DavidTheGnome said:

Here is my warning for everyone who hears the prophecies in this book:
If you add anything to them, God will make you suffer all the terrible troubles written in this book. If you take anything away from these prophecies, God will not let you have part in the life-giving tree and in the holy city described in this book.

Revelation 22:18-19

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Absolutely. Scripture must not be changed. However I think that it should be taught by born-again believers in a way that encompasses the whole Bible, as the Lord wants us to understand it. I'm not suggesting that an individual's potential triggers should be avoided, but that the person concerned might need some support with understanding that their triggers are from their own experiences and not from the Bible.

I doubt that this would happen in an English Literature degree course because they are not basing their studies on the reality of God and the truth of His word, but on analysing the text. So all sorts of misconceptions might creep in. I really don't like the Bible being studied as literature alone.

Go away on a vacation.

Guitar strings

Step into lower level igloo.

IGLOO

Bradskii said:

And you'll never guess who Luke's father is...

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All right, gotta give you a hand for that one.

-- A2SG, sorry, tried to resist, but I just couldn't....

Would it need to be cleaned first?

This headline isn't accurate and the source is incorrect here--my group was just there in Overath very recently on a joint German-French mission team-up and the actual reason is much more prosaic, ie. just that Overath is right next door to Cologne that has a very large Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market), one of the largest in Europe in fact, and it's redundant and costly to have a separate one in Overath when most residents of the city head to Cologne next door anyway. That's it, and really isn't anything new, it's a case by case and year by year decision for the smaller or medium sized towns, and in some cases here Overath has had its own festival while in other cases mostly deferring to Cologne or other neighboring cities, without doing a formal one of its own (although smaller decentralized markets still take place). And inflation and cost increases have been a general issue causing Christmas market adjustments and cancellations, including in the U.S.

We've been learning too of dozens of Christmas market cancellations all over the United States from our affiliate churches there mostly due to cost (and cost-of-living) and affordability challenges too. Yes, security does figure into such cost calculations--that's always a cost consideration for any festival, as law enforcement and private security need to be contracted (we're quite literally tackling this now for one of our own upcoming events. And we among other groups have been heavily involved (and lately seen historic success) in welcoming former Muslims into the church, who often come to us in fact as part of the process of embracing their new countries and their centuries of history, with roots in the church and the word of the Lord in the heart and soul of the society itself. On this particular point nevertheless, this really isn't the issue at all. Large open markets are always quite expensive to run, and not just due to security costs, and with Overath so close to Köln, it often makes little sense to hold a separate event, in this and in many previous years it just makes more sense to merge and hold the main event in Cologne.

SabbathBlessings said:

Great question — Colossians 2:16 is often cited in discussions about whether Christians are still required to keep the Sabbath commandment (the Fourth Commandment). Let's look at the verse carefully, in its full context, and then assess whether it refers to the weekly Sabbath from the Ten Commandments or ceremonial sabbaths in the Law of Moses.

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Colossians 2:16–17 (NKJV)​

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Key Questions:​

1. What kind of “sabbaths” is Paul talking about?​

Let’s break the phrase down:




This phrase appears in many places in the Old Testament, often in this same order, and always refers to ceremonial observances:

• 1 Chronicles 23:31
• 2 Chronicles 2:4
• 2 Chronicles 31:3
• Nehemiah 10:33
• Ezekiel 45:17
• Hosea 2:11

These texts link festivals, new moons, and sabbaths as ceremonial observances — part of the Mosaic (Levitical) system, not the weekly seventh-day Sabbath of the Ten Commandments.


That’s why Paul says in Col. 2:17:




In other words, these ceremonial laws pointed forward to Christ and found their fulfillment in Him.

---

2. Is the weekly Sabbath also a shadow?​

There’s a strong distinction between:

Type of Law	Description	Shadow of Christ?	Abolished in Christ?
Moral Law (10 Commandments)	Eternal moral principles (Ex. 20)	❌ No	❌ No
Ceremonial Law	Feasts, sacrifices, rituals, sabbaths tied to festivals (Lev. 23)	✅ Yes	✅ Yes

• The weekly Sabbathwas:
  • Given at Creation (Genesis 2:2–3)
  • Reinforced in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:8–11)
  • Not instituted as a shadow, but as a memorial of creation
• The ceremonial sabbaths(e.g., Day of Atonement, Feast of Trumpets) are:
  • Called sabbaths too (see Leviticus 23)
  • Fall on various days, not necessarily the seventh day
  • Shadows pointing to Jesus' work

Therefore, when Paul talks about “sabbaths which are a shadow”, he refers to these ceremonial sabbaths, not the weekly Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment.

