listener24

hey brother, it's just for curiosity. I know that we can't know nothing about their eternal destiny XD Was just curious about how people identify themselves

@GandalfTheWise Amazing resources guys, thank you! I loved this chart:

Just a curiosity, I'm curious to know by comparison the actual number of atheists (that is easier to estimate) or people from other religion. Actually, I'll specify this too in the starting thread

I mean, even including "deceived" ones or belonging to weird denominations or not born again. Simply everyone who at a question like "are you an active Christian" would answer "yes". Btw, I'll specify in the main thread.

Maybe you was writing before I answered Yowm, so I copied again. I mean just a stats of people who at least claim to be active Christian

I mean just self-claiming to be active, of course I don't expect a stats based on their souls LOL And usually, this kind of analysis are made by taking small, random samples of a population.

[please also read notes ] If I look on some websites online, Christianity is presented as the first religion, with more than 2 billions believer. I wish that were true However, I don't know how these stats are made. If they take into account all the baptized people, included all the babies baptized by RCC, this isn't a reliable estimate of the actual Christians. Do you have any sources for reliable stats on the number of actual, active Christians? Or do you have reliable sources about the number of atheists, included the baptized ones? NOTE: I'm talking about "self-claimed" ones, so even deceived ones or not born again, in addition to born again ones. Just everyone who would classify himself as Christian, and not atheist, agnostic, or belonging to another religion. NOTE 2: as an example of what I'm looking for, see @GandalfTheWise and @Neighbor answers. NOTE 3: it is just for curiosity, I know it has nothing to do with the eternal destiny of anyone, that cannot be decided by stats. Thanks all!

Wow, interesting! Old answer: In the first case, it seems to be more realated to a choice. The decision to hear or not to hear. In the other case, it seems to be more related to the very "nature" of someone. Having or not having the ears, the "tools" to understand. CORRECTION: sorry, I did read wrong the first statement. I think it may be just a language issue as @GandalfTheWise said.

Happy New Year and Maranatha sister and all on Worthy!!!

Happy New Year and Maranatha sister!

Hi Retrobyter! Insightful as always. That's a very interesting digression on which I agree. I have a question. When talking about the first sinless men, what do you mean that sin was"inevitable" for them? Can you clarify more this adjective in their context? (If that adjective was referred to them too) This is a very interesting point as well! This is in opposition to the idea that the tree of knowledge was "necessary" for us to get knowledge. I don't have a strong opinion on this, but it's an alternative that makes sense. I'm glad that a fruitful discussion is coming out from this thread, and many different perspectives are being explored.

Physical fasting has been helpful when I increased reading the Gospel meanwhile. Also, temporary fasting from social media, distractions, movies, etc. has often been even more helpful!

I'd say the most discussed topics here are: - Whether we do good "because saved" or "to be saved". Once saved always saved vs continuous risk of losing the way. - Keeping Sabbath and other OT laws or not. - Countless different interpretations of Revelation, on topics about millennium, anti-Christ, new Jerusalem, battles, etc. I'm surprised by the frequency by which these topics are discussed here, and was wondering if this is also a trend within churches where you live or not. What are the most discussed topics in your churches?

"Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my servants would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But for now my kingdom is not from here." That's why we ask "Thy Kingdom come". "But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world."

