What you want to know about Christ.

I believe that we should not pray to the dead. 'The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing.' Ecclesiastes 9:5. The Bible clearly says that the dead are just that - dead. They know nothing. There is common belief that when you die, you go straight to heaven or hell. But that belief is not Biblical. When you die, its as if you are sleeping until Jesus comes. Then, 'For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.' 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. So the dead will be raised when Jesus comes and will go up to heaven with all the others still on earth alive. We shouldn't pray to the dead because they don't have any clue that we are. Instead we should pray to God. And there is no special formula for that.

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In prayer, it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

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God doesn't mind how we come to Him. It can be on our knees or standing up, spoken or just thought, mumbles of sorrow or shouts of praise. The point is that we come. That is what is important. Well, if you are referring to when he was being tortured and Peter denied him, that was three times. As you can see, on this occasion, Jesus was denied three times. There is also a record of this in at least one other gospel. But you may be talking about a different occasion. Please try to be a little clearer in your questions.When you say 'clear the temple' do you mean physically or spiritually? Because our bodies are referred to as 'temples of the Holy Spirit', so you could say that He clears the temple as many times as we ask. Please specify. Jesus died on the Friday, rested on the Sabbath, and rose back to life on the Sunday. Well, some women followed Joseph of Arimathea to his tomb when he buried Jesus, but I think you are referring to when he rose from the dead. This text says it was early morning, therefore probably light, unless they were up before dawn.Thankyou for your questions. Sorry this has been a while coming, but, as you can probably see from looking at this thread, there are a lot of questions.God Bless you in every way, my brother/sister in Christ.

Ist this meant to mean it says not of Christ or of Christ? Forgive me, but I find this statement slightly confusing.It does seem that 'Christian' (Christian) has become a negative word among non-believers. It's like when I say 'I'm a Christian' a lot of non-believers have automatic sirens and flashing red lights going off in their heads, if that makes sense. I'm not saying that being a Christian is a bad thing, just that the world has painted it as such. That is one of the things I am determined to change. I don't think it really matters if we call ourselves Christians, born-again or followers of Jesus, it's whats in our hearts that counts. And Jesus knows what is in your heart.Thanks for your interest, and God Bless you. Edited by AdminPhat, : fixed quote

Ringo, I don't mind others answering questions. Actually, if you are willing to answer some of the questions in a loving manner according to the Bible, I would be most grateful, as you can probably see I am flooded with questions. Are you a Christian/born again/follower of Jesus yourself?Thankyou, and God Bless you my brother/sister in Christ.gen.

I was talking to a friend about the Pharoah subject the other day, and he suggested that it may mean that God caused Pharoah's heart to be hardened because of what he did with the Israelites, not be directly hardening his heart. I must admit that this is a confusing subject, and that some of what I have said about it may seem conflicting. I intend to ask God himself about it in heaven. And I hope to see all of you there, too.God Bless you, my brother/sister in Christ Jesus.

I am not saying there should be no debate, I just don't want to go aroung in circles with no new information coming in. I guess I should have worded that differently.Thanks.God Bless you.gen.

This is not supported by the text, which explicitly states that God hardens Pharoah's heart so that he will not let the Israelites go, so that God "will be glorified." It's about as unambiguous as you can get if you read the words on the page, gen. It's only "confusing" if you're trying to bend and twist the text to justify a monstrous act. The task you've set yourself (justifying the Egyptian plagues culminating in the murder of the firstborn) is analogous to justifying the Holocaust. They are both inherently disgusting and horrifically immoral. I don't think your apologectics will resolve this conflict.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

