Conclusion from Peru and Mexico

ESV Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

In recent days I have spent time in Lima and Sullana Peru and Mexico City and I have discovered that people by nature are the same. Man has a heart that is inclined to selfishness and idolatry. Sin abounds in the remotest parts of the land because the heart is desperately wicked. Thousands bow before statues of Mary and pray to her hoping for answers. I have seen these people stare hopelessly at Mary icons, Jesus icons, and a host of dead saints who will do nothing for them. I have talked with people who pray to the pope and say that they love him. I talked with one lady who said that she knew that Jesus was the Savior, but she loved the pope. Thousands bow before Santa Muerte (holy death angel) in hopes that she will do whatever they ask her. I have seen people bring money, burning cigarettes, beer, whiskey, chocolate, plants, and flowers to Santa Muerte in hopes of her answers. I have seen these people bowing on their knees on the concrete in the middle of public places to worship their idol. Millions of people come into the Basilica in Mexico City and pay their money, confess their sins, and stare hopelessly at relics in hope that their sins will be pardoned. In America countless thousands are chained to baseball games, football games, material possessions, and whatever else their heart of idols can produce to worship.

My heart has broken in these last weeks because the God of heaven is not honored as he ought to be honored. People worship the things that are created rather than worshiping the Creator. God has been gracious to all mankind and yet mankind has hardened their hearts against a loving God. God brings the rain on the just and unjust. God brings the beautiful sunrises and sunsets upon the just and unjust. God gives good gifts unto all and above all things he has given his Son that those who would believe in him would be saved. However, man has taken the good things of God and perverted them unto idols and turned their attention away from God. I get a feel for Jesus as he overlooked Jerusalem or Paul as he beseeched for God to save Israel. When you accept the reality of the truth of the glory of God is breaks your heart that people would turn away from the great and awesome God of heaven to serve lesser things. Moses was outraged by the golden calf, the prophets passionately preached against idolatry, Jesus was angered that the temple was changed in an idolatrous business, and Paul preached to the idolaters of Mars Hill by telling them of the unknown God.

I arrived back at home wondering how I should respond to all the idolatry that I have beheld in these last three weeks. I wondered how our church here in the states should respond to all of the idolatry in the world. What are the options? First, I suppose we could sit around and hope that people chose to get their life together and stop being idolaters. However, I do not know how that could ever happen apart from them hearing the truth. Second, I suppose we could spend a lifetime studying cultural issues and customs in hope that we could somehow learn to relate to the people of other countries. However, the bible is quite clear that all men are the same. Men are dead in sin, shaped in iniquity, and by nature are the enemies of God. Thirdly, we could pay other people or other agencies to go and do a work for us while we remain comfortably in the states. However, there is no way to insure that there will be doctrinal accuracy or integrity. If we only pay other people to take the gospel we will miss out on all of the benefits of being obedient to the mission of God. Lastly, we could seek where God would have us to do a lasting work and then invest our lives there for the glory of God. The gospel has the power to raise the dead in any culture and we must be willing to take the gospel wherever God would have us take it. It is for sure that our church cannot go to every country and reach every people group, so we must determine where God would have us work and seek to be obedient wherever that is.

It seems that some doors are opening in the Spanish speaking countries below us and perhaps God is beginning to reveal where we are to work. There are some options for work to be partnered with in Peru and there could be a couple of options in Mexico. The need is greater than I can express upon this paper for a biblical gospel to be proclaimed in Peru and Mexico. Oh, that God would glorify his great name in Peru and Mexico by using a small little church in a town that does not exist to proclaim his great gospel amongst a people who desperately need the truth.

I give thanks to the LORD for allowing me the privilege of going to these countries and broadening my horizons. The things that I have seen will be forever engraved upon my heart. I will long remember the pastors that I spent time with in Peru and I will never forget Adolfo who translated for me in Mexico. I will relish the time that I spent with Paul Washer and the others. When I think of church I will forever remember being on top of that mountain in Sullana at that church which had no electricity and no roof. I am convinced that heaven was looking down on that little church on top of that mountain and very few people on earth even know that it exist. Oh, God I pray that the things of this world will continue to grow dim and that God’s people will be caught up in his glorious presence.