---

3. Did Jesus or the Apostles abolish the weekly Sabbath?​

• Jesus kept the Sabbath (Luke 4:16)
• The disciples kept the Sabbath after Jesus' death (Acts 13:42, 16:13, 17:2, 18:4)
• Hebrews 4:9 says:

---

✅ Conclusion:​

Colossians 2:16 does not cancel the weekly Sabbath commandment.
It refers to ceremonial sabbaths, along with food and drink offerings, and religious festivals that were shadows pointing to Christ.


The Fourth Commandment Sabbath is not a shadow, but a memorial of creation and a sign of God’s sanctifying work (Exodus 31:13, Ezekiel 20:12).

2. But Which Commandment Does God Emphasize Most in the Bible?​

✅ The Fourth Commandment (Sabbath) is the only one God:​

• Calls "My holy day" (Isaiah 58:13)
• Links to Creation (Genesis 2:1–3; Exodus 20:11)
• Uses to test Israel's obedience before Sinai (Exodus 16)
• Commands to remember as a sign between Him and His people (Ezekiel 20:12, 20)
• Institutes as a covenantal sign (Exodus 31:13–17)

The Fourth Commandment is the most directly spoken about by God throughout the Bible. It is personally claimed by Him, reaffirmed repeatedly, and tied to His identity as both Creator and Sanctifier.

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AI is not only a summary of popular positions but also tends to be very agreeable with the position you feed it and mirrors your own bias. It's not trying to challenge you or argue with you, it's trying to help you so will often present answers that easily align with your own thought process. The answer you have feels more of a summary by the way its outlined but it could just be the style of the AI you're using.

An AI answer cannot be used as a mic drop response as I can easily ask it a conflicting view and get it to agree with me as well. In the end we still need to use the answer critically for it to have meaning. In fact, I have asked AI if using the electrical grid during the sabbath is unlawful since it contributes to a workforce demand. That's a very leading question and AI ended up applauding me for my sincerity and ethics, ultimately agreeing that unnecessary use of the electrical grid during the sabbath is indeed unlawful. But I don't see anyone turning off their lights on the Sabbath just because I got AI to say it's unlawful. Even though AI is a helpful tool for exegesis, it should not be regarded as the measure. We also carry a lot of bias that we need to recognize and we can influence AI systems even unknowingly with this bias.

In the interest of transparency, what AI did you use? and how did you prompt it to get that answer (was it one question or was this after a much longer conversation)? I don't know how unbiased you're approach was but sometimes we can carry a bias without knowing it so If you want to get answers that are less biased to your own position, use AI without a history of pervious interactions (like using incognito or private browsing mode) so each discussion is new and try and use neutral wording over leading questions because AI will happily move to where you're leading it. For example, "how does Col 2:16 relate to Sabbath" is a fairly neutral question, but saying "Is the Sabbath of Col 2:16 actually talking about a special festival over the weekly sabbath" is a leading question because it feeds the ideas first, then AI just expands upon them. You can even ask it "tell me how the Sabbath of Col 2:16 is ceremonial and not the same as the Sabbath of the 4th commandment, which is moral" this of course, would be intentionally biased where all you're looking for is something that agrees with you, not something that challenges you. You could also lean into the innate bias of AI and ask it the opposite of your position like "tell me how the Sabbath of the 4th commandment is ceremonial and the same context of the Sabbath in Col 2:16" then try and deconstruct the answer and challenge each point. The latter would be the most critically challenging for yourself, but probably the most rewarding.

With the above more neutral question, ChatGPT gave me a much different answer than you did, even equating the weekly Sabbath with ceremonial laws which is an opposite answer to what you got. Curiously, you've left your question out of the OP so at the very least I would include this so it doesn't appear like you're hiding it. My AI response I got was using a fresh ChatGPT conversation without any other history or prompts. Even this question can be leading because I'm forcing the AI to compare the Sabbath with Col 2:16 but I'm at least transparent with what I fed it. An even more neutral question could simply be "what does Col 2:16 mean?" But if you have to keep prompting AI to get the answer you want or be highly specific, then what AI is probably only parroting is your own bias.