You probably wouldn't like most of my answers. For example: I don't like the term "born again", because most professing Christians have no clue what it means. And I'm not much of a follower. I strain at the leash.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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Almost no-one, not even those who call themselves Bible-based Christians, acts as if they really believe their chosen Bible is the word of God (of course, that assumes one starts by picking one Bible among all the canons and translations, which differ by entire books worth of text). Most Christians haven’t even read it all (!).Instead, Christians treat it as “interesting” or “worthy of respect” or “occasionally useful”. If one really believed their chosen Bible was the actual word of God, wouldn’t they aggressively investigate any suggestion that translations differ or that changes were made to the word of God- but instead, they usually ignore differences from version to version, saying they “aren’t important” - even when the differ by whole verses or more.Wouldn’t it be a huge deal -- if ideas were are added or deleted, even the addition or subtraction of a word would be an unpardonable crime. And yet, most Christians seem perfectly happy to blatantly ignore the text of the Bible if they don’t like it, or to add ideas (like the idea that “God caused Pharoah's heart to be hardened because of what he did with the Israelites, not be directly hardening his heart”, which the Bible doesn’t say.). Adding and subtracting as they like, because at some level, they, just like most other people in the world, know that the Bible is just a human book, as divine as Mien Kampf.In this thread we’ve already seen plenty of examples of gen adding to or deleting from the Bible at his whim (Egyptians putting blood on their lintels, the state of the dead, etc). There are a bunch of further examples in his responses here.Gen wrote: That’s all well and good, but in Mk it says Peter denies him 3 times before the rooster crows twice, not once. Some Christians I’ve talked to say that this means that Peter denied Jesus 6 times (3 before the first crow, then 3 more before the second). Do you, gen, think this is what happened (even though the Bible nowhere says 6 times), or do you think this is a copying/recording mistake?MK 14: Gen wrote: As you guessed, I mean driving the moneychangers from the temple during Jesus’ life. Sorry if that was unclear. John has: Mt has: We both know that it gets light well before dawn. So these two accounts disagree. You can see how seriously they disagree by simply writing down, in order, everything that happened that morning without omitting a single Biblical detail. It’s quite difficult to do without making each account into a terribly fragmented account, where the holy spirit has ”neglected’ to have each gospel writer write much of what happened. It doesn’t seem that any resolution of the problem of the very different gospel accounts is possible without saying that the holy spirit doesn’t seem able to tell the whole truth - which makes one wonder where else only part of the truth has been told. Mormons will gladly fill in more information with their 3rd testament. Most Christians will happily add the text of the other gospels to the gospel they are reading. For instance, when reading mark, they’ll say that Mary went there first when it was still dark, even though mark doesn’t say that. The most flagrant adding of pieces from other stories to the story being read is with the story of Jesus’ birth, where the two stories (Mt and Lk) have little in common. Gen, do you think it’s OK to add stuff to a gospel account?Vishnu Bless you in every way, my brother/sister in the karmic cycle- Equinox

Gen writes: Depending on the book, the Bible gives different answers. One direct view of heaven is in Rev (another is in Luke), which clearly says that the dead are there are conscious before the return of Jesus. You can see this by reading chapter 4 (where the elders of the church do things in heaven), or in this passage from chapter 6: Obviously, they are able to talk, wear different clothes, “wait” and stuff like that. - And in Luke chap 16 Jesus describes a story when two people, one in Heaven and one in Hell, have a conversation. “Prayer” can be prayer to the dead (as in asking them to pray for you, just as you’d ask your cousin to pray for you, or you might pray for your cousin) or prayer for the dead. Both are clearly scriptural. In numerous places in the Bible one person prays for another (Stephen, Jesus, Moses, Paul all pray for others), and since people in heaven are able to do things, asking them to pray for you should be no different than asking me to pray for you. Many of the earliest Christian church services we can find are from the 300’s, and they have extensive requests of martyrs and such to pray for them.Prayer for the dead, to help them, is clearly scriptural, and is mentioned in places in the bible such as 2 Mcb 12:46 or Brch 3:4-7. The majority of Christians from the start up to today have apparently done both kinds of prayers involving the dead.Augustine, the posterboy of the reformation (it’s no coincidence that Luther was an Augustinian monk), makes it clear that prayers for the dead are to be done in his book the Retractations, Book ii. 64:2. So I guess I don’t understand your view, other than the fact that I already know that different Christian groups hold all kinds of different views of the afterlife. Your views sound like those of the Jehovah’s witnesses or the 7th day Adventists. However, you can make up just about any afterlife scenario and there will be at least thousands of Christians who agree with you and will sift out Bible passages to support it.Vishnu Bless you in every way, my brother/sister in the karmic cycle--Equinox

