So presidential. He didn't even draw a mustache on Biden's face with a sharpie.

I think every school should have a debate club where everyone agrees with each other.

Stops them from bothering other people.

I think its all linked, 'they who conquered by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimoney and they loved not their lives even unto death.

These three aspects go together and on their own are not the same.

What is the testimony. It is their testimony of the blood of the lamb which is Christ. Christs blood conquers satan, sin and death.

But I think the last part, "for they loved not their lives even unto death" is the reality that occurs in the world. This is the evidence of Christs blood defeating death in that those who testify on the blood of the lamb are willing to give up their earthly lives as part of that testimony. Making it real in this life and the next.

Dave... said:

It's important to understand the history of it in the Old Testament to know what is actually happening in Corinth when Paul speaks about it, both encouraging, and rebuking.

CHAPTER 9

Tongues is just a sixteenth century word for languages. I think that some people like the term 'tongues' because it giveth them a magic hocus pocus feeling. It just means languages. No need for the sign anymore. It's primary purpose has went and gone. The secondary uses that were necessary to keep it Biblical went with it. One of the main reasons tongues were spoken at Pentecost pointed towards A.D 70. as was noted in the link provided, God's judgment on Israel. Tongues were also spoken to show by way of miracle that God's "Promise of the Father" that was owed to OT saints was being given, the NT indwelling that all Christians receive the moment Jesus places the Holy Spirit in them, called the baptism with the Holy Spirit. It also showed that God was undoing the confusion of languages that He caused way back in Babylon to evangelize the whole world. The Gentiles were now grafted in per Romans 11:17-24 to provoke Israel to jealousy. Please at least glance over the link provided if you're going to respond. Thanks.

Dave

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My two cents:
I wish we would just stick to the definition of the first outpouring of the gift of tongues, why it was so important at this event and why " understanding " was vital to the mission of His Gospel. There wasn't one language, there were many languages being spoken. Coincidentally, there were Jews from different parts of the land all speaking those different languages. Tongues served to " spread" the Gospel to all with no language barrier. Other than that, all this angel prayer language stuff is just a diversion and frankly a false sense of Holyness. Additionally, tongues that have no interpretation is just as Paul described, ones own selfish edification.
Self-edification (via uninterpreted tongues) in a public setting is detrimental because it promotes what only benefits the speaker while neglecting the needs of the whole assembly, which Paul criticizes as a lack of focus on the common good and love for others. Lastly, an unintelligible collection of sounds is not a language and no one is able to interpret. Let us reason, please.

Blessings

Paidiske said:

I'll leave that to you, since that seems to me to be a distortion of the text as written.

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Thanks for you participation...

I am unsure how one can be prepared for martyrdom without first achieving death to self by identifying with the crucified Christ.

What happened to‘I die daily’ and ‘I am crucified with Christ’- it is no longer I that live?

Valletta said:

They used them as pawns all in a quest for one-party control of the country.

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How so?

fhansen said:

The real problem is people in general. Even the holiest of us will be imperfect relative to God. So some degree of corruption or compromise will always prevail here on this earth. But does that mean we should just give up and isolate ourselves?

Humans are both individual and social beings. Our relationship with God is individual but also corporate as the Body, with a unity, also yet imperfect in this life, that we were created to have.

So do we ignore injustice in this world, or, alternatively, simply depend on the goodwill of believers to somehow prevent or rectify injustices? Or, instead, does a just socieity unite together under some model of government and legislate against immoral behavior such as, say murder? Or against the excesses that capitalists might go to maximize profits, including the exploitation of labor, creation of monopolies, etc? Anyway, as long as people are involved there can be no perfect political or governmental system; they're all compromises that we must nonetheless use in order to promote the common good, hopefully guided by Christian principles to the best we can.

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Thats a good way of putting it and I agree. It seems that all of the political ideas and beliefs and wars are happening within a certain realm that is of the world.

As all humans know Gods laws you don't have to be a Christian to know this. But the world will have their ideas about what this represents and how we can order society and the world to apply this.

So for Gods Kingdom and Christs church as a community of Christians we are no of that realm in which these battles happen. We can pull out the value and moral similarities that come from politicial and civil ideologies. But they are not within the same realm and we can easily be overcome when trying to work within that worldly realm.

I think for Christians its a completely different realm and not of this world and as a community we have to be different in how we present the gospel and Christ to the world. If we mix it with world ideologies and within that frame we will lose. We will be competing on their terms.

