Jayne

It can be confusing coming across the internet and not talking in person. I am saying that this: The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. BUT, not three separate Gods. The Father is not the Son nor vice versa. The Son is not the Holy Spirit nor vice versa and the Father is not the Holy Spirit nor vice versa.

No, I was the first one to tell you that there is only one God. See post #2.

I think you are casting a very small net in a very small sea. Every generation has AWESOME people who help to lead the next and horrible people who make a horrible impact. Boomers are not a singular generation that 100% fouled everything up. Be careful how you use the word "we".

I think it's heavily implied to point of being understood.

I don't get it. They say the same thing...... Romans 7:2 [ERV] = "It’s like what the law says about marriage: A woman must stay married to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is made free from the law of marriage." Romans 7:2 [KJV] = "For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband."

I agree with Marathoner. Find a Bible that you understand the best. I like NIV, ESV, and a few more. As far as Young's Literal is concerned, yes Robert Young came out with his version in 1862 and it IS as literal as possible to the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. However, because we English speakers do not speak these original languages, an EXACTLY literal translation can be awkward to read. Here are a couple of examples: Ephesians 2:8-9 [NIV] = "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. : Ephesians 2:8-9 [Young's Literal] = “by grace ye are having been saved, through faith, and this not of you -- of God the gift, not of works, that no one may boast;” Here's another example: John 3:16 John 3:16 [ESV] = “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16 [Young's Literal] = “for God did so love the world, that His Son -- the only begotten -- He gave, that every one who is believing in him may not perish, but may have life age-during.” I consider myself a good reader, but I would not use Young's Literal Translation

There is no sinless perfection. Not even after salvation. As long as we live on this earth and live in this fleshly body - we will sin. That's why John says in 1 John that "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." However, we do not HAVE to keep sinning to make Jesus' blood effective. We SHOULD try our dead-level best NOT to sin ever again. We should be sick at our stomachs when we sin and ashamed grievously. If sinning does not bother us - there's a deep problem.

I see God as one God as the Shema says in Deut. 6. There is one God - not three. If a person doesn't believe that, then one believes in three gods - idolatry. Or else they are wrong in that they do not see the Son as divine. I believe in One God comprised by Three Persons - eternally so. From the beginning until now and forever - Three Persons. Co-equally existing. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. When I am praying to "God" I am praying to Three Persons. I can pray to the Father through the Son, etc. I believe that you cannot explain this by the apple or egg theory. Apple = skin, flesh, core. Egg = shell, white, yolk. Why? You can separate these into distinct parts and discard the parts. That's not who God is. God is eternally Father, Son, and Spirit.

Justin, I find it very concerning. My biggest issue with this doctrine is the "l" - limited atonement. [1] I believe in the "t" - total depravity - that mankind is completely sinful and cannot save himself. [2] I believe in the "p" - perseverance of the saints - once God has saved you, it cannot be undone. God made the Holy Spirit our "seal", our "guarantee" and Jesus said "no one can pluck us out of his hands." However, the other three I cannot embrace and here's why. [3] "Unconditional election" - Ok, I get that we have NOTHING about us that merits God's grace. God's grace to us is something we have not and cannot earn. However, it's the "election" part that bothers me. Those who are reformed believe that God is only going to save a comparative few and that God has no desire to save all of mankind. That God sends people to hell because he created them to go to hell -created them in the womb hating them. They will never have a divine opportunity to BE saved because hates them all. I cannot find this in the Bible. I find the opposite, in fact. God sent his Son to die for the WORLD, yet all of the world will not follow him. [4.] "Limited Atonement" - This is my biggest issue. The reformed claim that the blood of Christ will not reach everyone. That it was never intended for all. That Jesus only died for some. This is not what the Bible teaches. Not all will be saved - but it is God's will that none should perish. But God does not force people to follow him and submit to him. Countless people will not. [5.] "Irresistable Grace" = I cannot hold to this idea that when God via the Holy Spirit calls one to salvation that one mindlessly and robotically obeys. If this is true, what do we do with Cain and the rich young ruler. The Bible says that Jesus "loved" the rich young ruler, but that he rejected Jesus. God outlined to Cain how to escape sin and how to be accepted. Cain refused. I believe that the individual person has the free will to obey God's will or not.