I would not be so blunt, but Rahvin is right. It isn't complicated. Exodus says that God wanted the Pharaoh to keep the Israelites prisoner so that he had a pretext to send the plagues - to demonstrate His power. So he hardened the Pharaoh's heart to make sure that that was what happened.The complications come in when you try to square that with your ideas of God - you can't believe that God would do as the Bible says.But there's no need to worry about that. The Exodus is legend, not history. Whatever really happened was quite different.

gen, I know you are dealing with a lot of questions right now, but I was hoping to get your answer to my Message #155 when you get a chance.Thanks in advance.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

Ok, look at it this way. I know I have said before that God is fair. But really He's not. Now this may not make sense, but please read on. 'For the wages of sin is death...' Romans 6:23. 'for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,' Romans 3:23. It doesn't matter who you are, if you live on earth, you have sinned, and you are not worthy of heaven, God and even life. If God was 'fair' in the strictest sense, then we would all be dead. Yes, dead. Not in heaven. But, God, the Father of the prodigal sons and daughters, introduces grace. Lets look at the next part of those verses. '...but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.' Romans 6:23. 'and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.' Romans 3:24. 'Grace' is 'the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God' (dictionary.reference.com). So God has the right to take our lives because we have sinned, but He usually doesn't because of His love and grace. Death is never God's fault. Period. It is Satan's, and ours. If Lucifer had never become jealous of God, then he wouldn't have come to earth with sin. We don't have to do wrong, we choose to. 'For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life.' John 3:16. God loves us so much that He died for us. Even if only one human had sinned, He still would have died. That's how much He loves you.

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Someone asked Jesus, "How much do you love me?" Jesus replied, "This much." And He stretched out His arms and died.

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Think on that.I pray you will come to accept God's love and grace as a gift. God Bless you, my brother/sister in Christ Jesus, our Saviour who died.

My translation is slightly different: Slightly different, but importantly, as I am sure you can notice. The Bible does not mention the particular technicalities of this battle, but here are some of the possible situations:1) Some or all of the Israelites saw the iron chariots, were frightened and ran away.2) Some or all of the Israelites lost their faith in God when they saw the chariots, and althought they fought, they didn't win.3) God did not want the plains to be captured yet, and had other plans.There are countless other possible descriptions of this particular battle. You can't really make a judgement about it on one text. But I'm sure that God will have the answers in heaven.God Bless always.gen.

I am not lying about what is in God's Holy Word. I am not making things up. Please point out a post where I have. I have admitted things I am not sure about, if you would care to read my replys. It seems that you are trying to discourage me and deter me from continuing my ministry in this site. Well, with Jesus by my side, you won't. I believe this is what he wants me to do, and it is people like you who's hard shells I want to break down, with the love of God.I am sincerely praying for you. You have not gone to far to turn around and accept Jesus's gift of Salvation until the Second Coming, or when you die. I pray that you will. Jesus loves you so much that he died for you. And you won't even accept his gift that cost him so much! Please do.God will Bless you, if you will allow him.

Back in post #174 I wrote: Or, even more flagrantly, the pick and choose which translation to use based on what they’d prefer - because they know that their ideas about God are more important than “God’s word”, since they know that the Bible isn’t really “God’s word”.
For example, just three posts later, in #177, gen disputes a point about God by finding a translation that is closer to what he wants (the NIV instead of the KJV that riverix used).
Gen writes:Gen, since you don’t seem to think the Bible is God’s word, then what are you basing your ideas about God on?*****************************************************And:Gen writes: In post #169 you wrote That’s not in the Bible and contradicts what the plain text says.In post #134 you wrote: There are plenty of places where the Bible says that hell is everlasting.Ya know, I have some sympathy for Jehovah’s witnesses and other non-traditional Christians like gen. They are seen as irrational, deluded sheeple by the non-Christians, and as depraved heretics by the Christians, and are generally universal outcasts. I don’t see their beliefs as any more silly than the more common Christianities, and think they get an unfair share of derision and mockery.Just to clear some things up, gen:Is god a trinity, composed of three persons?Is the rapture expected very soon?Is the book of mormon inspired scripture, on par with the New Testament?Is the watchtower bible and tract society accurate in what it prints?Does your church worship mainly on Saturday, not on Sunday?Was Ellen White generally on the mark about religion?Thanks--EquinoxEdited by Equinox, : fixed typo