Yes it is about them changing the CULTURAL norm. It's about REDEFINING words...words that have had the same meaning since forever.
Bro…this world doesn’t define words. They will always have the same meaning regardless of what society embraces. Again…nobody is willing to talk word one about unholy straight marriages where two divorcees are married who had divorced for reasons other than adultery. Those “marriages” are still eternally “adultery”. I know some are soft on it saying, “Well now…God forgives.” Yes, God forgives…but they will still answer for adultery and the Church was NEVER granted permission to recognize such adulterous relationships.
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BTW not to long ago blacks DID NOT have the same rights as whites. They were not allowed to eat at the same place, drink from the same fountain etc etc...in our world gays can do ALL that.
They also were not allowed to marry whoever they wanted…especially if that person was white.
The issue is does Government have the right to tell two private citizens of legal age they cannot marry? Bro…marriage is a private contract…the state shouldn’t have a single say in it. The state doesn’t own marriage. Although that’s what we’ve been taught to believe.
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"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 (English Standard Version)
Can you answer the question? Let me remind you. I asked about God's judgement. You said to nations that sin or whatever and I asked about states. What about states
If a state performs wickedness, I believe that state will be judged by God. If the state places the choice in the hands of individuals…the individuals who choose such a thing will be judged by God. For example if California were to force abortion (as provinces in China do) or if the state forced people to “gay marry” or face stiff fines for being a straight couple…indeed God would judge the state. When the power to choose is put into the hands of individual citizens the citizens themselves as individuals are the ones answerable to God. For example… pornography, every state I know of allows it. Will God judge the nation or these states for allowing pornography or will he judge those who buy pornography? In a free country individuals are sovereign and responsible for their own sins. In a strict regimented society where the government mandates sinful behaviors like idolatry, atheism, genocide, abortion, land confiscation, etc. God will judge that country or state.
In a sense…liberty can save a sinful nation from facing the wrath of God…because it makes individuals responsible before God’s eyes.
God’s judgment works in multiple levels. Our national policy of free trade with China who has MURDERED 400 MILLION unborn babies as a national mandate is far greater a moral outrage than a state allowing individual citizens to choose for themselves how they want to live. Wal-Mart is belching in profits from doing business with the child devouring Chinese.
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"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 (English Standard Version)
The cold hard FACTS are that only happens because "we" are apathetic and do NOTHING.
I don’t advocate doing NOTHING. I advocate preaching the gospel and teaching the Bible. Politics is a distraction. Christians turned Rome upside down…and they didn’t do it through politics. They did it through PREACHING. The problem is, most trust their political activism more than the power of the Gospel because they don’t pray enough and have NO spiritual power. Most trust their vote more than their prayers! Now that’s idolatry in my opinion.
Too many of us are PAWNS of the political establishment that calls itself “conservative” because they play games with our minds using our convictions to get us to vote for them so they can then turn around and turn massive profits and gut the public infrastructure of funding. For example the FDA under the leadership of Bush’s appointments have turned a blind eye to contaminated medication coming into the US from China. The Democrats in Congress have demanded a list of companies where these contaminated drugs came from…but the Administration advised those appointed over the FDA not to submit that information…in the name of protecting corporate privacy. And there are those who have worked for the FDA and for health commissions who advocate for these big insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. Once they pass laws that work in the favor of these companies guess what…when they leave office they get a NICE office with a view and stock options with the company they advocated for. CORRUPTION.
Bro….don’t let them manipulate you by using your religious convictions to get you to march in their army. Bro…just preach the Gospel and let God go to work in our country unfettered. The Supreme Court can’t overturn a move of God. No court can overturn a heart that’s saved.
I don’t advocate doing NOTHING. I advocating being CHRISTIAN…a biblical Christian who believes in the power of God over politics. The World will only get worse and worse. The Bible tells us. Why should I invest so much time, money, and effort in polishing the brass on this sinking ship???
