Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Message for believers only. The Raptures. The Bride of Christ

The competition for "Official Campfire Preacher" got too bloody and Bin schidt canned it.
These types can't tolerate anyone who disagrees with their parochial "one true religion".

As mentioned, your life to live as you choose. I do expect to be held accountable for whether or not I share my faith. What another does with the info is on them, not me. FWIW, I know a number of clergymen. None are rich. Typically, they are pretty high functioning people who serve others way out of proportion to their pay.

It's not the clergy man who gets rich. It is the ones at the top living like kings.

All that gold did not migrate to the Vatican on its own.

Point taken. But the earliest followers of Jesus didn’t have the Bible. The Jewish scriptures were not combined with the New Testament documents until about 350 years after the birth of Jesus. It took Constantine becoming the emperor and having the wealth and the influence to allow the scribes and the scholars to gather these documents, and put them together in what would eventually be called the Bible.

During the time between the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and the time that Constantine became the emperor of Rome, Christianity grew and gained influence. And these were the persecution years. Constantine reportedly didn’t embrace Christianity because he was all that interested in becoming a Christian personally. He embraced Christianity to unify the empire. The significance of that is staggering. He had to find something that most people in the empire already had in common, and it wasn’t the Roman gods anymore. And this was due to the significant spread of Christianity in the most difficult years.

Christianity made its greatest strides...when Christians faced tremendous hardship...during the 300 or so years before the Bible ever even existed. Christianity grew from the time of Jesus to the time of Constantine not on the back of “the Bible says.” Before the Jewish scriptures and the New Testament documents were combined and titled “the Bible”, Christianity had already replaced the pantheon of Roman, Barbarian, and most Egyptian gods, and was the state religion for the Roman Empire...before anyone ever held the Bible in their hands.

And it would be close to the invention of the printing press before anyone...unless one was a priest...ever held the Bible in their hands. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd century Christians didn’t choose to follow Jesus because of an infallible OT or a non-contradicting NT. They were followers of Jesus because He rose from the dead. For the first 300 years, the focus was centered on an event, not on a book. Is wasn’t “is the Bible true”...it was “did Jesus rise from the dead”...? And Matthew said He did, and so did Mark, and John, and Peter, and James...and then a fire-breathing Pharisee named Paul, who was was gonna put the Jesus movement out of business, becomes a raving fan and dedicated his life to taking the Gospel of Jesus to the Gentiles all over the Roman world.

There’s no explanation for the success of the church if Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead. The success of the church wasn’t the Bible; there was no Bible. The success of the church was totally due to eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. Fortunately those who were closest to the event, those who were eyewitnesses of the event, documented it. But they didn’t document what they believed, they documented what they saw.

So if people step away because the Bible doesn’t add up, or for any other reason due to the Bible itself...there is another thing to maybe reconsider...the focus really isn’t the Bible. The focus really is, and always has been, Jesus’ resurrection. Christianity didn’t disrupt the Roman Empire because of the Bible; Christianity disrupted the Roman Empire because of a resurrected Savior.

Can’t argue with that, Men have done lots of bad things while using God’s name as cover. I kinda doubt those guys get to see your grandma, either. Jesus’ #2 commandment was for us to love our neighbors as ourselves. While we’re saved by faith and not by works , this still provides a “smell test” for the things we see around us.

Very well written.

antlers is by far the most knowledgeable, reasonable, and persuasive member of the Campfire Christian Debate Society.
Hell, I think if I read enough of his posts I might be converted.

Agreed.

🦫

Too bad. You are living proof, you not lying, because.you will not see her in heaven.

We will tell her hi for you.

Yep. I imagine. Too bad you arent a regular old Bible believing Christian.

Both of you may find “The History of The Bible “ an interesting read. The author is Mark Taylor and it parallels what Antlers has laid out here.

This. But, as the scripture from His word in the Bibleb and connected in the above video, all.believers arent saved in the first rapture and some will have to experience the tribulation.

You seem to recall that quite often, Ed.

Sorry, that thread is dead.

Maybe just assume the title correct. For the BELIEVERS

Sorry for the inconvenience and discomfort the thread entailed.

Whoa, Toots, I got my fill of religion from my youth, sitting on pews listening to Southern Baptist lighting the pyres I would eventually be burning upon, if I didn’t change my ways.

Antlers, to me, has a genuine way of expressing his life, without making others feel lesser than for believing in scripture or not.

Just a solid dude.

🦫

Amen.

Excellent summation, sir!

Here is a link about the separation between church and state.
Church-state This is not a law nor in the Constitution, but an opinion of a couple of the founders, but it is considered the right thing to keep Government out of religion, not Religious people from being in Government. Many countries in the past had State Religions and our founders wanted to keep that out on the US. Hence the part of the 1st amendment about making no laws concerning religion. Many seem to think it is the other way around, either from ignorance or just from having an agenda. miles

Thanks for the link, Miles.

Nuttzzz.....