Posted on 11/29/2012 2:55:12 PM PST by DaveMSmith
Everything in the Old Testament history leads up to the crossing of the Jordan, and yet the way the story is told in Joshua 3 and 4 has major inconsistencies and problems. Is there another way to read it?
Can the Bible be taken literally?
2 Corinthians 11:12
And I will keep on doing what I am doing
in order to cut the ground from under those
who want an opportunity to be considered equal
with us in the things they boast about.
That obviously cannot be repeated enough as it still isn't sinking in.
Those who continue to play the "Luther card" to assert "their" church is alone the arbiter of what IS Sacred Scripture, will probably not care to know the truth.
That's been the situation to this point and unless pride is dealt with, will no doubt continue to be the case.
The truth is that bb just posted what the truth is upthread.
But obviously, she was right about those who do not wish to acknowledge the truth.
However, it is more than ironic that that complaint should come from members of a church who makes Scripture subservient to its IM anyway, so that IM can override any Scripture it wants any time it wants.
What's the point of demanding fidelity to Scripture when Scripture can be overridden by a panel of men at any time it so chooses? Since the IM is considered of greater authority than Scripture as it can override Scripture at any time, fidelity to Scripture becomes a non-issue.
Catholics demands fidelity to the church, recognizing it as authoritative, rather than recognizing Scripture as being authoritative.
Facts are pesky things.
There’s just not too many ways of dealing with them but denial.
Facts...
Luther did not remove any books from the Bible.
No Christians FOLLOW Luther, or any human leader.
Anyone who follows a human leader is involved in a cult.
Christians are not fighting each other. They are pointing out the errors of those who are advocating false teachings, which means they are not Christians.
Fine. Provide the Scripture to support them, clearly.
Swat away - you seem to do a lot more swatting at the religion you don't believe in than affirming and carrying the Word of the New Covenant (at least on FR). Might it not be a better use of time and effort to throw out the positive of Jesus's Love and sacrifice for us? Jesus told us to 'resist not evil", and I believe it's because we are powerless to defeat evil - the best we can do is to personally not fall under its spell. Defeating Evil is His job and He has told us it will be done. Our job is to Love God with everything that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Yet we (I'm not immune) spend so much time railing against what's wrong that we tend to lose focus on what we should be doing.
I am in no position to preach - I throw this out as food for thought and to remind myself as much as anyone else who reads this. There is GOOD NEWS that eclipses everything else but we keep getting diverted from spreading it.
Exactly - the armor of God to defend ourselves from falling under Satan's spell and allure and "soldiering" with the Word as a weapon.
I agree with reminding folks about false teachings and the Bible has many great examples that can be used verbatim, just as the Armor of God is in there verbatim.
I realize I have been antagonistic, especially during the campaign - mostly from frustration about getting diverted by our various beliefs to the point where we couldn't focus on anything but religion. I would prefer an atheist that doesn't force his beliefs on us and who allows the Constitution to remain the law of the land than having another 4 years of Obama, who I consider to be the most malevolent due to his insisting on forcing his abominations on us. I realize religion plays a big part of peoples' decisions, but if you look at it another way, we should also condemn the run-of-the-mill Jew who doesn't believe that Christ walked among us because it flies in the face of Christianity.
daniel,
Very good post and in a good spirit, as the Scripture instructs us to be.
AMPU
It Is Well With My Soul...
This hymn was written after several traumatic events in Spafford’s life. The first was the death of his only son in 1871 at the age of four, shortly followed by the great Chicago Fire which ruined him financially (he had been a successful lawyer and had invested significantly in property in the area of Chicago which was decimated by the great fire). His business interests were further hit by the economic downturn of 1873 at which time he had planned to travel to Europe with his family on the SS Ville du Havre. In a late change of plan, he sent the family ahead while he was delayed on business concerning zoning problems following the Great Chicago Fire. While crossing the Atlantic, the ship sank rapidly after a collision with a sea vessel, the Loch Earn, and all four of Spafford’s daughters died. His wife Anna survived and sent him the now famous telegram, “Saved alone . . .”. Shortly afterwards, as Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died.
Bliss called his tune Ville du Havre, from the name of the stricken vessel.[1]
The Spaffords later had three more children, one of whom (a son) died in infancy. In 1881 the Spaffords, including baby Bertha and newborn Grace, set sail for Israel. The Spaffords moved to Jerusalem and helped found a group called the American Colony; its mission was to serve the poor. The colony later became the subject of the Nobel prize winning Jerusalem, by Swedish novelist Selma Lagerlöf.
Instead of actually interacting with the evidence that refutes you, which will result in reiterating of some of it, you resort to psychological assertions, and charges which all too well apply to Rome.
Rather than accept the OT Hebrew canon which the Prot canon reflects (as the Catholic Encyclopedia affirms), you must argue that the Septuagint was a uniform body of texts in the time of Christ and contained all the apocryphal book at that time, but which you cannot prove and is contrary to evidence.
Furthermore, since the Psalms of Solomon, which is not part of any scriptural canon, was found in copies of the Septuagint as is Psalm 151, and 3 and 4 Maccabees (Vaticanus [early 4th century] does not include any of the Maccabean books, while Sinaiticus [early 4th century] includes 1 and 4 Maccabees and Alexandrinus [early 5th century] includes 1, 2, 3, and 4 Maccabees and the Psalms of Solomon), then you are bound to accept them as well. More on problems here: http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=3956
And if quoting from some of the Septuagint means the whole is sanctioned, then as said, in principle this leads to affirming even more books which are not in the RC canon.
Moreover, if disagreeing with Rome on the canon is such a cardinal issue, then you must also attack the Eastern and Greek Orthodox in like manner as you attack us, as they also differ with Rome, both invoking Tradition.
