Okay! Here is part 2 -

I think everyone in my family has, even my 21 yo son who was just saved 1.5 years ago! To our shame we’re not turning the world upside down, but we do have a heart for the lost.

I am delighted to hear that! Would that all of us see these opportunities and find the joy of personal evangelism!

That’s a good point…we can’t judge hearts so we can’t know for sure, but there should be a clear testimony at least, even if it’s just “I don’t know who He is but one thing I do know: I was blind, but now I see.”

I agree. Fred Hill was very helpful with me at EBGH. He coached me in putting together a testimony which the other elders might accept. As it turned out, it fell flat, and they decided to leave me with the children in the back pew. I was a perplexity to them. I attended faithfully, kept all of the rules, and they could not figure why I, an apparent wolf in sheep's clothing, was attempting to invade the flock.

One of the problems is what happens with unbelievers and other sinners who do "break bread". Unbelievers are already condemned, so if the Lord slays them or afflicts them with illness, then it would be a sign that they are actually believers (cf. Hebrews 12:7-11). That is why when believers do suffer calamities of varying sorts, there are a lot of accusations regarding sin, as in the case of Job. When unbelievers suffer the same things, many believers simply think that that is just a foretaste of what is coming to them in the end. If nothing happens to these folks, and nothing happens to the assembly or its members, then all seems to be well. In one assembly (Cedar Rapids) where I was in fellowship, there was a young man with three young daughters who regularly and cruelly beat his wife. This went on for some years before anyone knew a thing about it. When it was finally discovered, he was coerced by the elders into giving a half-hearted public confession. The beating continued after that so that he was eventually excluded, whereupon he migrated to a Baptist church where he was welcomed with open arms.

It’s so interesting that you noticed this – I did too in the tight meeting in Maine! It seemed to be a requirement of their testimonies that there be an immense and intense spiritual battle. I had more of a “Damascus road” experience when I was saved and I sometimes wondered what they thought of that.

Yes, I had very much of a "Damascus road" experience, as well. As it turned out, it did not fit the proper mold for a testimony in East Boston. Curiously, another aspect that was expected from me at EBGH was the confession that this was the one and only church in Boston (the other gospel halls were not within the city limits of Boston) and that any other meetings of Christians were not legitimate because "the Lord only places His name in one place" and that is where the sign says "Christians Gathered to the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ". Fred Hill was adamant about that point and I assume that he did not invent it.

essentialsaltes said:

Tariffs return to April rates on August 1 without deals, Bessent says​

Fortunately, Donald has made 200 deals.

• Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed Sunday night that tariff letters were imminent, but actual rate changes would follow a few weeks behind.

Catch up quick: On Friday, Trump said about a dozen countries would receive letters Monday unilaterally setting a tariff rate, with more to come in the following days.

• Trump has said he preferred those letters to negotiations, after a three-month pause on his most sweeping tariffs netted three deals, rather than the 90 his administration promised.

Oops.

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I thought it was zero deals. The UK one literally says it's not a deal nor legally binding on the paper itself, the China was one was just "let's drop the tariffs down from what we've raised them to as a precondition to start talking" and.. well I have to admit I don't remember what the last one is. So 0-1 deals?

trophy33 said:

Europe is not a country, it is a continent. Many countries - some had colonies, some did not. Most did not.

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True. I used language figuratively rather than in a precise sense.

Central Europe either didn't participate in colonization, or only at a much later date. It was mostly rising nation-states that participated in overt colonialism, such as Spain, France, the Netherlands, and England.

Wind Waker and Majora's Mask

Jeff Saunders said:

God has said,1 Cor 12:5-8 love keeps no record of wrongs, Jesus, who is the exact representation of the Father says-Matt 4:44 Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,love tolerates all things,has faith in all things,hopes in all things, endures all things,Love never fails -Jam 2:8 Love your neighbor as yourself-2 Cor 5:19 not counting peoples trespasses against them.
I in scripture this is what we are told to do to others and what God is like and doing.
According to Western Augustin Christianity, once your leave your temporary mortal body, if you miss understand what God has done or you outright reject humans ideas of God, He will burn you eternally or annihilate you.
How is this view of God not make him into a God who says do as I say not as I do?
Please no answers of Gods ways are higher than ours, that's a copout.