Because of the truth: Pastor: J. Randall Easter II Timothy 2:19 "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases."(Ps. 115:3) "He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will."(Eph. 1:5) Those who have been saved have been saved for His glory and they are being made holy for this is the will of God. Are you being made holy? Spurgeon says, "If your religion does not make you holy it will damn you to hell."

Dear Wonder Dawg,

Perhaps this might help you?

From Saint Thomas Aquinas

That all Things aim at Likeness to God

All things evidently have a natural appetite for being, and resist destructive agencies wherever they are threatened with them. But all things have being inasmuch as they are likened to God, who is the essential subsistent Being, all other things having being only by participation. All things therefore have an appetite for likeness to God, making that their last end.

4. All created things are some sort of image of the prime agent, God: for every agent acts to the production of its own likeness: now the perfection of an image consists in representing its original by likeness thereto: the image in fact is made on purpose. All things then exist for the attaintment of the divine likeness; and that is their last end.*

*Note
Some attribute or other of the Creator is relucent in every creature, according to the being which it has and the energy it displays, not however that attribute which serves best the immediate purposes of man, and ministers most to his security and comfort. This world is not exactly built for an hotel.

It reveals to me that Thomas Aquinas was wrong about an important issue. Created things DO NOT contain an “appetite for likeness to God, making that their last end.” Man is born in sin and seeks not God nor can he draw near to God lest He is drawn. Flowers and birds have comprehension of their creator - they glorify Him none the less by being as He created them. We glorify Him by being as He created us - in the beginning, when He created Adam and Eve and there was no sin. This is why being born again is cause for celebration in Heaven - we THEN can glorify our Father and Creator by being how He intended us to be.

“All things then exist for the attaintment of the divine likeness; and that is their last end.” This sounds so much like pantheism that I wonder if this explains a bit of the universalism apparent in some RCC doctrine.

No, the quote from Aquinas certainly does not alter what the Scripture says - that people are born in the image of their parents, incapable of doing anything good, in need of Christ for life itself - and the good works that follow the new birth.

“”It reveals to me that Thomas Aquinas was wrong about an important issue. Created things DO NOT contain an “appetite for likeness to God, making that their last end.””

You are not understanding properly

Here is more...

How God is the End of all Things

God is at once the last end of all things, and is nevertheless before all things in being. There is an end which, while holding the first place in causation according as it is in intention, is nevertheless posterior in being; and this is the case with every end that an agent establishes by his action, as the physician establishes health by his action in the sick man, which health nevertheless is his end. There is again an end which is prior in causation, and also is prior in being: such an end one aims at winning by one’s actions or movement, as a king hopes to win a city by fighting. God then is the end of things, as being something which everything has to gain in its own way.

2. God is the last end of things and the prime agent of all (Chap. XVIIhttp://www2.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/gc3_17.htm). But an end established by the action of an agent cannot be the prime agent: rather it is the effect produced by the agent. God therefore cannot be the end of things as though He were anything established in being thereby, but only as some pre-existent object for them to attain.

4. An effect tends to an end in the same way that the producer of the effect acts for that end. But God, the first producer of all things, does not act in view of acquiring anything by His action, but in view of bestowing something by His action: for He is not in potentiality to acquire anything, but only in perfect actuality, whereby He can give and bestow. Things then are not directed to God as though God were an end unto which any accretion or acquisition were to be made: they are directed to Him so that in their own way they may gain from God God Himself, since He Himself is their end.

It's good every once in a while to come down to earth and to converse with someone who doesn't speak Aristotle.(Mind you, neither Aristotle nor Aquinas were much favored where I did my graduate stuff, so I"m kind of out of practice myself.)

