If you are offended then don't read it. There are a lot of topics I just don't open when I see them posted here. Your other choice is to use the ignore feature. If I offend you by being a Christian then ignore me. It is easy and simple.
For crying out loud, Scott, the man is not talking about posts on THIS thread. He's pointing out that Fireball and Ringman clutter up other threads by posting bible verses when the topic is purely secular.
What he may not know is that they have an agenda. The bible verses are NOT directed at non believers.
Their intent is to create doubt among believers who don't happen to subscribe to the teachings of the Campbellites,aka Church of Christ members.
Teachings like.. God ONLY reveals Himself thru the Bible.
And.. Water baptism is a requirement for salvation.
They are out to "save" US....... not the lost souls [if there be any such thing].
I understand his original comment and my response still stands. If they offend him then don't read their posts and if they really tick him off use the ignore function.
Like you my beliefs in water baptism and differ from Ringman's as well as my beliefs in what methods God can reach us. I have been baptised twice, once as a teen and again as an adult when my understanding of what I was really doing was a lot better. I have baptised others. I think it is good to be baptised and all believers should want to me baptised but I refuse to say or think it is the only way.
I am also Baptised in the Spirit but that is a discussion for a different time.
The same with the Bible. I have read the Bible, several different interpretations of it, from index to maps more times than I can remember. But, I do not at all think it is the only way God can speak to us.
I believe in a loving God who's grace is beyond our understanding. I also believe in a God who is so powerful that he can speak all creation into existence. There is no way I will even try to limit what God can do. In my mind saying that you must be baptised in order to me saved is limiting God. The same with saying the Bible is the only way God can speak to us. He is God and is not limited by my thoughts or opinions.
If you are offended then don't read it. There are a lot of topics I just don't open when I see them posted here. Your other choice is to use the ignore feature. If I offend you by being a Christian then ignore me. It is easy and simple.
For crying out loud, Scott, the man is not talking about posts on THIS thread. He's pointing out that Fireball and Ringman clutter up other threads by posting bible verses when the topic is purely secular.
What he may not know is that they have an agenda. The bible verses are NOT directed at non believers.
Their intent is to create doubt among believers who don't happen to subscribe to the teachings of the Campbellites,aka Church of Christ members.
Teachings like.. God ONLY reveals Himself thru the Bible.
And.. Water baptism is a requirement for salvation.
They are out to "save" US....... not the lost souls [if there be any such thing].
I understand his original comment and my response still stands. If they offend him then don't read their posts and if they really tick him off use the ignore function.
Like you my beliefs in water baptism and differ from Ringman's as well as my beliefs in what methods God can reach us. I have been baptised twice, once as a teen and again as an adult when my understanding of what I was really doing was a lot better. I have baptised others. I think it is good to be baptised and all believers should want to me baptised but I refuse to say or think it is the only way.
I am also Baptised in the Spirit but that is a discussion for a different time.
The same with the Bible. I have read the Bible, several different interpretations of it, from index to maps more times than I can remember. But, I do not at all think it is the only way God can speak to us.
I believe in a loving God who's grace is beyond our understanding. I also believe in a God who is so powerful that he can speak all creation into existence. There is no way I will even try to limit what God can do. In my mind saying that you must be baptised in order to me saved is limiting God. The same with saying the Bible is the only way God can speak to us. He is God and is not limited by my thoughts or opinions.
I could have wrote that word for word and signed my name to it, so I'll have to say, Amen.
We may know the time Ben Carson lied, but does anyone know the time Hillary Clinton told the truth?
Immersing oneself in progressive lieberalism is no different than bathing in the sewage of Hell.
All this arguing that goes on here is men contributing what they think is really smart, countered by another mans opinion that he holds as brilliant, but is 180 degrees from the last. If you seek truth, there has to be a right and a wrong, all can't be correct! If you want opinions, go to a forum. The more of it you read the more it sounds like blah blah blah. The Word never sounds like blah blah blah to me. I find it is rich in content that applies to life. I look for the truth in peoples posts, but I find if it doesn't line up with the Bible, it's just noise. It's been tried and found wanting, but the poster doesn't even know it yet. The books of ecclesiastes and proverbs pretty much sum it up. There's nothing new under the sun, it's all been done before, and the way of a man seems right to him but in the end it leads to death.
I will continue to post the Bible verses that fit the conversation. I believe the wisdom in the bible speaks for itself. As I see it, surely we as men can add little to what God has to say about a topic.
You realize that your very first sentence also includes you, yes? The rest of what you said is just more "blah blah blah", as you put it. Not that there's anything wrong with that, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
He can't answer it, he can't say he knows Christ's mind... he may know Paul's or an Apostle's.
It reads, "'Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?' And he ordered them to be baptized..."
who 'have' received the Holy Spirit just as we did...
That's about what I thought. Your forgiven, your not. You go to heaven, you go to hell.
Which is it? Can wrongdoers be saved? Then they can go to heaven. Do they lose their free will in heaven? If so then they lose what makes us human. So, can they get kicked out of heaven? But people in hell can't change their minds and be saved and get out?
Interesting. Wrongdoers can be saved if we truly repent...recognize our wrong acts, confess them to God, and turn our lives from that behavior and live for God. Then yes, we go to heaven. Those choices...free will...have to made during our physical lives. Heaven is a place where the temptation to fill our lives with ungodly things does not exist. So, no need to expel anyone. Unrepented choices made during physical life that result in spending eternity in hell can no longer be changed. Simple really.
Then you concede there is no free will in Heaven.
Again, the life lived on earth...the choices we make, whether we believe in God and believe God...are manifestations of our free will. Once ensconced in Heaven, the DESIRE to disobey God will most likely not be there. I write "most likely" because I have not been there and so do not know definitively. The beauty is that this particular discussion is not crucial to salvation.
So just how Moses got all the animals on the Arc and just how many angles can sit on the point of a pin really do not cause me to stay away nights because no matter what some might say none of it matters to my salvation.
Yes I know the answer to the first is none because Moses had nothing to do with the Arc, he just captained a small read basket.
Lotta folks feel that God had more of a hand in it than that...as opposed to just leavin' something so important all to chance. They feel that He saw to it that we ended up with what He wanted us to end up with regarding His word.
3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. 4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you;
Maligning?
Yep,
TF
The tax collector said: “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus said he went home “justified.”
living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry?
And what of the nonchristians who don't live that way and just malign you because you discount reality and belive fairy tales written by goat herders who had to be threatened with hellfire to quit diddling the lovestock?
living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry?
And what of the nonchristians who don't live that way and just malign you because you discount reality and belive fairy tales written by goat herders who had to be threatened with hellfire to quit diddling the lovestock?
Literary consisistancy is a method by which scholars prove authorship. C.S Lewis embarked on a campaign to prove the Bible was not true using this method. Among many truths he found was the fact that the Bible is completely consistent in theme and remarkably so in style. For example, the Bible was penned by roughly 40 different people over a period of approximately 1600 years, yet the theme is constant. Christ will come, Christ is here, Christ will come again. One theme, one Author. Fairy tails? I think not.