Pope Leo says faith and love for migrants are connected
- By rambot
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- 121 Replies
The overly ethos of "help the suffering" should kind of be enough.
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Trump has pardoned them all (but these are all state crimes, so it has very little effect)
Slaves to sin refers to a lifestyle of disobedience, not found among the born again.So as far as sin goes they’re pretty much the same? Neither are completely absent from sin and neither are completely absent from doing good?
We can speed things up. Here's what I suggest: travel to Gaza for a few weeks, to the area controlled by Hamas, and report on it. Good luck!
"Demon ducks", indeed. Holy Moses.Being of Irish descent, I went looking for "ancient stone eggs in Australia".
The closest I could find was "thundereggs", which I believe have some similarity to opal bearing rocks. There's a "Thunderbird Park" somewhere around Tamborine Mountain behind the Gold Coast.
Other than that there apparently used to be "ducks of doom" in Australia, which laid water-melon size eggs.
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'Demon ducks of doom' laid melon-size eggs in prehistoric Australia
Scientists crack a 41-year-old mystery about prehistoric eggs.www.livescience.com
Being told by the parents to go to the chook shed to get some eggs for breakfast ain't what it used to be....

But what I don't see in your explanation is an exegetical argument from Scripture, or a rebuttal of what I have already offered to the contrary. Respectfully, 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.
The structure of Paul's argument in Eph. 1 simply does not allow for human choice to precede or condition divine election. Notice the order of clauses:
καθὼς ἐξελέξατο ἡμᾶς ἐν αὐτῷ πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, ἵνα ἦμεν ἅγιοι καὶ ἄμωμοι...
God chose (ἐξελέξατο) before the foundation of the world in order that (ἵνα) we might be holy and blameless. Holiness isn't the basis of being chosen; it is the intended outcome. Likewise, verse 5 grounds predestination "according to the good pleasure of His will" (κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ), not ours.
Human faith and obedience are therefore the fruit of election, not its cause. To invert that order is to ignore what Paul wrote.
As for the Book of Life, Scripture never describes anyone's name being newly written because of faith; it speaks of those whose names "were written from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8; 17:8). The "foundation of the world" modifier applies to the writing, not the book. That means God's saving decree precedes both creation and human response.
So yes, believers truly choose Christ and obey Him. But they do so because God first chose them in Christ. Election isn't God's response to human decision, nor does it erase human decision; rather, it is the divine cause behind it.
sure, but that’s been his stance for a while. Shapiro has even said that Walsh is shortsighted, and they still work together.Apparently you're right. I double checked and he did make the comment that "erasing threats to Israel is not America’s job", but he made it in the larger context of his being non-interventionist anywhere in the world. Not necessarily pro- or anti- Israel.
I like the NKJV which is easy to understand. I would also recommend this bookI have a family member that is going through some trouble. He is in his 20s, has money problems, smokes marijuana, and is expecting a baby with his girlfriend.
I have thought about buying this family member a Bible, but I do not know which one to buy him. I believe his current problems are happening and God is allowing them so that this family member will turn to Christ for salvation.
What recommendations do you all have?
Thanks.
For a big part of my life I have been confident in the young earth creation model but one thing that has sort of been a sticking point for me is the ancient near east (ANE) interpretation of creation. It was first pointed out to me in talking about day 2 of creation, the idea that the writer is making reference to a solid firmament. It is further reasoned that the people in those days only knew of a flat earth cosmology, so they were just speaking in terms that everyone would understand. Just because they got something wrong does not mean God’s word is not true. It’s not a science textbook after all. And I have thought about this and wondered if there is any validity to it. The other thing that has really captured my attention is ideas surrounding behemoth and leviathan found in the book of Job. I have been persuaded that these are references to dinosaurs until I saw this video of Ben Stanhope’s critique of Answers in Genesis. He makes a compelling argument that these are descriptions of a mythological creature that symbolizes a false god, such as the followers of the Canaanite deity Baal. The comparison may have been a way of showing people that the true God is omnipotent and has no fear of them. And while I may want to entertain the idea that humans lived alongside dinosaurs, it is a weak argument to suggest Job makes mention of it.