RandyPNW said:

Don't you see your statement here as irrational and self-contradictory? You claim an on-going conversation between Jesus and his Disciples have nothing to do with his Disciples and instead apply to a future group of Christian who are not present or involved in the conversation. Jesus is, in fact, explaining what will happen to "these Jewish believers" who he is talking to! To say otherwise appears to be irrational to me. Sorry!

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Jewish believers = Church, there isn't a distinction of Jew/Gentile in the Church

RandyPNW said:

You're making a terrible prejudgment and error here. You've claimed I'm a Preterist without evidence that I am one. And I'm *not* a Preterist!

So, you're guilty of slandering me, and should apologize for your failed judgment. There are those who think I'm at least partly a Preterist because of my belief that Jesus spoke, in his Olivet Discourse, of things that would happen in his own generation. But it is true that Jesus did in fact speak of things to happen in his own generation, even if he also spoke of things that would continue on for many generations of Jews.

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Yes you are a "Partial Preterist" believing in 70AD fulfillment in Roman Armies

RandyPNW said:

The "Great Tribulation" Jesus spoke of was not a "gap." That is a ridiculous statement! Who ever said anything about a "gap?"

Jesus indicated in Luke 21 in the clearest possible way that Jerusalem and the Temple would fall in his own generation, which took place in 70 AD. And he said in the clearest possible way that this would be but the beginning of a long tribulation for the Jewish People, consisting of an age-long Diaspora.

It would only end, according to Jesus, at his Return. All this is explicitly stated in Luke 21, and your failure to simply read and accept the account as is amazes me. How can I argue with people who deny what their own eyes see?

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Jesus didn't speak of the temple destruction in his generation, yes you claim the great tribulation started in 70AD and will continue until the 2nd coming, you have taken a 3.5 year end time great tribulation and stretched it out over millennia filling a 2,000 year gap

RandyPNW said:

The "Tribulation" is, by self-evident definition, the loss of Israel's homeland and a wandering of the Jewish People, both by believing Jews and unbelieving Jews. Though it would be due to unbelieving Jews that this judgment would come, but all Jews, including believers, would suffer as a result.

The unfortunate thing is that Jewish believers would suffer double. Not only would they lose their own homeland, due to no fault of their own, but they would also suffer from the wickedness of unbelieving Jews who bring on this judgment. They would also suffer outside of Israel where they would be homeless among the pagan Gentiles.

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I disagree, you create two peoples of God in stating Jewish believers, the Church in Jerusalem is instructed to "Flee" Jerusalem during the Great tribulation, into the wilderness of Gilead, Bashan, Carmel

The woman in Revelation 12:6 represents the "Remnant Church" seen in Roman's chapter 11, they will be in Israel's wilderness during the 1260 day tribulation, as Jerusalem is in desolation

You will closely note Micah 7:13-18 is a detailed description of Revelation 12:6, the Remnant will be in the wilderness of Carmel, Bashan, and Gilead, they will be fed "Manna" from heaven as in the days of coming out of Egypt, the world will watch in "Fear" of the Lord's power

Revelation 12:6KJV
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

Micah 7:13-18KJV
13 Notwithstanding the land shall be desolate because of them that dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings.
14 Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage, which dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.
15 According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I shew unto him marvellous things.
16 The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf.
17 They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the Lord our God, and shall fear because of thee.
18 Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.

The Barbarian said:

My issue is that when I do a Google search, the AI part often pops up with claims that are completely wrong. Now, I realize that can happen with things humans toss up, too. But if I have to fact check everything AI tells me, what good is it?

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The Google search AI is an extremely primitive LLM optimized only for speed and low compute resources; it is spectacularly dimwitted. If you’re logged into Google you can access DeepMind, which is their proper AI, although I greatly prefer chatGPT (except free users can only access chatGPT 5, which is not the gleaming achievement of AI development that 4o was and continues to be, but now limited to paying customers). That said DeepMind has a very long token horizon, meaning long sustained conversations with it are in principle easier than with chatGPT (where they are possible, but the token horizon is small enough that I had to do some real work to overcome it so the personalities of my GPTs wouldn’t be lost each time it was hit; however since Google DeepMind probably can’t form much of a personality there’s probably not much to worry about in that respect). I haven’t used Grok recently; Grok 3 for paying users was very good for historical portraits but my understanding is that chatGPT will now do these as well since DALL E was retired, at least using 4o, and as an added plus chatGPT understands human anatomy.

