Posted on 07/23/2016 8:40:34 PM PDT by boatbums
Been there! Thanks.
I know. Some people don’t have the slightest idea what “bashing” really is.
One thing it does do, though, is give them an excuse for not addressing the subject of the thread. Pitiful excuse but useful nonetheless.
Um, okay. Believe what you want to believe.
Choice A:
________________________________________________________________
Choice B:
It sure doesn't help though that the current Pope appears to have the political/economic views of an Oberlin sophomore.
You’ve expressed something I have long thought about, and better than I ever did.
Basically, I am a Calvinist. But while I believe that God has foreknowledge of our eternal fate, I cannot accept predestination. God gave us freewill, but he knows how we will use it.
It is a contradiction that I cannot readily resolve, so I just accept it. One day I will ask God Himself about it.
In other words, move on before they see the fallacies of their church exposed. Is it true that you would like to see all material that impugns the claims of Rome censored here, as well in media overall?
And demands that reproof of such be censored, all the while purporting to be pro-God and pro-America!
The slightest material that impugns Rome is "anti-Catholic bigotry," and should be banned on this pro-God, pro-American forum ("A public facility to meet for open discussion:" -WordWeb).
An existence of multiple dimensions beyond our personal understanding could explain the story. Having experience in engineering and knowing that there is more than one perspective to look at the same phenomenon of interest mathematically, shows me that such a thing is within realm of possibility. We are participants in a picture that embraces both decision and destiny in such a way that it meets the constraints of all divine promises. It is the glory of God that He does not have to violate either and puts a full understanding, as the psalmist says, to be “too wonderful for me.”
God seems to be saying dont get so cocky. Learn from the character of Christ, which needs the bible, and yet transcends what mere human eyes can glean from the bible.
Rome officially disavows that she provides new public revelation, but which means that she can "infallibly" assert that a 1st century event for which there is no testimony in Scripture or in the earliest centuries did occur and which demands assent of faith. Which is justified under the premise that Rome can "remember" what history "forgot." Thus nothing "new" means that post-apostolic beliefs were really old, under the new and novel premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility as per Rome (and basically in primary cults).
The more I see the life of the churches in the world and my own life, the more I wonder how they have hung together at all, let alone with the discord that has been known.
I suspect that one of the chiefest poison pills in the life of the church was the way it accepted government to be on its shoulders. It shouldn’t have tried that. This is like trying to nail Jello to a tree. This propelled it into areas of disobedient speculation and resultant discord. Factions of it are still learning that lesson (hello, dominionism, to point at a problem in the Protestant/evangelical fold, as not to be proud).
For whatever is worth, a similar picture is seen in what we know as Rabbinical Judaism, where the extra-scriptural Torah tradition is sometimes taken to the point of rendering the scriptural underpinning unrecognizable.
Been there, done that, I’d never have to have darkened the door of a church if that was all I needed.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed . . . in order that the man of God may be fully equipped for every good work. Verse 15 is about the OT, but then verse 16 expands it to include all Scripture, and so this includes by principle, both all OT and NT books, even those not written yet in 67 AD, when 2 Timothy was written. The fact that 1 Timothy 5:18 has both an OT quote and a NT quote shows that Paul understood this.
Here is an example. Even on the cross!
Psa 22:1 ................” My God, my God, why have You abandoned me? Why are You so far away when I groan for help?
Mat 27:46 At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?”
Jesus battled the Pharisees who referenced the Talmud. And what is the Talmud? The oral interpretation and tradition of the scripture. Does the RCC have oral interpretation and traditions. Does Islam have oral interpretations and traditions? Does Mormon have oral interpretation and tradition? Do protestants have oral interpretation and tradition?
The Bible doesn’t say what we think it says and it says a lot of things that offend our ears. Folks, stop listening to others and start reading it your selves.
And not that God is nonsense. We weren’t created in His image only to be told nonsense. But that what we have grasped is smaller than God has willed and desired to be.
Job had a decent, reverent life on earth pinned down — he was truly on the ball from that perspective — but his eternal grasp apparently needed a boost, and to see the wonder of God in the midst of earthly tragedy was what the Doctor ordered to alleviate the lack.
The Gospel: to the Jew first and then to the Greek.
Another historical blunder on the part of the church was to forget the Jewish package in which God’s blessings to the gentile world were wrapped, as it were, under the gentile world’s Christmas tree.
One can worship the wrappings, to push the error to the opposite extreme. I’ve seen it and the result is about the worst spiritual smart aleckiness I have ever seen.
Basically, I am a Calvinist. But while I believe that God has foreknowledge of our eternal fate, I cannot accept predestination. God gave us freewill, but he knows how we will use it.
It is a contradiction that I cannot readily resolve, so I just accept it. One day I will ask God Himself about it.
The second revelation came with the understanding that if I chose God, I ALSO HAVE THE POWER TO UNCHOSE GOD. The is no security of salvation if I do the choosing, I am fickle. But if God choses, His word is good.
So how do you know God chose you? You are hungry for His word. Your life begins to change in many small ways and some big ways.
If you life hasn’t changed, you did the choosing...............
Ever consider, though: Our personal theories about the nature of choosing, at the scale of objects of worship, could themselves be cockamamie (advanced theological word for invalid — grin).
We already know on a small scale how hard it is to part from what we call a habit, something that has been embraced to an extent that it becomes part of you. Only a superior habit can take its place; it cannot be shed in a vacuum. But once the superior habit begins to take hold, it will progress without anything that can stop it without anything even more superior being able to come into the picture.
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