"In some quarters"..... yes. We should be about teaching/preaching the book of Revelation along with other passages in the Bible about the end times..... .....however, "in some quarters" [internet forums], some people are far too obsessed with fighting about who the Antichrist will be, pre-mill, a-mill, or post-mill, and who the participants are in Revelation 12. These same people ... wouldn't walk across the street to witness to a lost neighbor. There is genuine Biblical interest and then there is an obsession with is who right about things we won't know until the time comes.

You only posted the OP 39 minutes ago. Give people time and a chance to even read it. I'm sorry that you have these terrible problems. I do have some questions before I offer any mere advice or prayers. [1] How old are you? Do you see your father at any time now? [2] You said that you were exactly like Dymphna. She was under pressure from her widowed father to "marry" him. Is this abuse sexual? [3] Why did the police tell you that this was a joke? [4] You said that you were not a bible person, but are you a Christian?

And don't forget the Gentile prostitute, Rahab, and the Moabite woman, Ruth. Both had great faith and were in the lineage of King David and Jesus Christ. Gentile women - saved by faith.

Absolutely and of course. If having minor pain and minor nausea, there are plenty of over-the-counter products to buy and use. My grandmother made homemade cough syrup back in the day. Break up a giant peppermint stick and fill up a mason jar with the pieces. Then pour whisky over the pieces to fill up the jar. Put the jar in a dark cabinet for two week. Take it out and you have cough syrup. My family did not and does not drink, but the homemade cough syrup was made for many years. But for symptoms to the extreme, I believe with a doctor's advice and under his monitoring care, medical marijuana can be very useful. There are side effects like everything else, but I don't understand people who will take both OTC cough syrup and prescription cough syrup with alcohol in it and dismiss medical marijuana. I don't believe in the casual use of it, but for medical purposes and under a doctor's care - for debilitating pain and nausea, I would give it to anyone. In a heartbeat.

If we are NOT having genuine epiphanies weekly to monthly, something is wrong. We have grown stagnant in our emotions and in our thinking and in our intellect. Epiphanies are profound no matter how old we are: [1] As children, when we find out that there is no Santa or when we find out where babies come from - those were huge epiphanies. [2] When we spend our first few nights alone in our new apartment/house and we realize the electricity won't stay on unless we pay the bill - that's an epiphany. [3] When it finally dawns on us that WE are contributing to the problems in our relationships - that we are not the perfect ones - that's such an important epiphany. [4] When we've read a Bible verse 10,000 times and God finally reveals the deeper meaning of it to us - those are GREAT epiphanies.

Oops! You've taken a turn that's making me rethink your whole issue.

Married or seriously dating - it's a problem when the one you love will not support you. However, in what ways do you mean that she won't support you or have your back. If I were married and my husband asks me to help him cheat on our taxes, I would say no. If he wanted me to go with him to have a hard conversation with in-laws about a serious problem and I really thought the conversation would NOT help, I would still go with him because he asked for my help/support. So how is she not supporting you?

I told someone I would post this if I could find it. It's a wonderful story of reaching those who have never heard. There STILL are unreached people who have a huge language barrier. First known believer baptized among people group - IMB

I just have to take the words of Jesus as total truth. Matthew 24:14: “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” What I see Jesus saying is that all people groups will hear and then the end will come. While I take this as truth - I also believe that we should not be pre-occupied with it to the point of only looking at end times and not evangelizing and discipling. The volume of unreached people groups gets smaller and smaller by the month. The greatest barrier is language. There still are people groups who do not speak a well-known language and have no written langague. If I can find that article I read of one of them, I 'll post it.

