The God That Paul Marketed Over Time.

But hasn't Phat been saying that he is in communion with God? Just because you aren't doesn't prove others can't be.

There may not be any way to prove this to you and it may not be a worthwhile thing to do even if it could be done, hard to know. Spiritual things aren't open to ordinary channels of knowledge. When you become a believer your spirit has been "quickened" which before was dead. We who have experienced it know it by the change in our perspective. Cat Sci has recently described what sounds to me like a genuine born-again change in his outlook. The change is within yourself. Others can see changes in behavior if they are around at the time, but can't see what's going on inside, which includes knowing that God is communicating with you through your spirit.However, there may be more external proofs too. Sometimes He communicates through external means in other words. Here are c couple of examples from my own early days of believing: I was upset about a sense of gloomy things in my future, when a breeze blew the pages of the open Bible on the table in front of me and my eye fell on the verse where Jesus says "In the world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Considering the number of verses in the Bible I don't think that can easily be dismissed as mere coincidence, but here's another story: When I was in the process of becoming a Christian I went through a phase where I thought I was going to be a Catholic. One day I was reading a book by a Catholic, Keating I think, where he wrote "The Pope is the head of the Church." This bothered me quite a bit. How can the Pope be the head of all believers? The next time I opened the Bible it opened to one of the two verses where it says" Jesus Christ is the head of the Church." I immediately turned a few more pages and landed on the only other place in the Bible where it says the same thing.This I took as God's talking to me through the Bible, giving me necessary information in answer to a problem, and in the first case offering comfort to my worry, without denying that there may be unpleasant things in my future.I hesitate to mention such things at all, and maybe I'll regret it. I had lots more similar experiences that piled up relevant Bible passages in answer to a problem or question I had. The point here is that I didn't have these experiences before I was a believer. To my mind such experiences can't be dismissed, but if anyone can find a way I'm sure you can.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That's amazing. I knew you could do it. No wonder you will never hear from God. You have to be able to tell the difference between genuine evidence and your own made-up prejudice.

In order to reduce what I said to mere "woo" you have to assume I'm lying or somehow fudged the facts. OR you just didn't really think about what I said? Anyway, what I described is really good evidence of communication from God. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I fail to see how those experiences could have had any other source but God. They had to have a supernatural source, that's for sure, but although the demons can do such things it would be hard to explain why they would provide me with this kind of response that was so pertinent to my situation.I believe I acknowledged that I think CS has had a born-again experience. I don't require perfect doctrine for such experiences -- all of us know almost nothing about Christian doctrine at the very beginning --and I've said that I believe Catholics may be true Christians, that it's the Vatican, the papal hierarchy that is the Antichrist. (Your approval of this Pope on that thread gave me the heebiejeebies.)I think God overlooks a lot in us, doctrinally and in our lives, which He can do on the basis of Jesus' death for us. It "covers a lot of sins." He's looking for a pure heart toward Him above all. That's how King David could have committed the horrific sins he committed with Bathsheba, even having her husband murdered, and still be regarded as a man after God's own heart. He had a tender repentant heart, he genuinely loved God. That covers a LOT of sins.I can hope that over time God would lead CS out of the RCC, but He works in mysterious ways and His plans may be rather different from my hopes.There IS, however, no doubt a true doctrine that we SHOULD be aiming for even if God forgives our falling short of it.