Yeah, it does SOUND sort of Mormon or what I think of as "kozmic soupy". I don't thing it is though.

I don't the StFA is trying to persuade you so much as offer another, possibly useful somehow, POV.

Col 1:15b: ... all things were created through him and for him. So in that He is "that for the sake of which" all things were created, He is their end.

I would agree that the person who drools after some chiquita, or over some car, or over the prospect of having a gazillion dollars doesn't say to Himself, "I want the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of Our Lord IHS XP," in fact the pleasure, power, and security that those things promise is only found in God. Even the sense of importance and significance which seems to the unconverted to be only possible if one usurps God is filled joyously by God's love.

So the average human-type personnel may not KNOW that God is He for whom the individual was made, and end in that sense, but is also He whom the individual desires, in whom the individual desires will be satisfied, without whom no real satisfaction is possible.

I think it is in that sense that God is spoken of as our "end".

Why do you try to convince me of Aquinas’ perspective anyway? No man is without error. Scripture tells us what God deems important.

It is so true that no man is without error that no man is without error if he tries to understand Scripture all by his lonesome.

But no half-way learned Catholic seriously thinks the angelic Doctor is without error.

FK: "But in any event, I thought it was generally accepted that solid belief as we understand it, was not fully formed until Pentecost."

You are right! That's why the Synoptic Gospels (written after 70 AD) do not treat Christ as God, but concentrate on his humanity (as a Jewish messiah), and John's Gospel (written at the end of the century, some 30 years later) does!

But all of the Gospels, indeed all of the NT, was written well after Pentecost, after solid belief was fully formed. All of the writers had the correct understanding of God when they wrote God's word. They revealed incompleteness in the understanding of many, notably Mary, as it happened in history, but the theology of the NT IS correct and complete.

By then, Christianity clearly evolved into a separate religion (partly because it was rejected by the Rabbis at Jamnia) and was in fact actively doing everything to shed its Jewish roots, character, Sabbath, or mode of worship, while recognizing Jesus as fully divine as well, not just an "image of God" (as +Paul says), but God himself.

Jamnia was somewhere in the 90-100 range, and the vast majority of the NT had already been written by then. So you appear to be saying that Christianity developed "above" or "despite" what the Bible says (no doubt thanks to the hierarchy of the Church). If so, then you would be saying that what the Apostolic Church teaches does not closely match what the Bible says in many cases. On that I would agree. :)

No, Jesus is described all over the OT, so the scripture IS there. Some to many did not see it. We just read this passage in church not two hours ago: Luke 24:25-27...27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Please provide passages where Moses and others, without any doubt, write about Jesus. Thank you.

I did that already, to you, on this thread. :) I should have saved it. What is striking to me is that you challenge the truthfulness of (a) one of the Gospels, and/or (b) Christ Himself. However, here is an excellent example of Moses writing about Jesus:

Deut 18:15-19 : 15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, "Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die." 17 The Lord said to me: "What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. 19 If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account.

The key area of contention IMHO is the great and cumbersome one of the authority of Scripture, I think. And it is complicated because of the various meanings attached to terms like innerrancy and infallibility.

Yes, I think you're exactly right. I am rather rigid on those subjects. :)

On the other hand, I get the distinction between "personal" and "catholic" that I think kosta is making, but, at a guess I'd say the adversarial rhetoric hinders the discovery of meaning and intention.

I would really like to know what the Latin position is. I think I understand that the Orthodox position is that God is wholly impersonal. I know that both of you are familiar with the development of Christian philosophy/theology over the last 500 years or more (a subject I am now studying for the first time), and so you both know that the concept of "God is personal" (or not) is HUGE. :)

As an adult type person (allegedly) I haven't thought that Jonah or Job were actual histories.

