pg4Him

As a small side note, I believe this is one reason why unity in the body is important. When elections come around, half of us pray for one side to win and half pray for the other side to win. A preacher grows his ministry and starts to be influential — half the church prays for God to “expose him as a fraud” while the other half prays for God to guard him from his enemies. Some Christians pray for Facebook to implode, others pray for their Facebook ministry to be protected. Speaking of the body as a whole, there is no discernment, no cohesive strategy, no teamwork, no mutual submission, and only a shallow common message that Jesus loves us or something. No wonder we can’t make a difference.

The best way to increase our prayers’ effectiveness is to 1) Be righteous 2) Pray earnestly 3) Align our prayers to the will and purpose of God’s heart 4) Pray through Holy Spirit inspiration

It’s difficult for me to avoid this topic — and thus avoid supporting my like-minded brethren — when there are so many threads about this topic. Sometimes I try to pop in to give moral support. But I can’t anymore. I really can’t. Knowing how much strife this topic causes, I don’t understand why there are multiple concurrent threads about it. Wouldn’t it be simpler to converge all 0f this into one thread and put it in its own arena? I’m trying resist, I really am, but sometimes half the new comments are on this topic.

Saying words with your mouth while your mind/heart doesn’t feel it. This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. — Matthew‬ ‭15:8‬ Praying out loud for approval from others. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. — ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6:5‬ Praying for God to bless/protect others while He is the one chastising them. Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them: for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble. — ‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭11:14‬

Sorry @Cletus I can’t. Gotta ignore this topic for the sake of my blood pressure.

Works tried by fire in 1 Corinthians = “I will spit you out” in Revelation This has to be a joke. Seriously. This cannot be real Bible study.

Yeah what a losing battle that would be... stand over the man’s casket and use his funeral to preach about homosexuals. Then the church would be accused of stomping on his grave. People don’t attend funerals to hear sermons about the dead person’s children. How can a gay man in that lifestyle get up on a stage and sing a gospel song? According to the news report, he was invited to attend as long as he sat somewhere and didn’t bring his boyfriend. You can’t have a gay man attend with his boyfriend to sing a gospel song on the stage. The fact that many Christians can no longer see this is a sign of the times.

If the church charges a fee to do funerals like a business, I can foresee real legal trouble, especially if there was some sort of contract with no clause for immoral behavior. If they were doing it for free as a ministry, that’s a different story.

As I understand it, the Torah is neither the culture of the Jews, the culture of the Romans, or the culture of modern America. It is precisely the culture of the kingdom of heaven from Genesis to Revelation. When we begin to understand how to think like a heavenly Citizen, only then do we understand the culture of the Bible

I disagree with Michael Heiser about the historical cultural thing in the Old Testament. The Torah is Christ in a mystery revealed later to the church. This is what Paul told us. Every word of the Bible matters to us regardless of culture. One need not believe cultural obsolescence in order to believe gap theory. as I said, you can get there purely on doctrinal grounds just reading the Bible as it is. Truth is established by two or three witnesses. The full counsel of the word of God shows us the truth. This particular idea makes the most sense to me in reading the entire Bible plainly and seeing how it all works together.

Well don’t be shy @Tzephanyahu tell us how you really feel. Since I came to Worthy, I’ve been compared to everything from a Satanist to a Judaizer to a simpleton. All because of how I read the Bible. Not much grace around here, let me you tell you. I can hardly comment on a thread without being accused of something.

Watchman Nee was an eloquent talker who used persuasive words? Are you sure you know who Watchman Nee was? I’m not saying to take his word for it, but you should at least be willing to look into what he said and let him make his case. It’s not worth an argument, so I won’t keep replying to this, but I’m a little disappointed to see someone speak so dismissively on one of the great modern martyrs. but I suppose to each his own. Have a nice night.

For the record, @Still Alive is not teaching some fringy secular idea. I first learned of this in the Watchman Nee study Bible. No science or carbon dating to it. Watchman Nee got there purely on doctrinal grounds. I literally believe creation took seven days, but the countdown didn’t start until after there was such a thing as a day. it answers a lot of theological questions about why this whole plan of salvation thing got started. we don’t need to have a big discussion of it here, but I’m not sure why Thomas is so viscerally against it.

We know John was quite familiar with Genesis 1, so there’s that...

Heh @Still Alive we crossed each other!