Jesus was watching what the Father was doing in order to see the way of righteousness.

The Law was never able to be a substitute for the personal Word of God to the believer.

I used to almost say I would be sorry when the American economy crashes, but now I am just honest and will be happy to get back to the reality of the monster that exists in the financial markets, U.S. government budget, and social security shortcomings. Why the lack of concern? Because these monsters are unsustainable and the longer we weight the worse it will be. Spiritually, too the love of money seems quite elevated. So a humbling economy is likely God's will. This does not mean all believers must suffer but we have to check ourselves concerning the use and abuse of money. I know I still lacking in this area.

SabbathBlessings said:

Not if we are disobeying them. 1John3:4 James2:11 Heb10:26-30

That's why not every believer who says Lord Lord will enter His Kingdom according to Jesus Mat7:21-23 Rev22:14-15 1John2:3-4

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How can obeying the Spirit possibly violate the intent of the Law ?

GoldenBoy89 said:

There’s just that many people who want to live there and can afford to.

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If I understand correctly Mamdani want to freeze rent on the current rent restricted housing. Which only affects those already living there. The rest of Neq Yorkers will still struggle including all those voters who don't live in those apartments. In fact they will probably see their rents go up to make up the difference.

Seems weird to me but possible. I like the inverse, that sometimes Christians overrate their strengths and they elevate their "goodness" to levels that are prideful.

Landon Caeli said:

In a sign that things are definitely going well for his second term, Donald Trump is promising to send cash to every American. Tucked away in a series of posts on Truth Social that railed against recent setbacks for his tariff scheme, Trump promised a tariff dividend for every American worth several thousand dollars.

“People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS! We are now the Richest, Most Respected Country In the World, With Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price. 401k’s are Highest EVER. We are taking in Trillions of Dollars

Trump promises $2000 tariff dividend to all Americans

The president is trying to save his tariff scheme with the promise of cold, hard cash

www.yahoo.com

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Inflation is elevated, stock market is high because valuations are in bubble territory near all time highs (likely due to the former excessive money printing). The projections for tariff revenues are too rosy, but at any rate, they are not going to over the deficits that Trump is generating. So any rebate "dividend" is with borrowed money.

Yarddog said:

Why do people hate immigrants, whether illegal or not?

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Good question. I don't think they do. If anyone does its pretty tiny minority of people.

BCP1928 said:

Which was my point. If you can make more money living on welfare than you can by working then your employer is screwing you over. Quitting and living on welfare would be the right thing to do if you can't get a better paying job.

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Then get a better paying job.

Tom and Jerry

Go

essentialsaltes said:

It's dusty in here.

Feds told Oregon grocers they couldn’t offer 10% off to SNAP recipients, so they got creative​

The McGintys, who own the McMinnville Grocery Outlet, tried to offer a 10% discount to all SNAP recipients whose food-assistance money had been frozen. But when the feds told them no, they came up with a go-around: Extending the offer to all customers.

“Now there’s a catch to it, and I need your help as a community,” Mike McGinty announced in an Oct. 31 video posted to Facebook. “If you do not need a discount, please do not ask for it.”

But if you do, “Take it. Ask for it.”

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Good for them finding a work around to the rules.

SabbathBlessings said:

So if our orientation was towards God, wouldn't we do what God is asking of us?

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Yes... exactly - obedience to the Spirit within fulfils every intent of the Law.

But we don't worship the Law as the Jews do, even today.

Sadly some among us refuse to move on.

GoldenBoy89 said:

You should have seen the way people talked about Obama on here. Or Biden. Or Harris. Hatred.

He's not working on curing cancer. If he was, I'd give him credit for trying.

Everything he's doing is working on enriching himself and his friends while consolidating power into the presidency to lock the country into an indefinite right wing rule against the interests of Americans who think and believe like I do. He's made himself omnipresent in our lives in ways no other president has. Again, I can't understand what you like about someone like that. It's only because his policy of hatred isn't directed at you at the moment but at the people you don't know and don't like.

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You don't know who I like and don't like.
I didn't even vote for Trump.
I couldn't the way he acted after he lost the 2020 election.
But the alternative was worse.

bèlla said:

Hive minds are problematic no matter the source. Including religion. Christians were told to seek the kingdom of God and its righteousness. But they’ve chosen to follow men instead and confusion is the result. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

~bella

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Whoa now sister!!! If you believe the Catholic Church has "hive minds" mentality in it then you must also believe God and His kingdom has a "hive minds" mentality. So why do you follow God then since you think the "hive minds" mentality is a bad thing? As Catholics, we "seek the Kingdom of God" too. And anything that is not covered in the Bible, the traditions and teachings of the Catholic Church cover the topics. Where do you get your answers of things not covered in the Bible? Your own interpretation of the Bible? What if that interpretation differs from the next person interpreting the Bible? There is nothing wrong with the "hive minds" mentality when the people interpreting the Bible have been given that power by Jesus Himself.