So I think that means the only way to differentiate is Christ. It sounds simple but doing so is different to the war of words within the political arena. In fact it seems that todays arena is a post modernist one which undermines Christs truth by claiming there is no truth. So words themselves become the reality. You can't beat narratives about persoanl and subjective truths from experiences.

But what is the one thing everyone agrees on and which has turned people away from God. Its hypocracy. Its talking the talk and not walking the walk. They never see clearly the reality of Christ working within His church.

So logically if we apply this to Christians who are suppose to be the ones who are transfromed to be Christlike. If more Christians actually live what Christ taught in the bible then it stands to reason that Christians would not only have the words but live the words.

Thus being one group who cannot be accused as hypocrites.

Now that would doubly turn heads. Because not only for once is a group actually doing what they preach. But they are displaying what is suppose to be the very examples Peter says that will turn peoples heads to God without any words spoken.

Dan1988 said:

Please enlighten me, by showing me where the Bible says that unbelievers are annihilated, or that they cease to exist. Save yourself the headache and don't bother looking for that non existent doctrine, you will never find any such nonsense in the bible.

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Enlighten you? Doubtful that will happen. Many people have shown you scripture that you continue to ignore. It's apparent you're not interested in having an honest biblical discussion. So why bother? You're just going to continue with your one sided rants that have proven nothing beyond the fact that your so indoctrinated at this point. Hopefully down the line you'll be open to some honest discussion but at this point no one can even discuss scripture with you because you continue to put your head in the sand and ignore them.

zelosravioli said:

No man has died the second death yet - the Lake of fire - IS the ‘second’ death.

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Yes, exactly. It's so simple.

Stopped_lurking said:

I also have problem posting, and editing posts.

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Might be a sign this thread might have a mod looking through it.

Might, I say.

I can't post my full reply. How bizarre.

Test.

Nicolai said:

Frankly the question I want to ask if "How do you deal with there NOT being any evidence for any of that" or "How do you make sense of archaeological evidence directly contradicting the Old Testament (the size of Israel/Jerasulem under David & Solomon for one).".

I cannot stop thinking about this question! Every time I watch any content and they talk about Moses, Solomon, or David all I can think of is that they never existed the way the OT says. If they did why is there zero evidence to support those claims? We have records to support the claims made by the OT after the alleged reign of David but it would seem that everything written in the OT prior to the 8thish century is just cultural & national narrative. I try to understand this on a spiritual level and not on a literal but I can't stop thinking about it.

Has anyone else struggled with this? Is there evidence I am missing? Is there a way to think about this that doesn't make much of the Pentateuch essentially historical fiction?

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I think this will depend on the amount and quality of evidence. That in itself can be subjective and based on false assumptions due to a lack of data.

Part of this is understanding the context which not only includes the stories in relation to the Hebrew religion and culture but also of the entire worldview at the time and whether the stories are meant to be more of a spiritual revelation than completely reliant on scientific or verified eye witness accounts.

There are so many factors that need to be considered that I am surprised that anyone could make any truth claims without such investigation.

The only topic I know something about is the Exodus and as far as I see opinions have changed over time as new evidence or understandings come in. That in itself tells us that whatever it was that so called experts claimed as the facts was based on poor data.

Part of the problem may be the timelines and not necessarily whether something matches the biblical stories. But timelines themselves are questionable.

But we have clear evidence for much of what happened. In fact we now have evidence from the Egyptian side of the story which matches the bible. Such as the telling of the 10 plagues that hit Egypt at around this time by the Egyptians themselves. Speaking of plagues, rivers running red, sons dying and crops and cattle failing. This cannot just be a coincident.

There are other evidences I could cite. But as far as I know the evidence actually supports the Exodus story. It may not 100% but then some of that is more about perspective than reality. But there is clear evidence of a proto Isrealites in Egypt who rose up to become prominent and then escaped into the desert with many others.

Then we have them entering Canaan. We even have some evidence of the places they stopped. Mt Sinai, the alters with evidence of animal sacrifice. A memorial placed at the point where the Isrealites crossed the Red sea. Theres evidence from Egyptian Steles and letters and archeology.

I am not sure how deep you have gone into this but there are some good research out there and its amazing that people don't know this.

Actual EVIDENCE for the Exodus​

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PloverWing said:

I wouldn't want to have to draw Jesus in the poses that Charlie Hebdo chose for Muhammad, just to demonstrate that I'm different from Timothy McVeigh. Nobody should die over offensive speech, but nobody should be compelled to repeat the offensive speech, either.

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peter2 said:

The 4 evangelists have obviously disapproved all what they did to Jesus up to death, however silently.
Yet, i assume they considered a duty to write the Gospel.