I don't think I answered your post well enough so want to add a couple of things. First, thanks for recognizing that it did take some courage to post those stories. Second, you argued that even though I trust the Bible it's not necessary to true faith. But actually, according to historical Protestantism, it is essential, it is THE authority we are to rely on and we have no other.In fact the usual teaching is that God speaks to us through the Bible and any other means of hearing from God is untrustworthy. In practice it turns out that this is how He's spoken to me most of the time. But also sometimes through preachers and God's people. All other sources may or may not be true, and the only way to judge them is by the standard of the Bible.You also seemed to imply that if CS is born again, somehow that validates the Catholic doctrines I object to. I did answer this but I didn't spell out the Catholic doctrines in question, only pointed to the Vatican as the big problem. But there are also problems with doctrines that an ordinary Catholic can fall into as well: praying to Mary or any other "saint" is a big one. The Popes do this which is a major sign of their apostasy. The confessional where Catholics are encouraged to tell their sins is a doctrinal error -- the Bible says we are to confess our sins to God and to fellow believers. And there is no special priesthood in the Bible, we are all a "priesthood of believers." And we don't wear fancy garb, pointy hats and other Roman pagan paraphernalia. And the repetitive prayers the Catholics give as penance is a direct violation of the Bible, compounded by the use of the rosary to count them, which is a pagan practice the RCC adopted along with so many others. The sign of the cross and lighting candles are minor superstitions that also should not be indulged.Some Catholics don't get much into any of these things, and Jesus as Savior is their main focus. Those are the ones I can accept as true believers. There are likely to be more of them in America than in other parts of the world where Catholicism is a much bigger superstititous deal.Bible Bible Bible, GDR, that IS our authority.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It's really amazing that you all accuse creationists and Christians of violations of rationaliity that you yourselves commit. In other words I was lying about how what I read was brought to my attention? And its remarkable relevance to my state of mind is what, something I made up? It could only be that if it didn't happen as I described it happening, or if there are other explanations of what happened, or if I fudged the facts. Of course the breeze isn't the communication, it's what it brought to my attention that is the communication.But there is no point in trying to prove anything to someone whose mind is so closed. I can only hope the stories weren't wasted on others who might be able to benefit from them. I went for years under the usual atheistic delusions that might have been dispelled by some believable supernatural accounts.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Sigh. There's nothing martyrish in my remarks, I just think there is no other way you could reasonably conclude that what I described is not communication from God. Strictly factual statements I think you should rethink and acknowledge.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I answered that already. Your logic is wacko. You have no logic.

GDR: When you come to this post, please note that I added a few paragraphs on your claim that Jesus changed the OT Law.======================================= Pitting the Bible against Jesus who as a member of the Godhead wrote it is a very strange thing you do. To obey the Bible is to obey Jesus. To read the Bible is to know Jesus and know what He thinks. The Bible is all about Him -- as He told the disciples on the road to Emmaus. You can't separate Jesus and the Bible, one does not put one above the other, their proper relation is that the Bible reveals Jesus to us, whom otherwise we couldn't know at all. If you are hearing from "Jesus" outside the Bible and "He" says something that contradicts the Bible, that's proof it's not Jesus you are hearing from.The biggest falseness people impute to Jesus is a false idea of what love is. Its usual fault is to severely limit justice, but true justice is a great act of love, without it the world would be overrun with violence."genocide" is murder, God forbids murder. Justice is the actual term for what you are calling "genocide." The objective of it is to reduce the corruptions and contamination of unbridled sin, crime, violence, demonic influence in the world. That's actually love. Stoning by the entire community was the means of executing the death penalty in those days, partly to impress the seriousness of the crime on the community and make sure all got the point, not some special form of torture.ABE: This is not true at all. Are you even thinking about the actual "corrections" Jesus supposedly did of the OT? And do remember that He Himself IS as much the God of the OT as is the Father.If anything He made the laws stricter, but this wasn't a change as much as a revelation of what the Law is really all about. Now it isn't merely external obedience that counts but internal. He wasn't correcting this at all, He was saying this is what the Law always meant. Not just external harm but hating a person in your heart is murder for which you will be judged; not just actual adultery but lust in the heart is the sin of adultuer.As for an eye for an eye, He didn't change that law as law for the government of society, what He did was give His own disciples the command to be willing to suffer rather than prosecute someone who insults us. And note well, all His examples are on the level of personal insult or personal inconvenience, they are not physical abuse and nothing here is implied about not resisting that sort of evil. Turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, give up your cloak to the one who would take your coat. The OT Law, however, continues to stand as the perfection of justice, while we as His disciples are to be willing to tolerate personal insults and inconveniences as He did. If He meant we were not to resist all kinds of evil then He wouldn't have driven the moneychangers out of the temple. With a whip yet.There is a false idea that Jesus softened the Law. He did not. He made it more rigorous -- from the heart -- on the one hand, and He required His disciples to tolerate personal abuses as He did.In reality there is no way to change The Law anyway, because it is of the character of God Himself. It is universal. In