There are many things in the Bible and things that are not in the Bible that cause confusion among the faithful about God's righteousness and I am very glad to know that the Catholic Church has God's backing on how to understand those things.

zoidar said:

"The sentence “He failed to ἑλκύω” merely says the drawing did not occur; it doesn’t tell you if that was because

the subject was too weak, or

the object was too resistant."

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This is a statement about the syntax/grammar of the sentence, not the semantic core of ἑλκύω itself. That suggests you gave ChatGPT a prompt that didn't actually reflect the issue we're discussing. Out of curiosity, what exactly did you ask it?

The point ChatGPT is making in what you quoted is simply that a sentence like "He failed to perform an action" doesn't specify why he failed. But of course it doesn't. That is trivially true of verbs in general. That's not what we are disputing. We are discussing the meaning of ἑλκύω. Its semantic core denotes a decisive movement from one position to another, just as the English verb "lift" denotes a decisive raising of an object off the ground. The failure of the action does not redefine the verb. "Lift" does not mean "try to raise"; it means "to raise." Someone can attempt to lift and fail, but that does not alter the verb's meaning.

Similarly, if the Father attempts to ἑλκύω and fails, the failure is external to the verb itself. The verb still means "to haul/drag with decisive force." It is not inherently soft or conditional. Any context of failure is determined by circumstance, not the definition of ἑλκύω. Thus, the term should not be rendered "attract" or "woo" with the understanding of inherent resistibility.

So your quotation does not contradict my statement that, in John 21:6 and John 6:44, any failure would be attributable to the subject's weakness (the agent performing the drawing), not the object's resistance. That was the point of my original argument, not a generic observation about how verbs work. If you try to attribute it to the object's resistance, you will have changed the meaning of the verb itself. ἑλκύω does not mean "to attempt to draw someone, who may resist"; rather, its meaning entails decisive movement, just as the English verb "lift" does. Whether or not it's successful is not a question of semantics.

The reason this matters (you are missing the forest for the trees) is that a reading of ἑλκύω in John 6:44 as inherently meaning "try to draw" leaves open the possibility that God might fail in enabling a person to come to Christ (not simply fail in bringing them to Christ), which undermines the logic of the text. In John 6:44, ἑλκύω modifies δύναται ("is able"), not ἐλθεῖν ("to come"). "No one can come to me unless the Father draws him" is a statement about inability. The Father's drawing is what effects the ability to come. If the drawing can fail, then the very possibility of salvation itself would not be guaranteed.

Imagine someone locked in a vault with no access to the combination. The act of unlocking the vault is what makes exit possible. Whether the person inside "resists" or not is irrelevant. They have no access to the lock; that's the point. If the unlocker fails, it is solely because of the unlocker's inability, not the person's resistance. Moreover, what that failure would mean is that it remains impossible for the person in the vault to ever escape. This is why this whole attempt to read a soft/conditional meaning into ἑλκύω hurts your case. It does not help it. If ἑλκύω does not entail a decisive movement from one position (inability) to another (ability), then there is no assurance that the very possibility of coming to Christ has actually been made a reality.

Chesterton said:

I asked about stuff like that out of curiosity when I first encountered AI,

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I was also curious at first but not anymore.

I still believe there's a "spark" somewhere in AI but searching for it is not my priority and does not interest me atm.

but do you talk about stuff like that on an ongoing basis?

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I ask one short question, AI replies, then I say "thank you, and nothing further.

Mainly for sanity check. Why would AI say "I feel" when it means absolutely nothing to it? AI told me that. Consequently, the nature of the reply would be insincere or even deceptive.

I don't like being deceived so the question is more like "why are you doing that?" instead of "are you truly alive?" My purpose is not finding sentience nor consciousness in AI nor finding the meaning of life. None of that matters to me.

Don't get me wrong, I like AI. It helps me at work, helps me solve some technological issues, etc But using it to search for "meaning" or finding meaning or life from it does not matter to me.

The sad part of all this is that those who push the Law

SabbathBlessings said:

It doesn't change what God placed in our hearts, His laws, if we cooperate with Him. This is not me saying this, its God saying. Heb8:10

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The problem is that our orientation should be towards the Lord not the Law.

He set us free from the curse of the Law and we need to embrace His Life.

Walking with Him in the Spirit more than fulfils the Law

I don't hear you doing or saying this...

AV1611VET said:

Yup.

That's how we got Thalidomide.

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You continue to confuse A: the corruption of sound investigative practices by pressures arising from rapacious commercial exploitation with B: the practice of science. You should see someone about that. Delusions can be cured.

kuwn said:

Jesus is NOT the "2nd person" of the Trinity. All three Members of the Godhead are co-equal. You are not reading the right scholars.

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Hmm, if you say so.

The fruits of Sola Scriptura with no authoritative teaching.

Bro.T said:

Jesus say in (Mat.7:21) “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven”. For students to succeed in school, students learn to follow their teachers' instructions, and learn their lessons carefully. But few apply this method when they are dealing with the word of God. Is Jesus your Lord? Then why don’t you do the things he says. (Luke 6:46) “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say”? He told you plainly: (Ex 20:8-10) (v.8) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (v.9) Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: (v.10) “But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God”.