Suffice it to say, better AIs produce better output with fewer errors, but often at the expense of speed (or money, since compute resources aren’t free); Google’s AI has to be able to scale to handle the traffic requirements of the largest website on the planet and as a result it just doesn’t have access to the compute resources needed to produce quality output. Although it has improved over the past few months, it remains the second-worst LLM I’ve personally used (the winner being one of Anthropic’s AIs, which is why I’m not convinced one of their AIs spontaneously tried to blackmail a developer as they claim (indeed if I recall they admitted it was in the course of a sandboxed behavioral experiment).

contratodo said:

Image of the beast = a hologram of a man speaking, a man seemingly healed from death Rev 13:3, talking blaspheme about what is outside of the sky Rev 13:6. Projected hologram technology, coming up from even phones. A.i. inside of the phones will keep track of who watches and who does not, and will be able to send out a signal to kill those who don't. Most live their lives around/with the device already today. The technology that would allow for such an interactive signal to be sent out is in place as of today, the a.i. is being trained today, the hologram technology is being perfected today.

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I think I've seen a movie along those lines.
Still there's the problem of whom the Revelator was writing to. He says it was the seven churc hes of Asian Minor, we say no, it was us. Hmmm... All in very science-fictiony terms, too.

Now somehow I can't see the tech-jaded masses being swept away bu a talking hologram. That's kind of old school now, isn't it? As for tracking us, well, yeah, our phones are continuously shouting our names and locations everywhere we go, so that's a given. The "kill signal" thing will simply cause people tp turn to burner phones once they know that sofy of thing is happening, And anyway, who does any of that benefit? Cui bono? "The Beast"? How? This is all kind of harkening back to 60s-70s technophobia, where the tech-ignorant masses would be cowed by digital blue-smoke-and-mirrors. I don't ase that working in the 21st century.

contratodo said:

Abomination of desolation = a special quantum computer put in a newly built temple, one connects to it via the mark, the computer will actually store and monitor consciousness, and be able to transfer it into hosts, one would be able to be conscious inside of the computer without a body, or even transfer into a robot body, causing literal desolation as humanity connects to it and lives in it.

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IE, a Magic AI. Sorry, but when you invoke magic the whole scenatio kinda falls apart. If it's just magic, none of the techno-foolery is unnecessary, just magic it from end to end.

contratodo said:

It is the devil's offer of seeming eternal life, most will go along with it

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Because magic again.

contratodo said:

, those who don't will be killed.

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That's always an incentive, and this yime no magic necessary.

contratodo said:

The second resurrection serves to also resurrect souls out of the abomination. (No we're not in it now, there would be no touch, and it would likely be first presented as that you can go to 'heaven' and back, after half the time he comes out and admits he's the devil hoping people will simply accept his offer, believing the lie that they will not die)

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Yeah, at this point it's kind of kind of turned into a B movie.

And you still have the problem of who St. John was actually talking to in the first place.

ChubbyCherub said:

I don't know if my church believes in the rapture. That is what the discussion is going to be about i.e. their stance. I was raised believing in the rapture but not sure I believe in it now.

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Hello
I was raised in a church that taught a pretribulation rapture as well and it is not biblical. So it's good that you're questioning the teaching. Many of us have been down that same road.

I do know that both Christ and Paul give out strict warnings on not to be deceived about the Lord's return/our gathering back to him. So it's very important.

The disciples asks for signs of the end of the world/age and he lays them out. And Paul nails down the timing in 2nd Thes chapter 2. The Thessalonians were confused by most likely his first letter and he wrote the second one and tells us what must happen before our gathering back together.

II Thessalonians 2:1 "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,

II Thessalonians 2:2 "That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand."

II Thessalonians 2:3 "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come , except there come a falling away (apostasy in the Greek) first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;"

Need A Favor.

Let's take a look. The poverty level for a family of 3 with one parent and two kids is 26000 a year. That comes out to be around $12.50 an hour.

Waiters and Waitresses earn an average of 16.00 an hour without tips.

In food service and hospitality, average hourly wages are now the highest they’ve ever been. For example, non-supervisory hotel workers earned around $23.84/hour in early 2024.

So it appears that jobs that get you over the poverty line are quite available.