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God loves His creation lavishly, but He will not force it to love in return. While love is an aspect of God’s very nature, for His creation love is necessarily a choice, and God wants us to come to value and choose it, in order to be like Himself for our own highest good, wholeness, peace, happiness, justice, etc. He covets that choice, that right use of our freedom that comes as we unite with Him via faith. But He will not override our wills to reject it, to reject Him.

Rose_bud said:

Maybe I missed this?? How do you come to this conclusion?

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Past experience in discussions of this sort.

Rose_bud said:

Sure, you will always get people who do things for different reasons or even short circuiting the exegetical process, But I'm discussing how I would approach it. Yes, it becomes universal in its application but to deny that it was originally intended for a certain people in a certain context is ahistorical.

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Understanding the original audiences isn't always all that helpful, especially as it's quite easy for us to think of these things in modern categories or with ill advised presuppositions. Developing an understanding of the history and circumstantial issues involved is of great interest exegetically, but unless there is reason to believe that the intention was restricted to a specific audience and not just that a particular audience happened to be the initial recipients questions about original audience might actually lead us astray. This is particularly true because in the ancient world the epistelory process tended to be public letters and the designees were honorific rather than true designations in the way such things function in letters today. Which can cause confusion where the honorific is used for literary/establishing purposes such as we see in James where the designation functions to identify it as being eschatological and is making a theological point.

So while I appreciate that you are sharing your perspective, there's more going on in this conversation than simply attempts to exegete the letter. You seem to be missing the distinctly dispensational character of the implicit understandings the question entails.

Twilight Princess was my 1st 3D one so that one. I haven't played the Switch ones, but I think it's had the best boss fights & dungeons of the ones I've played. I liked the darker tone to it too

Zelda II: The Adventures of Link on the original Nintendo is really addicting. I highly reccomend it if you haven't played it. It's challenging, but that's a good thing

I've played: the original, AoL, TP, Ocarina of Time, Minish Cap, Spirit Tracks, Phantom Hourglass, Skyward Sword

I didn't like Pokemon Generation 7 (Sun & Moon) at all.
I thought Generation 8 (Sword & Shield) was an improvement, but still kind of frustrated w/ it all.

Generation 9 (Scarlet & Violet) was what I was wanting. I am pretty far into it. It's my favorite Pokemon game since the original DS era. It has that addictiveness to it the past 2 generations haven't. Pokemon is fun again. I really like the open-world of it all.

Ridley12 said:

I've been playing Zelda: The Minish Cap. Definitely an underrated Zelda game, and one of the more unique ones, in my opinion.

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That was my 1st one!
It's still a great game
What spurred you to play it?

public hermit said:

"Natural selection" and "will to live" seem like two ways of saying the same thing. How are they different?

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Because Natural Selection operates on vastly more levels than just 'will to live'. It only "cares" (for lack of a better term) about reproductive success and 'will to live' is just one of any number of strategies to achieve that end.

Evolution operates on the population level, not the individual. This means that fitness landscapes and reproductive strategies become incredibly complex and often lead to situations that could be counter-intuitive.

Consider the strategy of semelparity, also known as 'suicidal reproduction' or 'terminal mating'. This is where an organism dies after mating/reproduction (or even during the act).

A famous example is salmon - they go through incredible hardships just to get back to their spawning point, only to die shortly after. There's a genus of mouse in Australia that goes through a breeding period that is so intense that the males basically mate themselves to death (and it's their sperm that compete with each other). Some trees are semeparlous, releasing masses of seeds and then dying out shortly after to avoid out-competing and literally overshadowing their progeny.