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There was a time when far less teens were having premarital sex....now they are told "you are gonna do it anywas so wear a condom"....and "we" say "it's gonna happen anyways, nothing we can do about it. Let's bury our heads"
Bro…I feel you. I wish it were as easy as telling our kids not to do something and then they just don’t do it. But the reality is they have sex. Think about it…for the vast majority of human history most human beings have married at around the age of 15. In biblical times it was 12 years old. Today we expect they have to finish high school and are strongly encouraged to finish college before becoming married. That makes them in their mid 20’s at the earliest. Guess what…human biology hasn’t changed. We are shocked at teens having intercourse…but bro…for the vast majority of human history they would already be able to marry and not be carried away with desire. My point is that teens have always been having sex. In the past centuries they would typically marry first. It’s primarily within the past 100 years that we’ve tried to pressure them to go an additional 10 or 15 years before marrying. As parents, this is what we’re up against. Biology hasn’t changed. A assure you that while you THINK there was a time when teens had far less premarital sex…the reality is that it was just less obvious and was hidden quite well.
We need to rear our kids up in the LORD and pray that they control themselves. But there are kids that don’t have God in their lives and they are going to make stupid choices. Guess what…would you rather them get pregnant, have abortions, or get AIDS…or would you rather them protect themselves? Throughout the 90’s teens were the leading demographic contracting AIDS. Those numbers went down significantly when condoms and education became available to them.
I think the concern is that if we don’t provide them protection and education the rate of teens getting AIDS will go up again.
Bro…I don’t like it any more than you do…but if we’re going to reach them… we have to keep them alive. Do you think taking condoms away from them will increase incidents of AIDS and pregnancy among teens or decrease it? If it will decrease it…I’m for it. I just haven’t seen any evidence of that yet.
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"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 (English Standard Version)
yes, I too recognize the illogical fallacy of my statement.
Simply stated. The core of my belief is that Jesus is God. Everything I know of his character just shouts of his divinity. I first learned of his character through the stories written about his life. Stories that I believe were written by men, (not God), but this does not necessarily make them false.
Anyway, they sparked my curiousity, to the point where I reached out in faith and attempted to have a relationship with this Jesus that I read about. Which began a wonderful, if rocky, relationship during which among other things I was filled with His Spirit.
It is His spirit inside me that speaks to me, teaches me, guides me, leads me, comforts me, counsels me, etc. It does this both internally, but also through external sources, including other believers, TV shows, fiction books, movies, sermons, song lyrics, and yes the collection of books we call the Bible.
Many times God has spoken to me through those words, which I have already stated I believe to contain a great deal of Wisdom. And often the Spirit inside of me, confirms the wisdom and/or truth that may be contained in those words.
Does that make more sense? When I say I don't believe the Bible to be the "word of God" people tend to think its means I think the Bible is useless, worthless, and is filled with meaningless words.
Can you see how you are contradicting yourself? You say you believe Jesus is the Word, partly because the Word tells you so, but then you say you don't believe in the Bible, which is the Word of God. My suggestion would be for you to take a leap of faith and just believe the Bible to be God's Word.
I can certainly understand your need to question so much. In fact, I think it's good for all of us to know what we know. However, there is a trap we can get caught in while doing all this questioning. It's a trap of getting to the point that we can't trust anything, including the very Spirit God has given us for guidance. I know it can be difficult to separate man's opinion and experience from the things we read in God's Word, but it isn't impossible. It's called faith.
I know. I know. How can we have faith when we have trust issues? I have found it's really not as hard as I once thought. The key is to look for agreement. If what you find in the Bible agrees with other things you find in the Bible, and the Spirit God has placed in you agrees with those things you've found in the Bible, then you have found truth.
Truth takes work and effort on our part. It takes study, prayer, and even experience to know if what we believe pleases God. There's no easy way around the studying, praying, and experiencing either.
Our search for truth will never come to an end, at least not in this life. Eventually we get to the place that certain aspects of truth move beyond being established and strengthened to being settled. That's how we build our "spiritual house", so to speak, one brick of truth at a time.
