Posted on 04/01/2013 9:23:05 AM PDT by JerseyanExile
May God bless you and all the loved ones with His peace and guidance as you deal with your father’s homegoing.
The Bible is authoritative and God's word to us but nobody that I've ever run into *worships* it.
Jesus constantly quoted Scripture and when He was tempted in the wilderness by Satan MISusing Scripture, He counter with Scripture properly used.
Casting doubt and dispersion on the word is Satan's best tactic. It's the one he use on Eve to get her to sin. *Did God actually say.....?*
Aside from the fact that she shouldn't have bothered debating with the serpent the one verse of Scripture they had, she should have referred to it to make sure they had it right.
the problem isn't Scripture, the problem is not knowing Scripture.
To the extent most christians do NOT have an invisible friend(Holy Spirit)... to get their answers from.. and worship at the shrine of the bible.. and more or less pray to the ceiling fan.. That can get old.. After all what do they even need the Holy Spirit for.. heck they have the bible..
All Christians have the Holy Spirit. If someone doesn't have the Holy Spirit, they aren't a Christian.
But again, the problem is not knowing Scripture. You can't rely on feelings or human logic when it comes to spiritual matters.
Hello, do you not realize that without the Holy Spirit to guide, no one can understand the Bible?
What do you think.?.. is the Holy Spirit a doofus?... I propose “he” is not.. and gets much entertainment from christians attempts to marginalize “HIM” and resort to bible or church worship....
I think it grieves Him when He is marginalized.
The Bible is authoritative and God’s word to us but nobody that I’ve ever run into *worships* it.
I see you have a designer definition of worship..
Hard to deny many use the bible as an “idol”..
They idolize it...... I prefer saying they worship it..
Its like saying “the King is naked” to speak this..
But it is so... not with all...... BUT with MOST all...
The Holy Spirit becomes then a doofus... “in essence”..
If everything you need to know is in the bible, the Holy Spirit is useless.. maybe a gofer..
Do you have an invisible friend?.. If not... you do not know the Holy Spirit..
Jesus NEVER said read the bible.. he said go to the Holy Spirit..
BUT if you have one of them Wonderful Bibles..... WHY should you?.....
I read the bible for entertainment, BUT when I really really NEED to know something..
I go to the Holy Spirit....(but thats just me)..
He lived a good long life.. let's hope you got those genes..
***
Scripture is meaningless to those without the enlightening of the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 2:1-15 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
But we would not know God's special revelation to us without Scripture. Scripture points to Christ. One reason is so that we see our need for a savior, and the other so we could and would recognize Him.
Galatians 3:24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
By having it in writing, it remains unchanged and therefore can be used as a standard of Truth by which to measure anything we hear of think of. Otherwise, it's everyone determining truth by whatever *leading* they *feel* and feelings are notoriously deceptive.
Tell me, then. How do you know it's the Holy Spirit?
How do you recognize Him?
When we are on the right path we have ample feedback by the abundance of Blessings and the Fruits of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Peace be with you
Eternal rest, grant unto him, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon him. May her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen
The Framers did NOT believe in "the natural goodness of man.
Dear Sister,
If you absorb the fullness of what the late Fulton Sheen wrote through the lens of where we are today you will find the influence of total depravity and the reaction to it as following in the footsteps of Voltaire(even though Sheen does not mention Voltaire) I mentioned Calvin and Voltaire a few posts ago to Yhaos as two of the most evil influences on societies. Calvin and Voltaire were what the framers followed.
The two are more connected than what most people even realize.
A good friend of mine wrote what others noticed when he said..
Pluralism is the catalyst for merging together the contradictory themes of these three western historical influences into a truly irresistible, degenerative, and ultimately globe-trotting disease. On the surface, it merely seems to outline a pragmatic program of peaceful control of the potential for violence emerging from heretical divisions and the unraveling of naturalist secular society. What is more, it appears to do so with due deference to all the forces active in the society around it. Hence, like the Greco-Roman-Catholic heritage, pluralism claims to respect both law and freedom. As with embryonic naturalism, however, it also presumes that it must defend these goods without reference to supernatural religion, on the basis of secular constitutional, social, and psychological checks and balances alone. Finally, it does homage to the heretical belief in the total depravity of mankind and the absolute incomprehensibility of a fallen universe for two crucial purposes: to find a peculiarly effective sinful tool to harness the divisiveness stemming from any truly serious use of human freedom, and to mock any intellectual effort that might uncover the debasement, contradiction, and ultimate doom emerging from the employment of this instrument in political and social life.
Madison got his ideas of pluralism from Voltaire. Just read Madison's "multiplicity of factions" and it's as if he copied it from the anti Catholic Voltaire
As my good friend also wrote..
Pluralism’s modus operandi was suggested by Voltaire, outlined by James Madison in The Federalist Papers, and first seriously applied under the threatening conditions provided by an ever more religiously and ethnically diverse nineteenth and early twentieth century America. It has indeed had a truly uncanny history of seducing honest American supporters of the Greco-Roman-Catholic tradition, naturalism, and heresy into thinking that pluralism actually does create a "safe space" of order and security where all of them are free to preach and perfect their various convictions and customs. Amazing as it is to admit, this seduction has continued to be successful even when it has long become crystal clear that honest believers in absolutely anything and everything are required, in practice, to separate all external action from internal thought; that pluralism, its rhetoric notwithstanding, obliges them to live first as schizophrenics, and then as vandals dismantling their own internally "divisive" spiritual and intellectual forum.