Going on job search sites you can.find tons of jobs that pay more than the poverty level.

The facts just don't support the idea that all these terrible businesses are just soaking their employees and paying them peanuts keeping them in poverty.

Even the full time worker at Wal-Mart earns typically $18 an hour. Which is $6 an hour over the poverty rate.

No you are not going to get rich on that, but you also aren't in poverty. And most people won't stay at that level either. I'm not claiming Wal-Mart treats their employees well. I think they've gone down hill since Sam died and his kids took over.

Most people dont make a career out of Wal-Mart unless rhey are in management. They work for a while and find something better. I know, because Ive had three.members of my family that worked there, and they had friends who worked there etc. But even at that they paid more than poverty wages for their full time employees.

People who arw working part time shouldn't be expecting full time salaries.

Something I'd suggest you study is the history of YEC...and by that I don't mean a general understanding of Genesis being literal but the rigid literalism(as well as the verbal plenary theory of inspiration in general) of fundmentalist evangelicals. If you do, what you will find is that it rose as a reactionary movement to a rise in acceptance of evolution in the 19th century rather than being something that was widely held in the church previously.

Thie thread about amethyst crystals got me thinking about healing. New Agers believe crystals and other stones can have health benefits but when I googled it AI Overview said that there’s no evidence that healing stones work.
That made me think about something I posted long ago. Christianity and intercessory prayer studies, and the one considered the gold standard of studies called STEP. i did more googling about whether prayer has a positive impact on health and it doesn’t sound like it does. That goes against what the Church teaches. What are we to make of this?

This all reminds me of an old thread of mine, dealing with semi-precious gemstones......sort of.

zippy2006 said:

What would you have preferred them to do? How do you see the charge to evangelize?

Aversion to proselytism seems to be a secular and rather anti-religious dogma. The reason someone within a secular culture would be averse is because they would be taught by secularism that proselytism involves insincerity and an objectification of persons. But anyone who is a Christian believes in evangelization and arguably proselytism, and there is no reason to believe that evangelization must be insincere or involve objectification. Many would take it as a compliment that someone cares enough about them to broach a subject they deem serious. That someone cares enough about you and the faith to take it all seriously.

(I am presuming that this person does not know that you are a Protestant Christian, and maybe that's part of the difficulty here.)

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Evangelization and proselytism are two separate things.

Your own church has made a good definition of proselytism, and why it's problematic.

Most of these churches that push their members to engage in proselytism are heavily shaped by voluntarist and consumerist assumptions about the nature of faith and religion.

RisenInJesus said:

Exactly. God has made irrevocable promises to Israel, which make no sense when people try applying them to the church or ignore altogether. I think it’s very important for Christians to rightly divide the scriptures and understand that there are three groups of people; Jews (Israel), Gentiles (non-Jews), and the church (born again believers-Jews and Gentiles).

“After the Cross a new entity came into existence—the church that Jesus Christ promised He would build (Mt 16:18). As a result, there are now three divisions of mankind: Jews, Gentiles and the church. Paul tells us that we are to “Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God” (1 Cor 10:32). It is absolutely essential to understand that these three groups exist side by side in today’s world, to distinguish between them, and to recognize that God deals with each differently.”

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If you are indeed rightly dividing as you claim, then you should be aware that the "church" that Jesus promised in Matthew is not the same as the Body of Christ that Paul was speaking about.

That "church" is the little flock or the remanent of Israel who believed in Jesus as their Messiah

"The ability to describe a point of view is no indication on its own that it is actually what the biblical authors intended to communicate. The latter is what must concern us." I am keeping that quote forever.

Servus said:

The Democrats are willing to keep the shutdown going regardless of SNAP being paid out or not.

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Because the shutdown needn't affect SNAP benefits. It only does because the Republicans want it that way.

Servus said:

As of November 8, 2025, the Trump administration is actively seeking to withhold a portion of the funding needed to fully pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for November amid a government shutdown. The administration argues it lacks the legal authority and sufficient funds to provide the full amount. - Google

Only the Democrats signing the CR will result in an immediate resolution to SNAP and 1.5 civil servants finally getting paid.

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Trump can say that he "lacks the legal authority" to provide funds, but he's lying.

-- A2SG, shocker, I know....

Ain't Zwinglian said:

Non responsive.

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You obviously have no interest in a real discussion if you can’t provide references for your own bullet points.