daughterofGrace

I'm a writer by trade and, all of my life, I have craved stories. When I was a kid, if I didn't have a book to read, I'd read the encyclopedia. A writer friend of mine was talking about how you could actually speak the truth more effectively in fiction than in non-fiction because it engages not just the mind, but the emotions as well. Readers step inside stories and get involved in them on a deep level. A good story stays with a person, keeps him/her thinking about it long after they have closed the book or turned off the DVD player. Right now I am reading Holly Ordway's Apologetics and The Christian Imagination. Ordway was an atheist who came to Christ through literature, specifically, through The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. They're stories that embody Christianity. She talks about how metaphors can build a bridge between the known and unknown. It takes a talented writer such as Tolkien or Lewis to be able to do that. It's interesting that, in places where censorship might prevent someone from sharing the truth, it can be done in stories that go under the radar. There's a reason that, historically, totalitarian governments have shut down theatres, smashed printing presses and thrown writers in jail. They know how dangerous stories can be!

TheMatrixHasU71 wrote: That is a blasphemous interpretation of the Trinity for God is not one body with three heads. Three distinct persons with united as one in substance, heart, mind, consciousness, united like a family. My response: I apologize for offending you. That wasn't my intention. Nor, I'm sure, was it William Lane Craig's. I think if you read the article in which he makes the analogy, you will find that he was only trying to help people grasp a complex being that is beyond our comprehension. And that's the only reason I mentioned it as well. Please accept my apology.

I have been posting in a forum where there are a great many Jehovah's Witnesses who deny the Trinity and the deity of Jesus Christ. They have a creative way of translating John 1:1, making Jesus "a god", but not God. So it has been a great joy for me to read through all of these affirmations of our Triune God -- one God who exists in three persons. I think it's difficult for us to imagine the Trinity because we really have nothing in creation to compare it to. We try to find analogies, but they don't quite capture it fully. Apologist William Lane Craig has a way of explaining it that he says has clarified it for some people. He likens it to the three-headed dog, Cerberus, in Greco-Roman mythology. It's one dog with three distinct consciousnesses. See here: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-3/s3-doctrine-of-god-trinity/doctrine-of-god-trinity-part-9/ Lane does say that some people have found such a comparison offensive, however, and I can understand that. As someone earlier in the thread wisely pointed out, it's not a real surprise that we can't fully comprehend the Trinity because God is, after all, God, and why should it surprise us that we can't quite get our finite minds around his infinite greatness.

I love it that you call yourself YeshuaWarrior. That tells me you know where your strength lies and that you're a fighter for the faith. Good for you! I think the others have shared wonderful thoughts. I just want to add this verse to your spiritual armamentarium: Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:6,7). The word translated as "guard" also means "to garrison". This is significant because Philippi was an old military town where many retired soldiers lived out their last days. They would really relate to the idea of Jesus "garrisoning" their hearts and minds so that the enemy could not successfully attack. I find that, if anxiety hits me, I need to sit down, take long, slow, deep breaths and meditate on that verse. It stills my mind and allows me to listen for God's voice better. God bless you, YeshuaWarrior.

I would have a problem with a church that simply teaches "self-improvement". Being a Christian isn't about working to improve ourselves. It's about working in the power of the Holy Spirit to become more like Jesus. The process is called sanctification and it's about reading the Bible regularly and prayerfully, praying to the Lord for his wisdom and guidance, participating in Bible studies, allowing the Holy Spirit inside you to empower you to overcome the obstacles in life and live life in God's wisdom. But each of us is different. Therefore, each of our walks with the Lord will be different to some degree. Sure, there are some experiences and lessons we share with others who are on this journey with Jesus. But we are all individuals and God will work with us according to our particular needs and abilities. The idea of cookie-cutter Christians scares me, too! God is certainly not the author of your bipolar disorder. We live in a fallen world and we are all of us broken in some way. But it is God's desire to heal us of our brokenness, be it spiritual, physical, emotional, relational, mental or whatever. So do not give up hope on being healed in your particular area of brokenness. Just remember that it isn't about you on your own trying to be the best Christian you can be. It's about you having the Holy Spirit in you to empower you, guide you, strengthen you, comfort you, etc. I know there are churches that never even talk about the Holy Spirit. I grew up in one. I used to try to be a good person in my own puny human power and felt like a failure a lot of the time. But when I was filled with the Holy Spirit and handed my life to him, I began to see changes in myself, changes for the better. That is what I desire for others. For those who aren't familiar with the Holy Spirit and want him in their lives, it's easy. Just pray to the Lord and say, "I accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour and I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit." I guarantee you that God will answer yes to that prayer and your life will never be the same.