Love, love, love this song. Always have. The lead singer wrote this song based on a comment made by his grandmother when his father died. His father was very, very abusive and the singer suffered a rotten childhood. BUT then his father was saved by God and developed great faith and then.......he died when his son was only 17 or 18. Just when things had taken a great turn. At the funeral, the grandmother said, "I can only imagine what he's doing now". A movie was made by the same name about the writing of the song and his terrible childhood and GREAT joy when his father was saved by God. I love it.

Matt Walsh isn't for everyone. I agree with his beliefs that pushing children into transgenderism is wrong and manipulative and evil - however, I have watched several of his videos over the years and I find him to be mocking people instead of being a witness and that's just not my bag. Children are being manipulated and butchered and pressured - I have seen that with my own personal eyes as there was a transgender student at my school two years ago. Thank goodness she had not surgeries or hormone blockers. But her parents were the ones pushing this on her. I just don't like Matt Walsh's attitude. But I'll play - I'll watch this one.

Exactly. I would also like to know how did they determine the Christian faith of the subjects? Did they just ask them on the phone, "Are you a Christian?" I was just thinking, surveys like this are usually done on the phone. Many people think they are Christians and some people will say "yes" when they really don't have a clue.

It's 7:12 AM here and I've been trying to Google this research with no luck. I find many articles ABOUT this, but no articles with hard and fast data. I am a research skeptic. I was trained in post-graduate school how to take data and spin it. Here's what I want to know. What was the sample size? In other words, how many people checked "yes" or "no" or "sometimes" on the survey? What was the margin of error? What were the questions asked on the survey? Was there REALLY a question that said, "Do you believe the Holy Spirit is real?" Or was it another nebulous question whose answers could be twisted. I never accept research results until I see the hard and fast data. I do NOT believe that 58% of genuine Christians do not believe the Holy Spirit is real.

He had that written because that was Jesus' "crime". Not because he believed it to be true.

Don't give Pilate any sympathy at all. He was a weak-minded man who had a job he didn't care for. He caved to politics and tried to save himself. And on the day that Herod's soldiers mocked Jesus with a robe, Pilate and Herod became great friends - having been enemies up until that point. Luke 23:12 What united them so? Their despising Jesus and having gotten rid of "the problem". Pilate didn't call Jesus the "King of the Jews". He asked him that and not in a search of the truth. Pilate didn't want to KNOW the truth. He didn't ask Jesus. He said, "What is truth" as in "who can know it". I have no sympathy for him at all.

I've always been a critic and skeptic of statistics. Why? Because when I was in post-graduate school at a very prestigious university. I learned well how to ask sample questions that could be interpreted in a variety of ways. And how to keep a sample size small. In other words - how to make those numbers say whatever you want. I've found that trend to continue. I didn't see the details of this "research", so I Googled it. I googled "Lifeway research on fostering and adoption". It was the second one that popped up. The sample size was only 1,010. They randomly surveyed people who only had to GO to church at least once a month. That's only one day out of 30 that you had to be around members of your church or your pastor. In my own opinion, the questions of "do you know" isn't scientific or valid or reliable. Especially when the answer is just "yes" or "no". Some questions I had: [1] Did anyone take into consideration the number of children in the U.S. waiting to be adopted with the number of families in the U.S. qualified to adopt? There are about 117,00 - give or take - children available for adoption in any given year. And there are about 125 million households in the U.S. There's NO WAY your entire membership in the church can adopt and foster children! [2] Did anyone take into consideration that there are upswings and downswings to adoption/fostering? There are. I fact-checked it. Year-to-year - adoption/fostering percentages differ. 2020 was significantly lower. That's understandable. Adoption/fostering percentages have ups and downs. This article leads one to believe that church people don't CARE and that every year gets worse and worse. Yes, the church should be doing a LOT more for widows and orphans. But articles like this are plain disingenuous.