fact in reality it rules the universe. It is the Law that Hinduism imperfectly intuits with its concept of karma. It is always in operation, it is always judging us, it never stops judging us because it is moral and we are moral beings. THIS IS WHY JESUS DIED FOR US. Otherwise we have no way to escape the condemnation of the Law. It is inexorable.THERE IS NO CHANGE WHATEVER IN THE CHARACTER OF GOD OR HIS LAW IN ANYTHING JESUS DID. /ABE What you miss is that the entire Bible does just that and you cannot properly apply its teachings without applying the law of love. The problem is that you make the law of love into something that suits your own limited imagination, and the result of that is usually to promote violence in the world, and that is not love but does harm. To appreciate God's severe judgments probably requires a realistic sense of the depths of evil in this fallen world, even within the fallen human heart, but also promoted by the demonic hordes that are always seeking to destroy humanity. Those who think God's justice is too severe end up having compassion on demons and putting humanity more in harm's way. Liberals, and "liberal Christians" commit this crime against humanity all the time by substituting a false sentimental emotional and dangerous idea of love for the passionate love of humanity God gives us in His word. I didn't do that and wouldn't do that. But I might claim that if my experience is in accord with God's word that it shows my doctrine to be correct, and that spiritual experiences that are not so in accord are doctrinally false. I've had a very interesting time dealing with a particular issue on my blog over the last few years in which I'm repeatedly astonished by people's comments who consider themselves to be Christians but are incapable of recognizing demonic spiritual experiences, imputing them to Jesus, and taking me to task for revealing their true nature. Repeatedly my responses to those comments have to point the writer back to the Bible where the demonic nature of those experiences is clearly revealed. If you can't make this kind of distinction your Christian understanding is necessarily very weak and your own spiritual wellbeing is in danger. The demons are very very good at putting on a show of love and mercy and compassion and sweetness and light. "Satan appears as an angel of light." If you don't get anything else out of the Bible it would serve you well to get what that line means. Big big dangerous mistake GDR. God gave us the Bible for precisely the purpose of revealing His true nature so we can recognize Him, and steering us away from false ideas of God, which the majority of mankind are still in bondage to. Counterfeit love is the devils' forte. True doctrine is nothing but the codification of the truth, you can't make it equal to personal experiences of God which are a major source of deception. Experience must reflect true doctrine or it's not to be trusted. Human nature is FALLEN, GDR, corrupted by the legacy of the Fall in Eden, we can not trust our experiences, and the devil is always working overtime to influence humanity against our own best interests and call it love.You've got Paul all wrong of course but that's a tome in itself. That is not a mere intellectual assent, far far from it. He "bought me at a price," if I am truly saved. I belong to Him, He belongs to me. That being the case I owe Him every moment of my life, and complete obedience to His every command, out of deepest love. You have no idea what salvation means. Utter nonsense. Yes of course we are saved for a purpose, and serving God as you put it is a way to describe it, which would be fine except that I know from so much of what you said that you use those words in a false and distorted way. You are misleading everybody you talk to about these things. There is no way to be saved without knowing Jesus personally and the only way to know Him is first of all through His word. He also communicates to our regenerated spirits but that always has to line up with scripture or there is the risk of hearing from a counterfeit Jesus. Jesus warns us in Matthew 25 and Luke 21 and elsewhere that many false Christs will come, and we are now living in a time when they are all around us, and your doctrine gives them approval instead of warning against them. You really need to learn Jeremiah's warning about how the human heart is deceitful above all things. Trusting the human heart is utter folly. In fact there is nowhere in scripture we are guided to the heart. We are told to obey God "from the heart" but that means sincerely, with all our being, and according to His word. Please, learn Jeremiah's warning: the human heart is deceitful above all things. The ONLY thing we can trust is God's word to us, and He gave it to us in mercy BECAUSE our hearts are deceitful. That sounds so good and it would be just fine if you hadn't got everything else so upside down and backwards, which in the end makes everything you say along these lines very likely some kind of counterfeit. You CANNOT love people rightly, and your "sacrificial" love is probably deceptive too, because you trust in your own emotions instead of in God's word. Again, sounds good, but since you've got so much doctrine wrong, meaning you are not in line with the truth given us by Jesus Himself, even such nice words end up ringing hollow.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I've been writing this in a half-blind state for hours, so it's possible there are parts of it I'm not saying as I would like to. I am unable right now to do anything about that. Im going to post it anywa.============================================ I assume you are aware of the New Testament injunction to "rightly divide the word of truth." You are wrongly dividing it. You are equating OT commands on the level of the nation with Jesus' commands which are always exclusively directed at individuals, in fact individual believers. Jesus didn't denounce war, for instance; there are times when war is regrettably necessary, because of the evil in this fallen world. Jesus is not addressing nations. He is addressing us individually: I personally, you personally, are to love our enemies. Its intent is evangelistic; it's also a foreshadowing of the Kingdom of God.The OT is all about the Law, which Paul says was intended to demonstrate our inability to obey it, which is intended to "lead us to Christ" for forgiveness and salvation from its inexorable condemnation. The Law punishes violators; Jesus came to fulfill the Law in His own body in order to set us captives free from it, as we, bing sinners, are captives to the Law itself. If you don't