoke Hebrew but Greek for centuries. There was also a large colony of Jews in Rome.
Well, is it rational or not? Even the Christians need a “sign.” They claim the presence of the Holy Spirit. The modern-day version of Gnosticism “I know, and you don’t.”
Kosta, very probably the Heavenly Kingdom is not bound to Aristotle's Third Law, the Law of the Excluded Middle, which roughly put maintains that in cases where things appear to be mutually exclusive, at least one of them must be "false." "Spirit" and "Body" seem to be mutually exclusive concepts. Yet to my way of thinking, it is better to consider them, not as mutually exclusive "opposites," but as complementarities.
The principle of complementarity comes to us (from of all places) the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory, the brainchild of Bohr, Heisenberg, and Schroedinger. The prime example in that context is the question: Is this subatomic particle I "observe" a particle (body) or a wave? The answer is: It all depends on how you look, and what you're looking for. The main takeaway, however, is that the subatomic particle is actually always both at once; and the complete description of it cannot be given by reference to only one of its aspects (particle, wave): You need both.
Earlier you wrote that you believe in the resurrection of the body, but that such a thing is "irrational." If you are going to use reason as your yardstick to "measure" divine realities, I think you'll be endlessly frustrated. Our facility for understanding the world of nature has little if any bearing on our ability to explicate the divine. A different language other than reason is necessary....
I was reading somewhere the other day an interesting definition of faith: Faith = reason plus revelation (or prophecy). That, to me, is the greatest complementarity of all....
Thank you so much for your fascinating posts, dear kosta!
AMEN.
Precisely so. IMHO, a Christian begins to understand this when he has experienced both the knowledge of Scripture and the power of God through the indwelling Spirit.
Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. Matt 22:29
At that point, the questions he asks, the answers he receives are in a spiritual language that others like him also speak. The conversation may sound illogical or “spooky” to those who are not yet speaking in that spiritual language (I Cor 2)
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INDEED.
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