As Chandler on "Friends" would say...."Can open....worms....everywhere"
The simpliest way to answer this is that I believe Jesus is the word of God, which is a completely separate thing from the Bible, (which people like to call the word of God) which I believe is a collection of stories and thoughts written by followers of the Lord from their perspective.
Beyond that, the passages in the Bible that condemn homosexuality are subject to interpretation. Some argue that the OT passages that call it abomination are not referring to the modern committed homosexual relationships, but instead pagan worship and idolatry. This would be a distinction of utmost imporatance to those who believe in the Inspired Authorship of the Bible. Not so in my case.
What the original writers of the Bible intended is not as critical to me, as I believe their words to be influenced and filtered through their culture and world view.
I suppose I should take this moment to add a disclaimer, that this does not mean that I view the Bible as entirely worthless. I do actually believe that it contains a great bit of wisdom, and furthermore, I believe that God can (and does) speak to people through the Bible. But it is just one of the thousands of ways that he does so.)
I disagree. LOL But I too still love ya.
I’d be more inclined to believe our interpretation was incorrect than believe that the Bible wasn’t the Word of God.
My pastor said something awesome regarding homosexuality. He said that he wasn’t afraid that they say it’s genetic. He said that would only validate the Bible because the Bible calls sins of this nature “works of the flesh”. Paul said that in his flesh there was no good thing. Our flesh (biology and genetics) is fallen and corrupted. So he doesn’t doubt that some never chose to be gay and that it might be in their corrupted flesh, or their genetics. But he then turns and teaches that Jesus will forgive, empower, and heal.
So I see gay people like people who are being held captive by sin at work in their flesh (possibly genetics). I pray for their salvation, their forgiveness, and their healing. And I’m very patient and understanding with them. I do believe that even gay people can be saved, though they might struggle with same sex attraction, temptations, thoughts, and may have even fallen on occasion. We’re all sinners and I know God has forgiven me of so much and has always been there for me when I fell on my face because of sin. I believe Jesus will be there for them too. The difficulty is getting them to turn to him for their salvation because they have to admit that their condition isn’t part of his perfect design for mankind and admit that they are helpless against it to save themselves. Most want to justify their sinful inclinations and refuse to fess up and ask for forgiveness and help.
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"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 (English Standard Version)
Can you see how you are contradicting yourself? You say you believe Jesus is the Word, partly because the Word tells you so, but then you say you don't believe in the Bible, which is the Word of God. My suggestion would be for you to take a leap of faith and just believe the Bible to be God's Word.
I can certainly understand your need to question so much. In fact, I think it's good for all of us to know what we know. However, there is a trap we can get caught in while doing all this questioning. It's a trap of getting to the point that we can't trust anything, including the very Spirit God has given us for guidance. I know it can be difficult to separate man's opinion and experience from the things we read in God's Word, but it isn't impossible. It's called faith.
I know. I know. How can we have faith when we have trust issues? I have found it's really not as hard as I once thought. The key is to look for agreement. If what you find in the Bible agrees with other things you find in the Bible, and the Spirit God has placed in you agrees with those things you've found in the Bible then you have found truth.
Truth takes work and effort on our part. It takes study, prayer, and even experience to know if what we believe pleases God. There's no easy way around the studying, praying, and experiencing either.
Our search for truth will never come to an end, at least not in this life. Eventually we get to the place that certain aspects of truth move beyond being established and strengthened to being settled. That's how we build our "spiritual house", so to speak, one brick of truth at a time.
Amazingly I don't feel like I am contradicting myself at all (the part about the word telling me so was me being facetious, I thought I explained myself well afterwords, but just in case, here it is simplified even more)
(I believe) The bible was written by men.
God can speak through any person, any situation, any thing!
Which means that God can speak to someone through words, letters & books written by men, including, but not limited to the Bible.