In addition, rather than us denying that the Holy Spirit was incapable of keeping the Scripture intact thru Rome, we expose the fact that she did not, but failed to provide an indisputable canon of Scripture till over 1400 years after the last book was penned, and thus doubt and dispute among scholars continued into Trent. (Again, see http://peacebyjesus.tripod.com/ancients_on_scripture.html#2, or do i need to post it?)
But the Holy Spirit established writing as Scripture without Rome and her supposedly assuredly infallible magisterium, and that as in the first century, discerning believers also came to realize which books were wholly of God versus those which were not.
Finally, rather than us operating out of a Most High and Holy Self government, we do not claim assured infallibility, but must manifest the truth as to commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God in seeking to persuade souls, while it is Rome which has autocratically decreed that she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined scope and content-based criteria.
And in operating out of sola ecclesia, in which the church and its leadership are supreme, not Scripture, she joins cults which do the same (LDS, WTC. etc.), while confusion abounds in RCM due to lack of content or clarity, as few things are infallibly defined, and RCs have no infallible interpreter of their authority (and do not even know how many things have been infallibly defined), while (as often demonstrated) they have great liberty to wrest Scripture in attempting to support things which actually have their basis in traditions of men, not Scripture.
The more you deny it, then more it will be documented.
Biggirl,
Thank you for your kind response.
It would be a great thing, if every Christian on FR always carried out Christ’s command to love each other.
That does not mean shirking the command to correct a brother in a fault, but it does mean it should be done, looking
to ourselves, lest we be tempted - too often with pride.
For the Swedenborgians and other cultists here on FR (like mormons), I wish them the blessing of knowing the Gospel of Grace that alone is able to save through the sacrifice of our Savior.
blessing,
AMPU
Yes, itn is not accurate to say that Luther excluded books from his canon, but following Catholic tradition, he placed some in a different section.
Catholic historian Hubert Jedin (German), who wrote the most comprehensive description of the Council (2400 pages in four volumes):
“This question was not only a matter of controversy between Catholics and Protestants: it was also the subject of a lively discussion even between Catholic theologians. St Jerome, that great authority in all scriptural questions, had accepted the Jewish canon of the Old Testament. The books of Judith, Esther, Tobias, Machabees, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, which the majority of the Fathers, on the authority of the Septuagint, treated as canonical, Jerome described as apocryphal, that is, as not included in the canon though suitable for the edification of the faithful…
The general of the Franciscans Observant, Calvus, dealt thoroughly with the problems raised by Cajetan in a tract drawn up for the purposes of the Counci1. He defended the wider canon, and in particular the canonicity of the book of Baruch, the story of Susanna, that of Bel and the dragon, and the canticle of the three children (Benedicite). On the other hand, he refused to accept the oft-quoted Apostolic Canons as authoritative for the canonicity of the third book of Machabees. The general of the Augustinians, Seripando, on the contrary, was in sympathy with Erasmus and Cajetan and sought to harmonise their views with the Florentine decree on the ground that the protocanonical books of the Old Testament, as “canonical and authentic”, belong the the canon fidei, while the deuterocanonical ones, as “canonical and ecclesiastical books”, belong to the canon morum. Seripando, accordingly, follows the tendency which had made itself felt elsewhere also in pre-Tridentine Catholic theology, which was not to withhold the epithet “canonical” from the deuterocanonical books, yet to use it with certain restrictions. - History of the Council of Trent, pgs 56-57; http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2010/05/carries-semi-authoritative-catholic.html
Cardinal Cajetan (d. 1534) the premier Roman Catholic scholar at the time of the Reformation, and Luther’s adversary, substantially had the same view about the canon as he did, starting, “Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome.” He did, however, allow them to be included in the Bible, as was the [later] practice of Protestants, for edification of readers. http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/canon.html
In its attempts to marginalize problem of ancient rejection of the apocrypha, the Catholic Encyclopedia states,
the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to the “confirmation of the doctrine of the Church”, to borrow Jerome’s phrase. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm
See also http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/james/Background/Canon.htm
Yes, i have been made aware of the perverse attempts of prohomosexual polemics: http://peacebyjesus.tripod.com/homosex_versus_the_bible.html.
Catholicism fights Luther even in death. Truly he pushed the right button - seems Catholicism didn’t get enough blood from him when he was alive. They fight Luther harder than they do satan/deception.
Here’s the deal.... Religions are all man-made while they dabble in Scripture.
Christians follow Jesus Christ/The WORD ONLY and have a relationship with The Father just as Jesus did and taught us to have. There is ONLY ONE TRUTH and JESUS is IT! We listen to HIM ALONE as HIS SPIRIT as our Teacher!
God made it simple, man tried to confuse it all for 2000 years but THE WORD still REIGNS. You got caught up in the confusion.
And that is simply recognizing where the actual, proper authority lies. And that just galls them.
Scripture is the final authority, not the RCC. They couldn't stand having their grip on power challenged.
Religions are indeed creations, however one was established by Jesus, it is one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. All others were created by men.
Peace be with you
Religions are indeed creations, however one was established by Jesus, it is one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. All others were created by men.
Peace be with you
Say it enough times to be believed = propaganda! NO ONE will find the peace that way. One can’t give what they don’t have.
God’s WORD is The FINAL Authority. Believe IT or be deceived.
Man made doctrine IS deception!
Yep, Luther has been a thorn in their deception every since! Luther is living in their minds 24/7 - he certainly did make an impact on what they thought was their neatly tied 'religion'.
Luther pulled their bow off and those seeking Truth ran with it. No more were they held in bondage by a man-made empire/organization with all it's pomp! They wanted TRUTH/Jesus, not religion with all it's man made teachings. Deception is alive but has an expiration date. TRUTH LIVES FOREVER!
It's ALL about JESUS!
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