I also suggest you read the Encyclical "Libertas" from Pope Leo XIII who warned against much of this..
Some excerpts....
There are others, somewhat more moderate though not more consistent, who affirm that the morality of individuals is to be guided by the divine law, but not the morality of the State, for that in public affairs the commands of God may be passed over, and may be entirely disregarded in the framing of laws. Hence follows the fatal theory of the need of separation between Church and State. But the absurdity of such a position is manifest. Nature herself proclaims the necessity of the State providing means and opportunities whereby the community may be enabled to live properly, that is to say, according to the laws of God. For, since God is the source of all goodness and justice, it is absolutely ridiculous that the State should pay no attention to these laws or render them abortive by contrary enact menu. Besides, those who are in authority owe it to the commonwealth not only to provide for its external well-being and the conveniences of life, but still more to consult the welfare of men's souls in the wisdom of their legislation. But, for the increase of such benefits, nothing more suitable can be conceived than the laws which have God for their author; and, therefore, they who in their government of the State take no account of these laws abuse political power by causing it to deviate from its proper end and from what nature itself prescribes. And, what is still more important, and what We have more than once pointed out, although the civil authority has not the same proximate end as the spiritual, nor proceeds on the same lines, nevertheless in the exercise of their separate powers they must occasionally meet. For their subjects are the same, and not infrequently they deal with the same objects, though in different ways. Whenever this occurs, since a state of conflict is absurd and manifestly repugnant to the most wise ordinance of God, there must necessarily exist some order or mode of procedure to remove the occasions of difference and contention, and to secure harmony in all things. This harmony has been not inaptly compared to that which exists between the body and the soul for the well-being of both one and the other, the separation of which brings irremediable harm to the body, since it extinguishes its very life.
No, the Holy Spirit does not become irrelevant.
If all answers are in the bible.. what use is the Holy Spirit?..
Jesus said go to the HS for answers not the bible..
Its true other bible lore writers said or implied that all useful knowledge was contained therein..
But that is merely their opinion.. their opinion is theirs..
“All scripture is God breathed”- is an opinion..
and a wonderful metaphor... not to speak of prose..
which raises the question does God breathe.?.. but I will table that meme.. for this discussion..
Is salvation possible for those that cannot read?...
Can the stupid be redeemed?..
I was a genius when I was 20.. but have grown progressively stupider over the years... Thank God..
Tell me, then. How do you know it’s the Holy Spirit?
How do you recognize Him?
Good question.... I don’t .... He’s invisible you see..
I figure it this way.. if God is my father.. he would protect me from snakes..
Unless God sucks as a father... I tend to think he doesn’t..
Call it “faith”...
I need the protection.. cause I’m quite dumb..
It’s the smart ones that do not need his protection..
Like.. Mormons and Roman Catholics.. and a whole lot of Baptists..
Question; If the HS came to you and countermanded some part of the New Testament which would you reject that part of the bible........ or the HS?..
Meaning if the HS told you some part of the New Testament was wrong ..WOULD.. that make the HS the devil to you?
“Islamic lunatics and hispanic looters”
Let’s not forget the sleeping giant with the largest standing army in the world, who is quietly but steadily building a comparable navy...the chinese.
I’m sure after bleeding us dry they will have some kind of stakes in the remnants of the land they helped bankrupt.
I haven’t forgotten them. I’m just not sure there will be anything left to pick over by then.
Just a bundle of sunny cheer, aren't I.
We know from reading the Bible that things are going to progressively keep getting worse and worse in this world until Christ’s GLORIOUS return, and when He does return, EVERYONE will realize WHO HE IS!
Meaning if the HS told you some part of the New Testament was wrong ..WOULD.. that make the HS the devil to you?
If something/someone told me part of Scripture was wrong, it would not be the Holy Spirit.
Meaning if the HS told you some part of the New Testament was wrong ..WOULD.. that make the HS the devil to you?
Let me rephrase that....
If something/someone told me part of Scripture was wrong, I would know that it was not the Holy Spirit.
God cannot change and God cannot lie (Something I learned from the Bible) and therefore God cannot go against His already clear instructions.
If something/someone told me part of Scripture was wrong, it would not be the Holy Spirit.
I see....... thats what I mean by “Idolotry”...
almost as strange as those in love with love..
We know from reading the Bible that things are going to progressively keep getting worse and worse in this world until Christ’s GLORIOUS return, and when He does return, EVERYONE will realize WHO HE IS!
Obviously Obama is part of the divine plan....
The man is like Moe Howard working on your prized Rolex..
And; Larry, Curly and Shemp are in charge of the House of Reps, the Senate and the Supremes..
The Stooges have come to roost... a divine comedy...
There must be a KILLER punch line..
I note that you appear to be in dispute with boop, but that you do not directly demonstrate how she is incorrect in her declaration that the “Framers did NOT believe in the natural goodness of man.” Let’s begin there.
Define what you mean by “pluralism” and demonstrate how it applies to the Declaration of Independence, which serves as the philosophical basis of what the Founders believed.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident.” The beginning of the most celebrated words since the words of Christ; written by one man, but at the request of a committee of men who were tasked by a congress representing the thirteen colonies who had thrown off the oppressive yoke of a tyrannical power, to express the thoughts and aspirations of a new people . . . Americans.
Kindly explain, if you will, to boop and I (and for the benefit of others who might be interested) how the product of these men can be characterized as “depraved” and “evil.”
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