understand how the Law works, how it punishes wrongdoing, then you'll never understand what Jesus is doing to save us from it. He said He did not come to abolish the Law, but that is pretty much what you are imputing to Him. He came to fulfill it in His own Person. Commentators agree that Jesus would not have rescinded any of the Law of Moses, as He Himself said, so they start with that assumption. The main idea seems to be that the Pharisees were themselves violating the Law of Moses by singling out the woman for punishment, while the Law calls for both the man and the woman to be punished for the sin. They also point out that He is responding to the Pharisees’ attempt to trap Him, and to their hypocritical blindness to their own sin. They conclude that Jesus did not violate the Law of Moses in having mercy on the woman, for these reasons. At the same time He told her to go and sin no more, acknowledging that she was guilty as charged. Because on his first Advent He came to forgive and to save. Read Isaiah 61:1-2a, which according to Luke 4:16-22 He Himself read in the synagogue, stopping just before the line about the Day of Vengeance of our God: The next line which He didn’t read is about the Day of Vengeance of God, Which will be His task on His second Advent, His first being to forgive and save.Again, His mission is to save us from the Law, not to abolish the Law, which remains in force as always, judging humanity as always. He does not change the Law, He fulfills it. You need to quote this so I’ll know what you have in mind; I don’t think you quite understand it but I’m not sure what the reference is. I don’t get the line, if they kept it up. The temple was to be destroyed because of the accumulated sins of Israel and especially their failure to recognize their Messiah. He and His disciples were not of this world, so of course they had nothing to do with revolution against Rome. Beyond that I’m not sure of your point so can’t comment further. Um, sort of, not quite. Again, He’s talking to His own disciples. Only those who put their trust in God could possibly obey such instruction. This is how WE are to be able to resist the principalities and powers, meaning the devils, it’s not a statement addressed to unbelievers or to the world in general. OUR weapons are not carnal but mighty in God while the world’s weapons are of necessity carnal. If everybody converted and trusted God and obeyed this kind of command, the Kingdom of God would have come for good, the devil would be vanguished forever, and there would be nothing more for us to fight about, either spiritually or physically. That isn’t going to happen, though, until Jesus returns. First, as I recall there are only two instances where God Himself commanded anything like what you are talking about, any other instances of slaughter being the Israelites’ own decision, in some cases if I recall correctly clearly against God’s will.Wow, you liberals are holier than God, aren’t you? I know God to be good, I know the Bible to be God’s word, I know therefore that everything He Himself commands and does is right and just whether I am able to wrap my mind around it or not. I trust Him by faith, I don’t always need to know why He does what He does. I know this world is fallen, that human beings are fallen, that because of our first parents’ disobedience we’ve lost our ability to know God as they originally knew Him, that this loss was the result of the devil’s plots against God and against humanity, that the devil is now the prince of this world, though Jesus has defeated him. That was Jesus’ purpose in coming to earth, to defeat the devil and set us free from his rule over us, though It won’t be until He returns that the devil’s power will be finally completely broken. Until then it is only through believing in Jesus’ death for us that we have any power over sin and the devil, until He reigns again wholly over Creation and returns to us that connection with our Creator that was lost.So if God slaughters people it is a justice according to the Law that runs this universe. After all, by sending Jesus He has given us freedom from that Law at His own expense, clearly showing that the operations of the Law are horrible things to have to endure. Just as Hell will be horrible to endure. In fact some of the horrible things that happen in the OT, AND IN LIFE IN ALL TIMES FOR THAT MATTER, are pictures of Hell, of the final punishment for sin by God’s inexorable Law. To teach us the seriousness of sin and how to get free of it. Nobody likes God’s Law, it’s scary, it’s overwhelming. But God gave us a way out. Those who don’t take that way out aren’t going to be saved from the punishments of the Law by pretending Jesus rescinded them. Picking up firewood on the Sabbath was a capital crime because the Sabbath was crucial to understanding God’s plan of salvation. This poor schmuck would have KNOWN the Law. To disobey it willfully was to thumb his nose at God AND to be a temptation to the corruption of the people by trivializing the Law. You fail to grasp the context of such an act, that shows it to be an incredibly evil act. Also, is there an example of anyone doing this and being punished for it? If not, the Law itself was sufficient to keep anyone from committing such a heinous sin against God and against the people, and for impressing its importance on the people. It was to impress the sseriousness of the sin on the community, and by making them part of the punishment no doubt to impress their own sin the more indelibly on their own consciences. You trivialize sin so you can’t appreciate how important it is for it to be punished, and for people to KNOW how serious it is by knowing how severe the punishment is I should have said enough above to make that clear. His Moral Law is beautiful and exacting, and for that reason its punishments must be severe. It exalts God that His moral law is beyond our obedience and must be severely punished, just as it exaclts Him greatly that He has given us salvation from it at great cost. No. I KNOW HIM to be good, I know it personally, I have good reason to trust that everything He does is good. He commands me to be good and kind. He is nothing like Allah who commands murder.Allah is a murderer. He is the devil himself.If I haven’t explained sufficiently by now, I don’t suppose there’s anything more I could say that would do it. You are do misled, GDR. I guess I can’t say anything to lead you to a different view. I’m sorry about that.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I keep wondering how anyone could confuse God with Allah. An extreme failure to read in context. But why? I don't get it.