This goes right to the heart of Biblical authority. While the Bible certainly DOES use many techniques to convey information, such as parables, songs, poems, other allegory, and straight factual historical recitation, how do those stories READ to you? I take them at face value because they are not vague "there once was a man". They contain names, places, and other specific details which one would think would be checkable. Unless it is obvious, as with virtually all parables, how is one to know what is fact and what is fiction?

I mean no disrespect by this but Kosta is on the record saying that the Exodus never happened, which means that the first Passover never happened for real (God killed, and all). Jesus obviously celebrated the Passover "religiously". Was He celebrating a lie? This is the type of stuff that gets my shorts in a bunch. :)

So both of you can jump on me if you like. But I think truth would be better served if you both articulated in positive terms what you think the Bible is good for.

No need my friend. You raise good points. :) Concerning positive terms about what I think the Bible is good for, I would lead with this:

2 Tim 3:16-17 : 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

I do consider "all scripture" to be the whole Bible, and from what I can tell of the Catechism, it "appears" to agree.

“”He is not a galactic funnel into which birds, flowers, and people end up.””

This is not what is being said,Dear MWF.

Why must you twist and spin everything in such eccentric extremes?

Who do you suppose is cause of - the beginning and end of all created nature?

BTW, this does not mean that when something ceases to exist that it ends up in a galactic tunnel

More Aquinas

That God is the Cause of Activity in all Active Agents

AS God not only gave being to things when they first began to be, but also causes being in them so long as they exist (Chap. LXV); so He did not once for all furnish them with active powers, but continually causes those powers in them, so that, if the divine influx were to cease, all activity would cease.
Hence it is said: Thou hast wrought all our works in us, O Lord (Isa. xxvi, 12). And for this reason frequently in the Scriptures the effects of nature are put down to the working of God, because He it is that works in every agent, physical or voluntary: e.g., Hast thou not drawn me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? with skin and flesh thou hast clothed me, with bones and sinews thou hast put me together (Job x, 10, 11).

Blessed Saint Augustine says this...

“The power of the Creator, and the might of the Almighty and All-containing, is the cause of the permanence of every creature. If this power ever ceased from governing creation, all the brave show of creatures would at once cease, and all nature would fall to nothing. It is not like the case of one who has built a house, and goes away, and still the structure remains, when his work has ceased and his presence is withdrawn. The world could not endure for the twinkling of an eye, if God retired from the government of it.” Saint Augustine (De Gen. ad lit. iv, 12):

I fear to present my thinking on the question of God and personality as "Catholic" -- and my two backup inquisitors are so busy that they are asking ME to check stuff for THEM!

With that disclaimer. I think God is MORE than, not less than, "Personal". From this I conclude that it is okay to use "personal language" about Him as long as we're all clear that it's analogical. For example, When I get angry I have physiological events and, generally, my thinking and self-control are diminished. Also, I can get angry without their being a good reason for me to be angry.

If we think those things are of the essence of wrath, we cannot attribute wrath to God, duh. But if we think of wrath as a determination and choice to set right what is wrong (or something like that) then We can say that god is wrathful.

Our Hindu and Buddhists friends, mostly, would say that Karma is something like the 'working out of balance and justice'. THAT's impersonal. WE would say, "God rises up in anger and scatters the foe (Ps 68 or somesuch)". Our language insists on will and choice with an implication that what we technically refer to as the Great Hoo Hoo in the Sky (hereinafter TGHHITS) has something like a will and, at the most hoo-hoo-ish level chooses to be as He is. Whereas for Plotinus and for the Eastern religions I wold VENTURE to say that TGHHITS sort of just is.

For us LOVE, even the kind that involves eros, is one of the highest activities, and not, as in a fantasy of an erotic ecstasy, because we lose our selves and our wills, but because we find them as we give them up. For Us TGHHITS IS LOVE and DOES LOVING -- LOVES. And there is SOME useful similarity between what TGHHITS does and what we do that we can use the word "LOVE" meaningfully to denote both. It's not that we have NO idea, it's that we have a highly inadequate idea, as in a glass darkly. Finally, TGHHITS is personal, I sometimes at least am not, and am probably never completely personal, and won't be until I see God.