That's one of the most insulting, misogynistic, and unbiblical posts I have ever read on this forum. The ideas in that wretched post are based on Aristotelian philosophy. Aristotle referred to women as "botched men". Those hateful beliefs about the superiority of men came from the Greeks, not from God. Sadly, they were incorporated into the early church and, even more sadly, some people are still spouting them today as if they're true. To categorically dismiss all women as unreasonable, simple creatures run entirely by their emotions is so wrong. And you'd better hope that women hear from God as much as men do since we make up half of the world's population and raise the world's children and function in the workplace in many capacities, often in positions of power and influence. The Bible states clearly that both men and women are made in his image. Are we different? Yes, we are, in ways that complement each other, not in ways that make one better than the other. Men are not superior in any way and they are no closer to God. There is nothing in the Bible that states that. And there's nothing hierarchical in God making Adam first. That's like saying my older sister is superior to me because she was born before I was. Posts like the one above make me angry. But they make me sad, too, because they don't just negatively affect women. They negatively affect men as well. We are all hurt by such lies. They keep us from recognizing who we all are, male and female, in Christ, and how we were meant to work together in his name. Posts like the above don't recognize the equality of the sexes and, with that unhealthy imbalance, none of us can live out fully who God wants us to be. It only puts us at odds. My thanks to chikachuks 1 for posting such an excellent and sound understanding of what those verses from the Bible say about women. We need to hear more of that and we need to have more men speak out about this -- especially to other men.

Others have addressed the issue of morality and God's will so I won't. But let me add this: It doesn't sound like he's too concerned about what's best for you re: home, family, job, etc. I think he's asking a lot. He's expecting you to go along with what he wants. Is he paying any attention at all to your well-being in this? As for this business about not being ready to marry until all the ducks are in a row, that's just stalling as far as I'm concerned. It makes me think of survey results I read some time ago about couples who move in together. Men and women approach it differently. Women think, "Oh, good. Now he'll marry me." Men think, "Oh, good. Now I don't have to marry her." You're right. Why turn your world upside down for a man who hasn't even married you? Who says he ever will? You've been together for a couple of years. If he hasn't married you yet, what makes you think he will ever do so? I'll be honest. When a man refuses to marry a woman and offers excuses like his, he's saying that he wants to be free to walk away any time he wants without all the entanglements that marriage brings. And where does that leave you? In another town, apart from your family, without a job? And submission isn't about doing whatever your husband tells you to do. The Bible says that a man should love his wife as Christ loves the church. But since he isn't a Christian, he's not going to be putting your well-being first. Do you really want that in a man?

Yup! I think you've got it right, Kwik. We, the church, are the bride of Christ and he will return for his bride at some point. In the meantime, when the devil would seek to condemn me, I am reminded by this song that I have been redeemed from the night and belong to Jesus. I've never studied Hebrew. It seems like a daunting language!

Hi, JM! This is what I wrote: This is why, as Judas Machabeus rightly pointed out, the Mormons are shoveling a boatload of hooey (my words, not his!) when they say the church was totally lost. It never was. God did indeed preserve it and he did it with men and women from a variety of backgrounds in a variety of situations in a variety of different places at a variety of different times. And we should be grateful to all of them. I don't see how you thought I was saying that the Holy Spirit had abandoned the entire church when I actually said the exact opposite. And I don't see how you thought I said the church fell into total corruption when, again, I said the opposite. There has never been a time in history when there were not internal problems in the church with people getting off-track. Nor was there ever a time in history when the church was totally lost. You're putting words in my mouth, words I did not say. My post is there for you to re-read in full so that you can see what I really did say. The people who helped keep the faith in the church are many. They include people like Athanasius, the Cappodician Fathers, and Tertullian who all played a part in fighting off attacks against the Trinity (although Tertullian himself did stray when he joined the Montanists late in life). There is Theodore of Mopsuestia who faced off against those who were trying to interpret the Bible only as allegory with nothing literal in it. There was Jerome who translated the Bible into Latin and was one of Christianity's earliest apologists. And of course there's Augustine -- I surely don't have to tell you how he blessed the church. And those are only a few. There are many more, but I do not have time to list them all along with how they helped preserve the Gospel of Jesus Christ down through the centuries. Here's the thing: As a Protestant, my church history doesn't begin with Luther, Calvin and Zwingli. It begins in the New Testament and my heritage includes all the same people that the RCC include in their church history. I don't have time to go into great detail about Constantine right now. However, I repeat -- he made Christianity the imperial religion. That is a historical fact, one I learned in both my History of Theology course as well as my History of the Christian Church at Seminary. The three sources I quoted are respected scholars and their texts are widely-used. Noll was, at one point, the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. I don't use bogus sources. It is possible for me to misunderstand things, but I haven't misunderstood Constantine's action re: the Christian church. I am willing to engage you further in this discussion, but if you are going to misinterpret what I say and simply deny that what I have said isn't true without providing reliable sources for your own statements, then I don't see a lot of future in continuing.

That song just makes me want to bounce all around the room in joy and celebration. Great stuff! Thanks for posting it. I had never heard it before. I will definitely be playing it again -- and again and again and again and again . . . .

Paul Wilbur is one of my favourite worship leaders. Beautiful Bride tells me who I am in Christ even on my worst days! There is such joy in that.