Then there's the situation of sexual cannibalism. There are plenty of species that consume their mate during or after reproduction. There are even some species where the female will consume any non-successful males she comes across.

There are also reproductive success strategies that involve 'suicide' or self-sacrifice by various creatures. Lots of eusocial species don't appear to have any individual 'will to live' and will sacrifice themselves en-mass to accomplish certain tasks. There are also some vertebrates that appear to kill themselves off in certain situations, like drought or large population imbalances.


Natural selection produces the 'Will to Live', because that's one successful strategy. But it's also produced the 'Will to Live (until gene transfer)', or 'Will to Live (until reproductive success)', or the 'Will to Die (to help offspring)', or 'Will to Die' (to protect queen/colony).

Rose_bud said:

Not all of us have moved from human to god status where we know everything.

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I doubt that we'll ever know everything. They say that the more you know, the more you realise how much you don't know. But evolution is one of the things that we do know very well indeed.

RDKirk said:

We still have to see if Trump allows another election.

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FYI, by law, the American people vote for a President every four years. A President cannot disallow that.

Trubbish...there's just something loveable about a living bag of garbage.

I like a lot from Generation 5:
Chandelure, Krookodile, Cofagrigus

We are big Pokemon fans so it changes a lot. But those 3 always come to mind right away. I'll have to make a list at some point.

TBH I think most of them are pretty neat. It'd be easier to make a list of ones I don't like

A third party would help the. Democrats. Musk puts project 2025 tax ideas on steroids. Obviously he wouldn't run himself. He would look for a figurehead that he could boss around. He thought he could buy his way into bossing Trump around but didn't succeed. I do think that Trump is bossed around by the masterminds behind project 2025 but they let him take the spotlight and he doesn't realize he is being manipulated.

Tropical Wilds said:

I don’t know how seriously I can take a poster which was created using AI discussing the nuances of the will to live. Something generated by a non-living program to espouse the virtues of the will to live is a little too meta for me.

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Oh come on now, Trop, could AI produce a personality as whacky as mine? I've been called all kinda names, but this is a real head scratcher, LOL!

Here's a pic of me for proof...



Oops!

Thank you for your excellent responses. Here is my reply to your reply to my Part 1 (whew!). As previously, I have your reply in green.

I have never heard of that being done in the assemblies! It sounds like you’ve talked to a more diverse group of brethren than even I have.

I was also quite taken aback when I encountered it in an Exclusive assembly in Des Moines. Here is an excellent Wikipedia article about the Exclusive Brethren. It is very lengthy and, even at that, is admittedly incomplete - Exclusive Brethren - Wikipedia

I’ve not heard that either! What do they call their meeting places?

You will see in the Wikipedia article which says -

Exclusive Brethren do not generally name their meeting rooms or Halls except by reference perhaps to the road, e.g. Galpins Road Meeting Room, Mallow Street Hall. The meeting room or Hall is often referred to as "The Room" or "The Hall". Notice boards give the times of Gospel Preachings with a formula such as "If the Lord will, the Gospel will be preached in this room Lord's Day at 6.30." Meeting rooms of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, perhaps the most hardline of the Exclusive Brethren groups, have notice boards indicating that the building is a place registered for public worship and give a contact number for further information.

Didn’t know that either! You are a veritable font of information!

I had the unique advantage of growing up in Dubuque.

Yes…I was in North Carolina when I was saved at 21 and the first chapel I was in fellowship with had 2 commended workers. They also had 500+ people for the ministry meeting on Sunday mornings, and it was there I learned that I prefer small groups where I can know everyone.

I agree entirely with you. Small is best. North Carolina and the Southeast seems to have set in motion a lot of the changes in the Chapel Brethren such as commended workers and "The Family Bible Hour". Alex Strauch seems to have simply developed and refined these changes into what is now LBC.

I don’t know what you mean and would like to, but if it’s not something to be discussed in a public forum, I understand.