If you have any problems with this, just repeat the Mantra: Dawg is Right. You will find that it all becomes clear.

As to the Bible and the accounts of Job and Jonah: Job is enigmatic whether it happens just that way or not. That it is in the canon means to me that I should bash my head against it until God tells me something. Having done at least some bashing, I think there is an awful lot in that book! Wow! How humans are jerks, How God is merciful with our jerkiness, How suffering brings us to the brink and there is where we meet God, and on and on and on. I think the "Stylized" beginning and ending and the sort of "speeches" of the alleged comforters indicate a highly "Crafted" account in any event. That, in itself does not suggest it didn't happen. I'm more concerned about the historicity of "Uz" as a sho' 'nuff place.

I don't think, even if Jesus did - but I am of course open to correction, that a great fish toted Jonah around in his belly and then vomited him out on a beach. I Do think that if God gives you a mission, you might as well obey now unless you want to smell like fish guts. I DO think that God loves even the Ninevites (and also much cattle) and if he can love Ninevites, why he might even Love Calvinists! Maybe.

And I think that NEITHER the frightening aspects of preaching repentance, NOR the confidence that God is gentle and forgiving excuses me from preaching repentance and any other ministry. He may choose me to be a vehicle of His gentleness after all.

ANd I think that I, along with the rest off the human race, may TALK like I want all men to be saved and to have things work out for them and so forth, because I like to think of me as a very nice guy. But in fact, I am mean and small and petty and when good things happen to bad people or even to people who give me a touch time, instead of praising God for His mercy I can find myself being so angry I'd just as soon die. And I think that God may mercifully afflict me in such times to bring me back to myself and to Him.

And this is not just a kind of result of the exercise of asking "What is the meaning of Jonah" but it is or should be part of my daily exchange with God -- when I see a worm attacking a plant or feel a sultry east wind, I should be looking for God's merciful rebuke.

With all due respect to Charlton Heston, I don't think the waters rose up as they did in the movie. And I'm not sure if all the tribes of Israel were in Egypt. I think a people descended from Abraham and clamming his covenant and all that, were wonderfully delivered from Egypt and that the deliverance involved some signs and wonders not necessarily scientifically inexplicable, but that meant that the were able to go through a place that was normally under water and that when Pharoah's chariots and horsemen followed their wheels were clogged and the water returned and they had a very bad day.

Sing to the Lord for exalting He has exalted; horse and driver (they didn't ride 'em in those days, and I think the word usually translated as "rider" is close enough to the word meaning "chariot", that "Driver" is good) has He hurled into the sea.

I mention the translation issues because an OT prof maintained that Miriam's song must have been composed much later when people rode horses, and I don't think that is necessarily so. I think it could be the read deal and handed down from the days of the actual exodus. Yep. I think that happened.

Pardon haste and incompleteness or incoherence. Haste is what's happening right now.

There is simply no evidence to back up biblical claims that Exodus happened or that the Hebrews ever lived in Egypt. Exodus 12:40 says that the Hebrews lived in Egypt for 430 years.

Exodus 12:37 tells us that 600,000 men, not counting their children, left Egypt in the Exodus (this is repeated also in Numbers 1:45-46). We have hundreds of thousands of people allegedly living in one place for over 400 years and leaving absolutely no archeological trace of their presence!

We also have close to a million people roaming the deserts of Sinai for 40 years and leaving no archeological presence whatsoever, but there is plenty of archeological evidence of Egyptian presence in Sinai at the alleged time of the Exodus.

Since the end of the Three Day War (1967), the Israeli archaeologists have been working in overdrive for 40 years and found no evidence to back up biblical claims.

