• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.

Americans have $1.13 trillion in credit card debt

This phenomenon is not a result of policies from either the Democratic or Republican parties; instead, it stems from American culture and a widespread desire for material possessions. The emphasis frequently centers on acquiring numerous goods—televisions, for example, are often found not only in living rooms and bedrooms but also in dining rooms and kitchens. Many households own multiple refrigerators, sometimes placing extra units in basements or garages. These habits reflect a broader pattern of consumerism among Americans. In the last five years alone, over one billion iPhones and Samsung phones have been sold in the United States. No other culture demonstrates such an intense appetite for material things. Our drive for consumption seems limitless. Just last Friday, Americans spent $11 billion purchasing items that most people do not actually need. Ultimately, no policy or solution addressing income inequality will make a difference unless Americans learn to live within their means.
Yup. It’s driven by materialistic wants. Stores want $$$$ so people spend money on things that aren’t necessarily needed. I’m very guilty of this.
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DHS confirms arrest of Afghan man in Texas after bomb threat video surfaces online

Did you miss the point of my comments?

The video was presented as him doing something bad, undesirable, or "aggressive." My comments pointed out that he's not doing anything that thousands of other evangelicals before him have done and continue to do every Sunday.


On this point, you're very, very wrong. "Making society as a whole more Christian" is exactly what the 7 Mountain Mandate seeks to do. It's a core tenet of the theology driving a lot of the swell in Christian Nationalism and it's also infused a lot of branches of evangelicalism that aren't explicitly Dominionist.

Dominionism isn't explicitly violent the was that "jihad" is often interpreted, but it does seem to becoming more tolerant of it.
Oh, my mistake. Apologies.

I’ve never heard of 7 Mountain Mandate. Thanks for the info. Then again, I don’t come from an evangelical or fundamentalist background.

Peace
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‘Go to Berkeley’: Ron DeSantis said students seeking ‘woke’ classes should study elsewhere

While it may not interfere with someone learning STEM. It does interfere with "the normal college experience" for some of the students.

And while it may only be a minority who would actually light a dumpster on fire to prevent an Ann Coulter speech from taking place...

Overall, attitudes toward "squashing free speech that I don't like" are more than just a small minority.



A campus culture of more than just a few outliers being intolerant of "anything but the most progressive viewpoint" was evidently enough of a problem, and some Senior faculty recognized it was something that needed to be addressed in the form of a brand new course called "Openness to Opposing Views"
It sounds like you think Universities should be citadels of some slate of "traditional American values" that you are imagining.
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Evolution conflict and division

I've never observed nuclear fusion in the lab, either. But like macroevolution, scientists have observed it.

Right. This has been observed for a very long time.

It's always funny that YECs pretend that science is about faith, as thought faith were a bad thing. But science can't be about faith, since it depends on evidence. If your faith isn't strong enough to save you, science can't help.
"Macroevolution" means the evolution of new species. If that seems meaningless to you, we've located the problem.

It seems so. You've confused evolution including macroevolution, which is an observed phenomenon, with universal common descent. And that is from genetics, not evolutionary theory. Even Darwin just supposed that God created some number of original living things.

All this confusion is curable, if you're willing to investigate a little.
Look up the "illusion of truth" fallacy. You'll find it helpful to your apparent confusion.
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WHAT DOES PAUL. SAID OF Eph 1 : 4. !!

Dave, I appreciate your kind reply. However, I think if you look deeper. the Ezekiel verses parallel the Jeremiah verses in talking about the new covenant for Israel and the earthly kingdom they could expect.

Jer 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
Jer 31:32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
Jer 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Jer 31:34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

The desire to see everything in the bible (especially the gospels) as applying to us can be very strong. By maintaining a distinction between what is intended for Israel and what is for the body of Christ, we can avoid a lot of confusion. I know it is unconventional and unfamiliar, but then there was a time when not praying to Mary was radical.
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Funny Christian Commercials...

this is a weird one made during the 80s Satanic Panic. Many of their songs (including this one) have a Japanese cover. This was included on a promotional VHS they would send religious stores to play to advertise their music label

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The people involved in the production the music is produced by an Australian denomination (which later became known as a cult in 1989 (at the very least in Australia)) known as The Family/Family International with their music label being known as Heaven's Magic. I hope this qualifies at least retroactively.
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Want to know a secret? You’re saved before you know it

Editors’ note: The Christian Post Opinion Page has published two countering views on Calvinism. To read the opposing view in the piece titled “Which comes first in salvation order: Faith or regeneration?” click here.

Want to know a secret? If you’re a Christian, you were saved before you knew you were.

Now, I’ll bet that the vast majority of you reading this think that you made a personal decision — all on your lonesome — to receive Christ, and once done, you were a child of God in the faith. John Chipman believes this, as evidenced by his article, “Which comes first in salvation order: Faith or regeneration?”

He says, “Faith precedes regeneration. Always. For everyone.”

