Posted on 01/14/2011 5:57:52 PM PST by topcat54
Evangelical book catalogs promote books such as Planet Earth: The Final Chapter, The Great Escape, and the Left Behind series. Bumper stickers warn us that the vehicle’s occupants may disappear at any moment. It is clear that there is a preoccupation with the idea of a secret rapture. Perhaps this has become more pronounced recently due to the expectation of a new millennium and the fears regarding potential Y2K problems. Perhaps psychologically people are especially receptive to the idea of an imminent, secret rapture at the present time. Additionally, many Christians are not aware that any other position relative to the second coming of Jesus Christ exists. Even in Reformed circles there are numerous people reading these books. Many of these people are unaware that this viewpoint conflicts with Scripture and Reformed Theology.
(Excerpt) Read more at reformed.org ...
***without ever, seemingly, backing up his dogma with scripture.***
Sounds like the Roman Catholic crowd around here.
Actually, I think it is better expressed as some people THINK they are "believing" Jesus and Paul's words by holding to a strict, narrow and exclusive interpretation of them and there are others who understand ALL of the words of Jesus and Paul in context and as they were said in relation to the other truths that the Holy Bible preached. There is no place for stubborn insistence on a belief that was never really true but based on superstition and misinterpretation as well as a blind faith in a hierarchical authority that can never admit to mistakes. People are fallible, God's word never is.
Nonsense; we be fermenting strawberries and all manner of other things in the search for the perfect brandy. Remember that man first became civilized in order to grow grains - for beer, not bread. Meat over an open flame, with whisky to wash it down. Nah. We wouldn't have gotten anywhere near that apple.
What bridge? I do not understand what you mean by this "gap."
Did you not say words to the effect that man bridges the gap between temporal and spiritual? Did you not further say that that in effect makes them one? Dear Mark, it seems to me the two cannot be separable while a person lives. For when the soul departs (the spiritual principle), the body (the temporal principle) dies.
Food is not the person, yet without food one dies.
This pops up every once in a while. What other reward can a Christian possibly have other than to be in the presence of Almighty God forever? What rewards are you talking about? Do various Protestants see a celestial Bingo with door prizes? Or you get to sit on the 50 yard line in Heaven?
2Tim 4:7-9 mentions the Crown of Righteousness.
Rev 2:10 mentions a Crown of Life.
1st Peter 5:1-5 mentions a Crown of Glory.
There are many Crowns predestined for believers at the bema seat, but they will only be rewarded by our Lord Christ Jesus to those who were faithful in His Plan.
The righteous believer will not only consider these Scriptures, but the more obvious Gospel directing belief/faith as the singular mechanism for eternal life.
| 12 “Therefore, son of man, say to your people, ‘If someone who is righteous disobeys, that person’s former righteousness will count for nothing. And if someone who is wicked repents, that person’s former wickedness will not bring condemnation. The righteous person who sins will not be allowed to live even though they were formerly righteous.’ 13 If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done. 14 And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right— 15 if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil—that person will surely live; they will not die. 16 None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live. |
| He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit |
| If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. |
| If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, |
Do these not refer to all those Judged for salvation?
Sorry I haven’t responded but the Lord has bless me with a computer crash and a massive bill for a new computer. Though the fig trees do not blossom and there be a core meltdown of the processor, ya know. I’m still inching along until I can get everything replaced.
I will say that the Lord was very gracious through all of this. Sunday morning I turned on my computer only to see it doing some very strange things. I had enough sense to back up mostly everything before we went to church. We decided to leave the computer on until we got home to finish the process but, alas, it gave up the ghost and went home in spirit. I think the files are all there but not my programs. And you really never know what you’re missing until you go to retrieve something. :O)
It was communion Sunday, btw.
The problem with such an interpretation is that every sin removes us from Him, and every man is a sinner, even after faith in Christ. There is only one sacrifice, so if it were possible to lose salvation, even after one sin, the group of humans who are saved would only have one member, namely Christ.
On the contrary, it is possible to be saved as a believer, and upon sin after salvation, we simply are removed from fellowship with Him. That post-salvation sin is then forgiven after we face God in repentance, and confess the sin to Him per 1st John 1:9.
He provides life in the spirit and when we fall out of fellowship, we might be acting soulishly, but not spiritually.
If we keep His commands, we remain in His love.
Dear Mark, I wasn't speaking of this or that proximate cause of death. I'm sure we could come up with a very long list; but this wasn't what I was trying to get at.
What I was trying to get at is something utterly basic and profound in its implications: "...everything that lives transforms disorder into order. Everything that dies moves from order to disorder."
Not a precisely true statement. All processes increase entropy, and that includes the processes that keep us alive.
Who told you that? What was the frame of his observation?
[These days it seems most people get their information from "telling," not by "studying." In short, "others" tell them how and what to think.]
I'm focusing on the authority of your "ALL" statement here.
Just sniffing around the edges, your statement sounds like an ideological one. That is, not something based in the direct observation and experience of you, by you.
So, what are we talking about?
http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1246 states specifically that:
Even on a mid-scale, say with a bunch of plants and animals living in an isolated box, all the processes increase entropy. There is absolutely nothing that we know of that makes life any different from any other process in this regard. As for whether the net effect of life has been to increase or slow down the rate of entropy increase, I bet the answer is that it has slightly increased it. I'm guessing that because it seems that life has increased the light absorbancy of the Earth, and led to the thermalization of some light energy that might otherwise be traveling through space in a somewhat lower entropy form.
Erwin Schrodinger says: What then is that precious something contained in our food which keeps us from death? That is easily answered. Every process, event, happening - call it what you will; in a word, everything that is going on in Nature means an increase of the entropy of the part of the world where it is going on. Thus a living organism continually increases its entropy - or, as you may say, produces positive entropy - and thus tends to approach the dangerous state of maximum entropy, which is death. It can only keep aloof from it, i.e. alive, by continually drawing from its environment negative entropy - which is something very positive as we shall immediately see. What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy. Or, to put it less paradoxically, the essential thing in metabolism is that the organism succeeds in freeing itself from all the entropy it cannot help producing while alive.
from http://dieoff.org/page150.htm
Hardly a personal or ideological one; I am an engineer and scientist and have studied thermodynamics. What we are talking about is that life, like every other process, produces entropy - from a scientific basis.
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