So the fact that God can speak through the Bible, does not necessarily mean that the Bible was written by God.
As for believing by faith, it is precisely because I have faith in God, that I do not believe that a book that advocates the slaughter of children, slavery and discrimination towards the female sex, was penned by Him
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"I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool,
and all His works must be contemplated with respect."
I’d be more inclined to believe our interpretation was incorrect than believe that the Bible wasn’t the Word of God.
My pastor said something awesome regarding homosexuality. He said that he wasn’t afraid that they say it’s genetic. He said that would only validate the Bible because the Bible calls sins of this nature “works of the flesh”. Paul said that in his flesh there was no good thing. Our flesh (biology and genetics) is fallen and corrupted. So he doesn’t doubt that some never chose to be gay and that it might be in their corrupted flesh, or their genetics. But he then turns and teaches that Jesus will forgive, empower, and heal.
So I see gay people like people who are being held captive by sin at work in their flesh (possibly genetics). I pray for their salvation, their forgiveness, and their healing. And I’m very patient and understanding with them. I do believe that even gay people can be saved, though they might struggle with same sex attraction, temptations, thoughts, and may have even fallen on occasion. We’re all sinners and I know God has forgiven me of so much and has always been there for me when I fell on my face because of sin. I believe Jesus will be there for them too. The difficulty is getting them to turn to him for their salvation because they have to admit that their condition isn’t part of his perfect design for mankind and admit that they are helpless against it to save themselves. Most want to justify their sinful inclinations and refuse to fess up and ask for forgiveness and help.
It's ok to disagree with me. In fact, if it weren't for Timmy, I would never know agreement!
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"I am a great and sublime fool. But then I am God's fool,
and all His works must be contemplated with respect."
I gotcha. That is why we loved Virginia Beach so much, and why we want to get back there asap. So much to do, and yet still had the small town feel, it really was like the best of both worlds to us.
Baron, my in-laws live in Hampton. My hubby would absolutely LOVE to move back to that area. He loves the east coast.
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I hate to see you frown. So wear a bag over your head until you cheer up!
Amazingly I don't feel like I am contradicting myself at all (the part about the word telling me so was me being facetious, I thought I explained myself well afterwords, but just in case, here it is simplified even more)
(I believe) The bible was written by men.
God can speak through any person, any situation, any thing!
Which means that God can speak to someone through words, letters & books written by men, including, but not limited to the Bible.
So the fact that God can speak through the Bible, does not necessarily mean that the Bible was written by God.
As for believing by faith, it is precisely because I have faith in God, that I do not believe that a book that advocates the slaughter of children, slavery and discrimination towards the female sex, was penned by Him
The Bible doesn't say it was written by God. It says it was inspired by Him. The whole point behind the Word the God is to give us an understanding of His nature, the things He likes and dislikes, and to give us instructions on how to do things that please Him. There was a time in history when God dealt with man in a different way than He does now, so that would explain the things you mentioned about children being killed, etc.
You need to keep in mind that He was in the process of establishing a nation when those things were taking place, and He knew that it was necessary for His chosen people to completely eradicate their enemies. Otherwise, as evidenced by things that happened when His instructions to kill every member of a particular people or tribe were not followed, those enemies would rise back up against His chosen, the Israelites.
We are now living under a time of grace, so it can be difficult to picture the God we've come to know giving out those kinds of orders, but it doesn't change the fact that He did. It's no different than understanding that this same God of grace will one day pronounce a final judgement on this world and those people who have chosen not to follow Him. It's difficult to picture Him doing that, but His Word says that it's going to happen.
They will always have the same meaning regardless of what society embraces. Again…nobody is willing to talk word one about unholy straight marriages where two divorcees are married who had divorced for reasons other than adultery. Those “marriages” are still eternally “adultery”. I know some are soft on it saying, “Well now…God forgives.” Yes, God forgives…but they will still answer for adultery and the Church was NEVER granted permission to recognize such adulterous relationships.
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