Many think that the reverse is heresy and short-circuited. Still, I’m going to ask you to give me a few moments to make a case for the position of regeneration (the Spirit’s supernatural work of giving spiritual life to us, transforming the heart, and enabling faith, so that we become a new creation in Christ), preceding faith. I used to believe the reverse in my earlier Christian walk, but am now convinced that we can’t make that move of commitment towards God until He enables us to do it.

Continued below.
What's not understood here is that it's not either/or, but both/and. Yes, we must first be enabled, by grace, by God, to turn to Him, to respond when He calls. And yet, that grace is still resistible. We can refuse to open the door, we can say "no" either at the beginning of a potential walk with Him or later on down the road after we've embarked upon it.

To maintain that we don't need that grace, that we do it all ourselves, would be Pelagian. To maintain that God so overwhelms the will and totally changes/regenerates man first is to completely misread and misunderstand His purposes for man: that of drawing him back from the originally willful-and unjust-rejection of Him in Eden and to a chosen relationship/communion with Him that man was created for along with the ever-increasing justice/holiness -the ever-increasing love, to put it best- that is intrinsic to that relationship.
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Spending on Welfare is 'unchristian'

2 Thessalonians 3:10-12 NIV
[10] For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” [11] We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. [12] Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat.
QFTW
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Which person *am* I?

I’ve heard and read about comedians who’ve said the same thing.
I really think that persons who have walked, and/or are walking, thru their own personal struggles ... potentially have alot to offer the world.

Often they have acquired a kind of insight and compassion and understanding for others that those who have suffered 'less' are unable to relate to or express. That compassion and warmth can be expressed towards others thru humor that is kind.

I personally love being around kindly humorous individuals.
(They bring alittle cheer into an otherwise pretty serious world!)

I do suppose the humorously gifted individual could feel pressured at times to continually be humorous. But I think most people probably understand that most persons are not 'funny' all the time. Least, I know that do.
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Why do people hate ICE...

Good Lord, why are we holding people for 3 months? If they are illegal, it shouldn't take three months to ship them out. And we absolutely are responsible to see they get the medical care they need. It's unconscionable that they don't.

Follow the money.
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What happens spiritually that makes us born again?

Both these first two OT passages are speaking of being born again, but still a future event to be realized. Later in John it's called the Promise of the Father. The Holy Spirit.

OT-EZ 36:26-37 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

OT-John 7:38-39 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. (born again)" But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

OT-John 16:12-15 I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. (John 3:3 points to the same fulfilment, notice, they still cannot see).

OT-John 3:13-14 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, (Jesus must first be glorified)

OT-John 15:26, 14:25-26

OT-14:14-20 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever-- the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. "A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.

Do you see it? Born again? A future promise. Aligned with the indwelling, that baptism with the Holy Spirit. The baptism that saves. See Romans 6:3-11, Gal 3:26-29, Col. 2:10-14, 1 Peter 3:21.

Jesus the prophesied baptizer by John the Baptist himself. Fulfilled at Pentecost.
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Biblical Exegesis explanation and discussion

Pulled from notes taken long ago - -

Often terms get used without full understanding of their meaning and use. The purpose is to explore what the term exegesis means.

Biblical exegesis (from the Greek ἐξήγησις, exēgēsis, meaning "leading out" or "explanation") is the critical interpretation and explanation of the text of the Bible using a systematic, disciplined methodology to determine the original intended meaning of the author as understood by the original audience.

  • Text-centered: It starts with the biblical text itself (usually in its original languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) rather than imposing external ideas onto it.
  • Historical-grammatical method: The most common approach seeks to understand:
    • What the human author intended to communicate
    • The historical, cultural, and literary context
    • The grammatical and syntactic structure of the original languages
    • The genre of the literature (narrative, poetry, prophecy, epistle, allegorical, etc.)
  • Objective as possible: Aims to let the text speak for itself rather than reading assumptions or theological systems into it (contrast with eisegesis, which means "reading into" the text).
This is important because proper exegesis is centered and focused on the TEXT of the Scripture verses. Many times people get the two terms exegesis confused with eisegesis.

NOTE: The main reason why I do not use eisegesis is because it calls for "reading into", or reading in one own ideas or Religious agenda.

Proper exegesis includes:

  • Textual criticism – Establish the most accurate original wording.
  • Translation / linguistic analysis – Study the original languages (syntax, semantics, idioms).
  • Literary context – Examine the passage in its immediate context and the broader book.
  • Historical-cultural context – Research the time period, customs, geography, politics, etc.
  • Genre analysis – Identify the literary form and its conventions.
  • Theological analysis – Trace themes across Scripture (canonical context).
  • ApplicationOnly after determining original meaning do responsible interpreters move to contemporary significance.
Good post thanks. It is a good reminder for those that claim context but don’t exegete the verses (it is always verses not just a verse).
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The Mamdani Model: More Socialist Mayors to ComeBeware! The DSA will attempt to repeat Mamdani’s success in other Democrat strongholds.

Hey, me too, on both counts. I wonder if we ever met under our real names there... :wave:
I think I only posted a couple of times and it was definitely through my university account. (And about 30 years ago.) I was more of a reader than a poster.
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