There is nothing embarrassing at all here. "Commendation" is the Brethren word for "ordination" in most other Christian groups. The Brethren eschew anything and everything attached to ordination (commonly said to be "empty hands on empty heads") but skirt the whole issue, having decided to call it "commendation". It seems to have started with the sending of missionaries (which is the Biblical basis in the book of Acts) where Christians were commended to the care of the Lord as they went out to serve Him in foreign lands. This generally means that the "commending" assembly is responsible for the primary financial, and other support, of the "commended" worker. Subsequently, commendation was extended to itinerant preachers in the home country. Many of these "commended" workers travel to various assemblies, camps, and Bible conferences as professional preachers. Most recently, the concept was developed of having a "commended" worker as a fulltime worker (aka pastor, preacher, or minister) within his home assembly.

As for "ministry" it is parallel to the activities related to service, primarily preaching. What was once the "ministry meeting" or "Bible reading" is now the "Family Bible Hour" (a term I have not encountered outside of the Open Brethren).

We visited all the assemblies in the Denver area when we first moved to Golden so we could meet people, and we visited Southwest several times before settling down at Boulder Bible Chapel – did you ever visit them?

I attended a Bible Conference in Boulder where I heard Bill McDonald for the first time. Other than that, I did not have any other contacts there.

I didn’t know any of this…we didn’t arrive in CO until 2015, and we only visited LBC one time. Do you consider the changes to it beneficial? It certainly has seen growth unheard of in traditional assemblies.

I have mixed thoughts about the changes typified at LBC. First, the changes are not motivated by a sincere desire to follow the New Testament pattern of meeting. The motivation seems to be primarily motivated to appeal to a new generation of folks, like all contemporary churches. As a result, they are in hot competition with all wannabe mega churches and, as such, have become the Brethren mega church. The only positive thing I can say is that they have avoided the pitfalls that have led to the aging and demise of many Brethren assemblies.

No, I hadn’t heard that! Do any of the people that worshipped there when it was SBC meet there now? I remember a couple of very nice folks but I can’t remember their names…one was an elder who was very kind, and one was a brother originally from NC.

There is one man left there from SWBC, John Portman, who was probably the elder you remember. He was staunchly opposed to personal evangelism (as were all of the elders when I was there).

I’ve only ever heard the term “tight” being applied to the ability to partake of the LORD’s Supper, not to behavior and works, though the exclusive brethren do tend towards legalism unfortunately.

During my time at the East Boston Gospel Hall, attendance was expected at all meetings - three on Sunday, and three on weeknights. Men had to wear suits to all of the meetings. I once wore a wool sweater one winter weeknight and was soundly scolded for it. Likewise, there was a strict dress code for women. That was just the tip of the iceberg regarding rules and regulations.

That reminds me of something funny…when we were in Maine for my husband’s job interview in 2007 he called the correspondent (also an elder) listed for the gospel hall in Augusta, which we always do when traveling because we don’t want to show up to the LORD’s Supper as complete strangers…anyway, the elder asked if we had a letter of commendation from our Midwest chapel and when we said no, he asked if he could talk with one of our elders to make sure we were in good standing in our current meeting…and then he asked what hymn books we used. They use the small blue Believer’s Hymn Book that doesn’t have music in it. I grew up using the Little Flock which also had no music, but you bought your own and carried it with you.

I had a friend who had a fascination with Exclusive Brethren, and attended their meetings but, of course, was not permitted to "break bread". My friend convinced me to go with him one Sunday morning. I already knew several of the folks there through previous interactions. I composed letters of commendation for each of us which we signed ourselves, as being in "fellowship" in the meeting of both of ourselves (where two or three . . .). The letter contained all of the correct Brethren terms and phrases. We gave our letters to the presiding brother before the meeting and, apparently, there was a great deal of consternation before they decided we could not "break bread". That was the same meeting where, during one of the lengthy silences I called out an appropriate hymn. After a bit of silence we sang it. The result was that my action in giving out the hymn became the topic of discussion there for several months. Fortunately, I am a man. I have no idea what would have happened if a woman had done that.