If I had to choose a song as a theme for life, I would choose this one:

I have some further thoughts on Constantine and the effects of making Christianity the imperial religion. Scholars debate whether Constantine really was a Christian or not. He certainly didn't behave like one when he had members of his family executed. I have read that he replaced Passover with Easter because he was anti-Jewish and that he promoted the incorporation of pagan practices in the Christian church to appease those subjects who weren't Christian. My apologies to you, Judas Machabeus, because I can't remember where I read that. I appreciate the fact that you want reliable sources. I'm that way, too. I like to assess sources because some aren't as reputable as others. So I went to a book entitled Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity by Mark Noll to see what I could find out from him about all of this. He notes that, for the first three centuries, the church was a "pilgrim community". He elaborates on this, saying that the church "was not at home anywhere in the world since the power of the state could be turned at any moment, propel them into exile, or disrupt the regular order of worship and Christian service." When Constantine made Christianity the official religion, this changed. The church now had stability and could spread far and wide promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ without fear of persecution. That was one of the blessings that came with Constantine's declaration. But there is always the bad with the good. Noll purports that we had the beginning of the intermingling of state and church here because Constantine was so involved with the church and the result was that "the sphere of worldly concerns he stood for gradually assumed greater and greater importance in the church". As that happened, the church strayed further and further away from its Biblical foundations. But that has always been true of God's followers. How many times did the Israelites stray from God in the Old Testament times? Paul's letters to the early churches involved correction because they were going astray -- and this only a matter of decades after Christ's death and resurrection. Straying seems to be part and parcel of the church in any era. But the Lord always made sure there was a remnant, that is, a group of devoted followers who kept the faith so that it was never lost no matter what happened down through the centuries. This is why, as Judas Machabeus rightly pointed out, the Mormons are shoveling a boatload of hooey (my words, not his!) when they say the church was totally lost. It never was. God did indeed preserve it and he did it with men and women from a variety of backgrounds in a variety of situations in a variety of different places at a variety of different times. And we should be grateful to all of them.

It is true that, when Constantine made Christianity the official religion, pagans joined the Christian ranks. Roger E. Olson in his The Story of Christian Theology puts it this way: "Hordes of unconverted pagans flooded into Christian churches merely to gain status in the eyes of the imperial court and the bureaucracy under Constantine" (p. 139). This meant that some Christians regarded the new imperial church as apostate. Some took to the desert to live a life of "meditation and asceticism" to use the words of Justo Gonzalez in his History of Christianity (p. 124). But others stayed to fight against anything brought into the church that didn't line up with the Bible. Gonzalez suggests that the biggest change that came in the wake of Constantine's declaration of Christianity as the official religion (apart from the end of persecution) was in the area of worship. Whereas people had met primarily in houses, now churches were being built. Incense, which was used as a sign of respect for the emperor, was now used in churches. Those in positions of ministry had always worn everyday clothes, but now they started to wear more luxurious garments. Services were now started with processionals. Choirs were formed. And, gradually, congregation members took less and less part in the services. Churches were often built at the site of a martyr's grave. If a church was built where there was no grave, they would dig up a martyr and bring his or her bones to the church to reside there. Eventually, some people saw miraculous powers in these bones and the introduction of relics began. And the churches became larger and more ornate as time went on. All of this came in the aftermath of Constantine declaring Christianity to be a state religion and these changes represented, in some respects, a copying of the way emperors did things in a grand style. Perhaps the worst thing that came of it all was this: People started to think that one only had to be a member of the church and follow its rules to be saved. It's an erroneous belief that we can find down through the centuries in a variety of churches. For example, 19th-century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, attacked the Church of Denmark (Protestant) for just that reason, calling for a relationship with Jesus to be at the centre of the Christian life, not membership in a sterile institution that paid no attention to the Lord.

Thanks for those clarifications, Savedonebygrace. I appreciate it. I'm sorry about the tremors. Must be so frustrating for you. I have to spend limited time keyboarding because of chronic pain in neck, back, wrists and hands. So I can empathize. I have not had the experience with proponents of the prosperity gospel that you have and don't feel qualified to comment about that. However, I do speak in tongues. Years ago, when I was reading about the gifts of the Spirit, I asked God specifically about tongues, whether it was something I needed or not. Then, one night, at a service, I was praying and suddenly I started praying in tongues. It's a prayer language. I have never uttered tongues out loud during a service. I can understand some people's skepticism about them and they can certainly be abused. Paul had to correct the church at Corinth for the chaos tongues was causing. And I have a problem with any church that says a person HAS to speak in tongues as a witness that he/she is truly filled with the Holy Spirit. Paul makes it clear that gifts of the Spirit are apportioned as the Spirit sees fit. That means we aren't all going to manifest all of them all the time. The Holy Spirit will empower us to use them for his purpose, not ours. I have known many fine born-again believers who never spoke in tongues. Not sure if that's the kind of information you were looking for, but there it is.