Ah well. All I can really do is repeat that it's beyond me to understand how anyone can equate God with Allah in any way whatever.

There are a huge number of passages in the Koran, over a hundred if I'm not misremembering, that specifically directly order the reader to kill unbelievers. What sort of "peace and love" does this satanic entity actually promote in light of that? No, He is a God of Law and Justice who punishes violations of the Moral Law. And the Bible teaches about the Moral Law so we'll know what is expected of us, and teaches about what punishments each sin deserves so we can't be taken by surprise by that either. And after making it clear that sin deservies severe punishment, God sends us a Savior to spare us its exacting terms. Allah has no excuse for His violence except that he won't tolerate infidels and he offers no salvation except conversion to Islam and "good works" like killing infidels, and his idea of heaven is carnal pleasure. Yech, blech, gag. Absolute total flaming BS. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that tells us to slaughter anybody. Ever. The OT gives historical REPORTS on how God deals with violations of the Law "in the fullness of time." It also shows Him warning people through His prophets of judgment coming, even warning the pagan city of Nineveh besides His years and years of warnings to His own people. A REPORT IS NOT A COMMAND. Allah issues commande to commit murder of innocent people. THERE IS NO COMPARISON. Blech, gag. Utter flaming inability to read in context. Unbelievable. What the---?? !!!! I have never, not once, prayed even remotely along such lines. Never. Read the Lord's Prayer. It leads us to pray that God's name be holy to us, that His will be done, not ours, that His kingdom come, and end the evils of this world, that He forgive us and prompt us to forgive, that He take care of our basic needs, you know, food and shelter and so on, not cars and comfort, although I suppose it wouldn't be amiss to ask for a humble car in dire need -- and not to destroy our enemies either. Where do you get such a notion? Not to lead us into temptation, to deliver us from evil and from Satan. I often ask Him what He wants me to do, as I believe most Christians do. But there is nothing wrong with asking Him to take care of our needs and that is a line in the Lord's Prayer too. In fact there's something of pride and willfulness and holier-than-thouness in the idea we don't need to humble ourselves to asking for things we need. It also helps develop gratitude to ask and receive. You understand NOTHING. Nothing. It is hard to wrap our minds around the need to annihilate an entire tribe of people. I don't claim to understand that. I can guess at it: whatever the sins of the tribe even the babies are contaminated with it, and saving the animals could just be an excuse to adopt the sinful practices of the tribe by keeping them in memory. I've seen similar explanations but how could we know for sure? And I don't expect to be fully conformed to the image of Christ in this life either, as scripture says we won't. We were MADE, CREATED, in the image of God, but that image was distorted at the Fall and won't be fully recovered in this life. In other words you prefer your own imagination to what God actually says. Jesus IS God. He is of the same substance as God. So say the Creeds. And you pat yourself on the back for it too. If you decide that any part of the Bible is false, there is no way to claim that any other part is true. You pull the rug out from under your own silly buffet-style religion. It's embodied in BOTH. Utter absolute blithering evil nonsense. NOBODY in the Bible goes around blowing people up, NOBODY goes around killing people at random. THAT'S SHEER EVIL, commanded by the devil-god Allah. You are mentally deranged on this point. They aren't killing "enemies" either. Just random human beings who don't share their beliefs. You talk just like the devil himself, lies lies lies, no sense whatever of the context of God's acts. My theology is consistent with my experiences and beliefs and with all the hundreds of theologians I've learned from.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I know that these things are spiritually discerned so I suppose I can't really fault anybody for having such utterly wacko ideas, but I do keep having this optimistic idea that even unbelievers ought to be able to think logically and rationally despite being shown over and over how wrong I am about that.