It leads me to ask, if I am wrong on these things, what else am I wrong about? Most people who espouse this view about creation week, saying that it was a polemic to the pagan nations who say their gods took part in creation, tend to also be theistic evolutionists. In a wikipedia article “Firmament” it reads,
But one thing I found interesting is that John Hancock believes the ancients did believe the earth was round.
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Maybe the way to reconcile this is to say that philosophers in those days were more split on the issue and many thought it was flat before the time of the Middle Ages.
But if I cede the argument and say it had an ANE context, wouldn’t I be inconsistent to still believe in young earth creationism (YEC)? I have argued before that the Bible is inerrant and infallible and that no contradictions exist, only apparent contradictions. And I do feel in some way it would be a compromise to say that the Bible was wrong about the firmament being a solid dome that separated the heavenly waters above. I understand that the Bible is not a science textbook, but I believe that it has to be right whenever it does talk about science.
Expectation is not the same thing as anticipation.What people seem to ignore, is the many things Prophesied to happen before the glorious Return. All of Revelation from Rev 6:12 to 19:11.
All unfulfilled, as yet, the Sixth Seal being the next event we can expect.
They are the Words of Jesus, given to us in a viable sequence. To not take very careful note, is a serious denial of scripture.
How long until the bible is banned and misinterpreted as "inciting violence" or some other nonsense they'll say? I mean, it's banned in China if I'm not mistaken already, so it's only a matter of time before it comes to the West.English Literature students at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom have been warned: Scripture contains some “graphic bodily injury and sexual violence.” Specifically, the institution highlighted the Old Testament account of Cain killing Abel and the gospel accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Other literary works also receive trigger warnings, the university explained. In a statement, it said that type of “content note is a standard academic tool used to signpost when sensitive or graphic content will be discussed.”
But critics called the move a form of censorship, saying it is “misguided” and “absurd” to label God’s Word as potentially triggering.
Bible Receives Trigger Warning from University of Sheffield
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UK University Slaps Violence Warning on Bible, Citing the Crucifixion and Cain and Abel
English Lit. students at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. have been warned: Scripture contains “graphic bodily injury and sexual violence.”churchleaders.com
Hello! Your advice sounds very sound as I’ve not had the chance to really talk to this with someone mature enough. If you can recommend online counseling with a pastor or therapist who is Christian I would totally do it.Emotional wounds left from betrayal, especially by trusted Christians, tend to persist until they are processed, not just waited out. A good trauma-informed or faith-sensitive counselor can help you process this, separating what happened from the truth of Christ himself. Some offer reduced rates or sliding-scale sessions, and there are community or online options that can make it more affordable; some churches can recommend a specific faith-sensitive counselor that would be free to you because their charitable giving covers the costs. (My church does that.)
That being said, the church is God's appointed channel of grace, community, and spiritual edification, even when people inside it fail badly (because they do). Healing doesn't happen apart from Christ's body but through being gently restored within it. The key is finding a setting where safety, accountability, and pastoral care exist together. It might help to start by meeting privately with a trustworthy pastor or elder. (It doesn't have to be from the church where you were hurt.) Tell him what happened and that you're struggling to come back. A good pastor will listen carefully, take your fears seriously, and help ensure that whoever mistreated or harmed you is not in a position to hurt anyone else. Church leaders have a responsibility to protect the flock and to address sin openly and justly (though not necessarily publicly).
Pray for courage and discernment, and remember that Christ himself was betrayed by religious people and those closest to him. He understands your wounds better than anyone—and he also knows how to lead you safely back into his church.
Very very little is known about him. People consider him a minor prophet probably for this reason because it's not like we have great stories about him like we do Elijah or Samuel. His book reminds me of Psalms and makes me think it was a song, just by the end of the book where it says, "For the director of music. On my stringed instruments." There's a few Psalms that are prophetic, so it's not out of place if it was a song. But literally any information about his life is speculation and could be totally wrong. Like, because of the prophesy against the Babylonians, people place his life around 600BC which would put him around the same time as Jeremiah. But there's honestly no way to know for sure. There isn't any outside sources on his life or him in particular, so we just will never know until we are in heaven's side of things.Does anyone else know anything else about him? Where did he come from? Why was he a prophet? What made him special in the eyes of God?