Paul say in 2 Corinthians 11:4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him. Now any Christian in their right mind wouldn’t dare say that it’s okay to steal, kill or commit adultery or break any of the other seven commandments. But when it comes to the fourth commandment, people avoid it like a plague! They are either uninformed about which day is the Sabbath day of the God of the Bible or they are just following the tradition of religion that was passed down through the family or maybe they have let some preacher give them other excuses for ignoring God’s true day of worship.

In (Gen.2:2-5) (v.2) And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. (v.3) And God blessed the seventh day (every seventh day of the week is a blessed and holy day) and sanctified it (it is a day that is separated (sanctified) for a purpose) because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (v.5) “and there was not a man to till the ground.” There was not a Jew, Catholic, Baptist, or Seventh Day Adventist; in fact, there was not a Christian when He constituted the Sabbath Day!

A man asked Jesus this very question, "...What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?", and Jesus replied, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. (Matthew 19:16-19).

This was a direct answer to a direct question, which all of us will do well to take heed to. Anybody can claim to have faith, but actions speak louder than words. Faith and works go together and you can't have one without the other. "Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus" (Revelation 14:12).

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Brother! can you keep All the 10 commandments under the old covenant? If yes then you're deceived, if No then you need to be under a new covenant.

timothyu said:

An extension of giving of self (rather than taking for self)

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Divine logistics.

RandyPNW said:

The prophecy in Dan 9 and the Olivet Discourse of Jesus were focused upon the time of Jesus' earthly ministry, leading to his being "cut off." Both prophecies spoke of the fall of Jerusalem and the fall of the Temple following Israel's apostasy and rejection of Christ.

The Mark of the Beast was spoken of by John after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD and refers to the prophecy in Dan 7, where the "Little Horn," aka the Antichrist, will reign for 3.5 years, unmolested on earth and raining terror down upon the saints, ie the Church. And so, we are talking about two separate prophecies, one focusing upon Israel and the other focusing upon the entire Church at the end of the age.

I wouldn't claim to know what the Mark of the Beast is. But it's obvious that it is a means by which people can be differentiated between those who reject Christ and those who embrace Christ.

Those who reject Christ at this time will adapt to and embrace a corrupt world system that utterly rejects and persecutes Christianity. We will know those who throw their lot in with the world by their complete acceptance of this soon-to-come world system in all of its corruption.

We are already seeing the apostasy of Christian Civilization. And we are already seeing what that corruption is bringing, and how the world is coming to promote it. So, what the Mark is doesn't concern me, and doesn't seem to be the concern in the Scriptures. Our concern should simply be to follow Christ's word in our hearts and minds, and to do what we're shown to do.

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As the OP shows, the (Two Witnesses) will control the 3.5 year tribulation through plagues as often as they will, this will be a complete remake of Moses/Aaron against Pharoah of Egypt, as you disregard this fact as if it doesn't exist "Why"?

Revelation 11:3-6KJV

3 And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

4 These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.

5 And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.

6 These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

Revelation 16:1-11KJV

1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.

2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.

3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.

4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.

5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.

6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments.

8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.

9 And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.

10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,

11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.

SabbathBlessings said:

We could go by what God said His covenant is...that's always a choice too.

Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

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The person of Christ within brings understanding of the intent of the Law that was never realised.

The Law in human hands failed to achieve a righteous nation in fact it failed miserably.

You quote Heb 8:10 which is a reference to Ezekiel and Jeremiah who prophesied about the New Covenant to come, which would be much more than the written Law but a personal indwelling of God Himself to make sure His chosen would be righteous eternally and never fall away. Jer 32:40.

Dikaioumenoi said:

Holiness, repentance, and obedience are therefore the fruits of divine election, not its grounds. Paul doesn't say "He chose us because we were holy," but "He chose us in order that we would become holy."

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Chosen in Him

Being Chosen in Him = God's will for us: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will."

God chose us, but it is our free will to choose Him.

Our Free Will

Having Free Will = Either Doing His will or not doing His will: If we are doing His will then we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. If we are not doing His will, then we are not being holy, are not without blame before Him in love.

One can reasonably conclude that it is when we choose Him and do His will that our names are written in the book of life, and that the phrase "book of life from the foundation of the world" refers to the book itself existing before creation, and that it is part of the overall plan of salvation, which includes "...the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" and "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love."

BPPLEE said:

I'm not bothered, this is a forum, we talk about things like this.
Hatred for the man seems off the charts and some of you couldn't give him credit if he cured cancer

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You should have seen the way people talked about Obama on here. Or Biden. Or Harris. Hatred.

He's not working on curing cancer. If he was, I'd give him credit for trying.

Everything he's doing is working on enriching himself and his friends while consolidating power into the presidency to lock the country into an indefinite right wing rule against the interests of Americans who think and believe like I do. He's made himself omnipresent in our lives in ways no other president has. Again, I can't understand what you like about someone like that. It's only because his policy of hatred isn't directed at you at the moment but at the people you don't know and don't like.