Besides, i certainly would have disapproved an offending caricature of Jesus.
Yet, if a teacher teaching his pupils to keep cool had to be beheaded for showing them this document, i would also certainly have considered it a christian duty (to testify of this posthumous suffering of Jesus) to publish the document myself, in order to tell the whole story (even with illustrated caricatures).
it looks like i'm not worshipping the same person as muslims do

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May i conclude, please, from the non response there's no reason for me to think i've mistaken ?

Or, may be my message was not clear enough (?)
Please, could someone at least just tell me whether it was clear or not..

keras said:

Not very smart. Death can come to anyone at any time.

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Exactly.
So it doesn't matter if you say that Jesus is coming back in 20 years time and you will be in the Holy Land - you may not be alive then.
It doesn't matter if "the fiery wrath" is in a few years, we could be dead by then.

keras said:

The condition is; that we gather and live in the Holy Land. THEN Jesus will appear to His faithful Christian peoples

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Says no one except you.
Are you saying that we can delay the Lord's return simply by never going to live in the Holy Land?

keras said:

That the NC is not yet made, is proved by Hebrews 8:10-12 being unfulfilled.

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Again, so you say. but you haven't replied to my statement, and verses, about God's word being in our hearts now.

I don't know about you, but I am a New Testament (New Covenant) Christian - living after the resurrection and Pentecost, knowing God's forgiveness, assured of being his child and having his Word in my heart.

keras said:

A Covenant was not made with the 12 Disciples.

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The New Covenant is that anyone who comes to Jesus has eternal life, John 3:16, 3:36, 6:40.
Anyone who comes to Jesus and receives him, is a child of God, John 1:12.
That we can know that we are a child of God, Romans 8:16-17.
If anyone confesses their sin, God will forgive them and make them clean, 1 John 1:9.
That Jesus is our Good Shepherd, John 10:11. That he came to give us life, John 10:10 and that no one can snatch us from God's hand, John 10:29.

keras said:

The Disciples are all gone; the NC must be made between Jesus and living people.

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I'm a disciple and I'm still here.
All believers are disciples (learners) and followers.

keras said:

Those things are just the birth pangs of the new age to come. That they are getting closer together, is a sign of the immanence of the end.

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These things have always been happening.
For many people, WWI was the end. For many others, WWII was the end. People throughout history have said, "look, the end is nigh" - look at Harold Camping.

keras said:

How can anyone say that? It means you dismiss all the Prophecy from now until the Return

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I don't believe there is any new prophecy.
I don't dismiss OT prophecy, I just don't interpret it as you do.

rjs330 said:

that ye should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles: knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?

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I’m very glad that you find value, comfort and certainty, in the Bible.

My own thoughts are along the lines of the Bible being an excellent ancient set-of-texts, mostly intact for a 2600 years.
Decent, (if not entirely accurate) historical record of a people who Wrote worthwhile things down, even if it shades a bit in Israel’s favor.

That’s its “worth” to me; you’ll differ in my estimation of the Bible, I’m sure.
That’s great!

And while politics got me out of religion, (that’s just gravy though), I’m ever grateful to the subject/hobby*, I do not regret my time within a church.

Thanks for caring enough to continually deal with those of us (who are guests here) who cannot find their way to believe the same things as our gracious hosts.

Have a great night/morning!


*politics, not religion

keras said:

Please write out where Jesus mentions His Return in Matthew 24:36-44

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I've quoted these verses before.

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

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He doesn't say; "you don't know when the fiery wrath will begin" or anything else. He is talking about the coming of the Lord or Son of Man (himself).
The "fiery wrath" or a "CME" is not the Lord or the Son of Man.

keras said:

We know His 'coming' in fiery wrath,

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So you say.

keras said:

It is obvious that the event that comes unexpectedly, is not the Glorious Return.

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It's obvious to you and you're telling everyone else that this is the case.

No, air conditioning isn't common in Australian churches. No church I've worked in, or regularly worshipped in, has had it. Generally cooling is some very ineffective fans (heating is better).

High Fidelity said:

But yeah this is hilariously petty and childish. If they truly held those titles then it should be self-evident and not require a plaque.

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Even money sez there”s a chance that there will be an Executive Order (quietly published) to forbid anyone putting any kind of sign, plaque or other demarcation that doesn’t laud President Trump.

Trump, like many other people, has assumed that if you’re smart enough to be president, that’s brilliant on its own merit.
Many other people recognized that this isn’t necessarily true, since, at least Bill Clinton’s successor.

GoldenBoy89 said:

And the courts of the State of New York.

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Well NY’s “blue” so…(I’d concede the point).