We’ve never met with believers in Iowa, but we stayed in Rochester years ago and met there. Iowa is stunning! Such rich dark soil…we were amazed.

When I grew up I assumed that the soil was like that everywhere. It distresses me to watch such precious soil being destroyed by urban sprawl and "progress".

Again, I have never heard of such a thing! How depressing. I wonder if that was the same elder that was so kind to us…he was an older man in his 70s or 80s in 2015.

That was probably Fred Hill, the same man I knew. He was one of the two non-Italians there.

Why did he suggest that?

Simply because I was living in Lakewood and SWBC was much closer to me than Aurora.


That is all for now. I hope to address your next post soon. Thanks again!

We saw the new Jurassic World movie. There were some parts I really liked. It was fine for what it was.
I really, really like the first 5. The past 2, not as much. I think I'm starting to join the 'just end the franchise' camp

Rose_bud said:

I would think in the initial stages of exegesis it would be important to differentiate. But exegesis doesn't end there. It's a process moving from the original audience with all its contexts to the modern audience, discovering the differences and similarities between our world and theirs. And a Gentile world or context could be different from a Jewish context, as seen in Paul's earlier letters.

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Historical context can be important, but typically the people making a deal about the audience are doing it to artifcially restrict them.

Rose_bud said:

The principles don't differentiate. It could be another check to see if my principle is timeless. i.e. what applies to Jews should apply to Gentiles; if it's not both, it's not a timeless principle.

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You seem to be speculating in areas that aren't often a major part of the discussion at hand. The idea behind these kind of questions are attempts to overcontextualize and declare large swaths of the Scriptures "other people's mail". Contextual analysis is, of course, important but the way that audience expectations in public letters was quite distinct from how addressing works in modern letters. And typically an excessive focus on original audiences stems from an anachronistic expectation of private concern.

perplexed said:

Do you know anyone that thinks they will Vote for Elons America party?

I strongly suspect the vast majority of people will say no
it is very common to think 3rd parties simply don't work even if they would want them to and a vote for Musk just helps the Democrats
if you want to help Democrats just vote Democrats.

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We still have to see if Trump allows another election.

Bradskii said:

After reading the thread it appears to me that the area in which they were camping was not the safest place if there was bad weather. Anyone in charge of the camp should have whatever they needed to get an emergency warning. And then immediately instigate Plan A: everyone put things in their day pack, meet at Point X in one hour and transport will arrive to move you out, or Plan B: All meet at Point X immediately and get the heck to high ground on a predetermined route.

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I would hardly call this camping. Everyone had a bed in a very solid building.

I just read an article where one of the girls describes her experience. A key item is that these were thunderstorms, and lightning was striking near them. She also described girls running from one building to another seeking shelter.

It is also worth noting that there are dead from at least 2 entirely separate camps.

The last thing I read has 5 dead from Mystic and 1 councilor and 11 kids missing. My guess at this point is all 12 are from one cabin that seemed high enough to be safe until it turned deadly.

Hard dispensationalists have too much Greek Philosophy/Platoism that they're trying to marry into Christian Theology.

All Becomes New said:

Romans talks about differences in the ways Jews and Gentiles worship God as well.

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As an indictment of the Roman church which was dividing itself on ethnic lines.

I feel like a lot in the older generations of Christians live in a fantasy world where they think b/c you are a Christian, God will make it easy for you & you'll just coast thru life w/ a bump or 2 & most people are Christians too so they will help you.

I don't think that's Christianity & how God works w/ his people

Rose_bud said:

See my response to @Fervent

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It's not a mystery. We know how it happens and why. It's not rocket surgery. The great mystery as far as I'm concerned is why nobody before Darwin's time had figured it out. The details can be incredibly complex, but the basic theory is so simple that it could easily be explained to an eight year old.