Numbers 13:26, 20:1, 20:14; and Deuteronomy 1:46. tell us that out of these 40 years, the Israelites spent 38 eight years in one single location! You'd think that a settlement of one million people would yield some evidence of their presence in that location, which has been found and positively identified (Kadesh-Barnea).

More importantly, the son of Rhamses II, Merneptah, conquered Canaan a generation after the alleged Exodus. An existing stela (stone monument with inscriptions), dating to the 13th century BC, speaks of this event. The document makes no mention of Exodus which surely would have served as a motive for revenge against the Israelites.

Archeological evidence found in the Sinai suggests that the Egyptians had military and other installations in the peninsula at the time of the alleged Exodus. The Egyptians had no difficulties cross the Red Sea. The Egyptians present in the Sinai would have laid waste to Israelites during their alleged 40 year presence there. There is no evidence of any long-term siege or mention of a campaign against the Israelites either from from Israeli or Egyptian sources.

Finally, historical documents also show that Egypt had control over the Canaan and all the way up to Syria on occasion during the New Kingdom (ending in the 11th century BC), and that if any of the stories about the Exodus were anything other than Israelite myths, the Egyptians would have eradicated Israelites from the face of this earth.

It's a legend.

All you offer is the Bible. By saying that Christ necessarily believed a lie you are sing the scare-tactic that may discourage many for all the wrong reasons. Christ could not have believed a lie, because what the Gospels teach is incompatible with God killing the first-born, both human and cattle! That would make God, who is Life, the God of death!

It is also ridiculous, for the lack of a better word, that an all-knowing God needed the blood of lambs as "markers" for Him to know which household was Jewish in order to spare them his wrath!

I have my reason and you have yours. One thing is certain: again, extraordinary biblical claims fail to be corroborated by extraordinary evidence; big time.

I think I understand that the Orthodox position is that God is wholly impersonal

Your assessment of Orthodoxy remains mistakenly and positively dead wrong, FK. Kolo has spent much of his time providing you with Orthodox sources and teachings.

I have personally provided you with official Church teachings, liturgical texts and what not; apparently all in vain. You either refuse to acknowledge or actually cannot comprehend Orthodox mindset and are forced to twist it into something it is not.

Orthodox Catechism teaches that we have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and through Him only. Otherwise, God is ineffable, a supreme Mystery.

katharsis

He remains a mystery...The way of negation corresponds to the spiritual ascent into the Divine abyss where words fall silent, where reason fades, where all human knowledge and comprehension cease, where God is.

It is not by speculative knowledge but in the depths of prayerful silence that the soul can encounter God, Who is ‘beyond everything’ and Who reveals Himself to her as in-comprehensible, in-accessible, in-visible, yet at the same time as living and close to her — as God the Person." [Orthodox Catechism]

I think that should settle any further dilemmas and prevent any further misstatements regarding Orthodoxy and God being (im)personal. If in doubt, consult the reference which has been given to you in the past. If you do, you won't make statements like the one I quoted you on above.

“”I would think that the Church is going to have to take some sort of stand when human body part cloning farms become commonplace.””

Put your mind at rest ,Dear friend, the Church already has.

PONTIFICIA ACADEMIA PRO VITA

REFLECTIONS
ON CLONING
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/documents/rc_pa_acdlife_doc_30091997_clon_en.html#HUMAN%20RIGHTS%20AND%20FREEDOM%20OF%20RESEARCH

Excerpt
“A prohibition of cloning which would be limited to preventing the birth of a cloned child, but which would still permit the cloning of an embryo-foetus, would involve experimentation on embryos and foetuses and would require their suppression before birth—a cruel, exploitative way of treating human beings.

In any case, such experimentation is immoral because it involves the arbitrary use of the human body (by now decidedly regarded as a machine composed of parts) as a mere research tool. The human body is an integral part of every individual's dignity and personal identity, and it is not permissible to use women as a source of ova for conducting cloning experiments.

It is immoral because even in the case of a clone, we are in the presence of a “man”, although in the embryonic stage.”

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.