Hi @Retrobyter, sorry for the late reply but you had a lot of great hints here. Let's dive into them: awesome it's a pity that we are so few doing it :/ I agree, and I completely agree that EFFICIENCY is one attribute to absolutely keep in mind. Keeping in mind efficiency should prevent us from inventing unnecessary steps that we think God will take for realizing His plan. You are right here. I can see a "purpose" in this case: I think He does that for us, cause an "instantaneous" thing may be shocking, but that's just a hypothesis. I have 2 points here: 1) As all know, the "Bible" is a collection of books, it hasn't been written altogether in one strike. Therefore, it makes sense that some books may have a different styles than others. The Gospel is an "historical" text, which has the purpose of reporting the Words Jesus have spoken, in the closest way possible. I repeat it, the Words that the Son of God Himself had spoken. Reported. It's a big deal. Words pronunced in front of hundreds people, and in fact the style of the Gospel is that of a very precise reconstruction of what happened and what has been said. Revelation, on the other hands, is a private "vision", with no other testimonies but the author, and written in a language clearly symbolic: beasts, lions, lambs, dragons, people eating books, women, stars falling, horses, etc. That's why I think it's self-evident from the text that the Gospel should be read literally, and it's self-evident from the text that Revelation is at least for the majority symbolic. 2) There are also many things in OT that were far from being "perfect". I don't think that every word in the OT is perfect or had a realization or will have a realization. I don't think I really need to report the many barbaric verses in the OT to demonstrate this. That's because in addition to God's inspiration, men were prone to add a lot of things. This effect, luckily, is not present in the Gospel, because as stated above the Gospel is not a private interpretation of an inspiration, but is the testimony of what the GREATEST who came from above said, and He said ONLY what the Father has instructed Him to say (John 12:49). Not one prophet could claim this, not any human prophet could claim "I said only what the Father has instructed me to say" (John 12:49). There is always human imperfection in any other writings. The fact that would be Jesus and not the Father to "fight", doesn't make the scene less "creepy" in my opinion. If you don't think Jesus is omnipotent too, at least consider that by being His will aligned to the Father, He can leverage the Father omnipotence (Matthew 26:53 ). So He could get rid of all His enemies in a blink of an eye exactly as the Father, without needed to fighting. Remember the EFFICIENCY principle you introduced. The reason why Jesus became flesh, is definitely not to "fight" tribal battles. There are few things that Jesus abstained in flesh. For instance, He was celibate, He certainly didn't need to "procreate". In the same way, I don't think He'll need to "fight", let alone with a human "army". This to answer your quotes about Jesus became flesh. again, I don't agree. He blocked the wind, walked on water, broke the laws of physics by creating matter, resurrected people. He wasn't definitely an "ant" like we are. And He could have done much greater things, but He didn't (Matthew 26:53), because He is not meant to be a warrior. Do you think that all the armies in the world would resist more than one instant against one who can break the laws of physics? That is the Tribulation, of course the Tribulation takes time. Is going on since 2 millenniums. But the deliverance is istantaneous: " As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." "For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." "for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour" Think about it, why Jesus specify that we don't know "the hour", if it's a millenary battle? And is it a millenary battle what an efficient God, or His son whose Will is aligned and therefore inherit the power, would do? No, that's why is never mentioned in the Gospel. BTW: I'm just answering you from another perspective, for the sake of conversation and reciprocal increasing in God's knowledge And to give you more points on which add your considerations. BUT I think that all the themes we are discussing here are very hard, they aren't definitely the simplest part of the Gospel to understand. That's why eventually I still focus on what's clear beyond any doubt. Like the importance of prayer and spreading the Gospel, for preparing the way to the Lord again Thanks for the very stimulating conversation, looking forward to your reply

I think we can spot Jesus' humor in the Gospel too "Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?" "After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?” 25 “Yes, he does,” he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?” 26 “From others,” Peter answered. “Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him. 27 “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.” "Jesus replied, "I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things." Don't know if I'm the only one who sees a bit of irony in that sentences Another ironic thing, is that in the parable of Lazarus and the rich, the rich says: "but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent". And the person that Jesus raised from death was called exactly "Lazarus", so I'm not sure the name in the parable was by chance, or an easter egg by Jesus

I've spoken in my life with Christians from many different denominations, (excluded Mormons and few others, so we can exclude the Mormon hypothesis), so it may be the case that I've heard this from some rcc guy too. It would be great if you recall some sources about it Moreover, if you pay close attention, you may find the belief of "necessity" in the ideas of some Protestant too (I'm talking about common Christians, not necessarily theologians). Sometimes not stated explicitly, but implicitly through other sentences: in this case, a little bit of logic is needed to spot it.

I'm so glad you understand this too Marilyn! It's actually very simple to understand logically, and early Christians knew this, but then thanks to all the disasters we all know happened within Christianity, there have been millenniums of oblivion of this very fundamental notion. Seems from all the links that I sent you above, from various sources included very respected preachers and theologians like Adrian Rogers, that the Lord is choosing this historical period to awaken the understanding again. It makes sense, because now with the web the intention can be spread, and a testimony of God's plan for the Kingdom can be given to all the nations. What a fundamental part, in the good novel of the Kingdom, our active role! (Luke 18:1-8) What a greater testimony than the Bride actively calling for the Bridegroom! With this understanding, it makes sense to think that the Kingdom of Heaven is "at hand". I've opened two threads on this, but as you said the question can be approached by many angles, so looking forward to read yours. These are the ones I opened, feel free to comment: https://www.worthychristianforums.com/topic/215434-an-unprecedented-event-would-you-join-this/ https://www.worthychristianforums.com/topic/216256-adrian-rogers-second-coming/?page=1 Plus a thread to clear the misunderstanding on foreknowledge: https://www.worthychristianforums.com/topic/215549-do-prayers-have-no-practical-effect-since-the-father-knows-the-future/ Maranatha, sister!

Hi Marilyn Interesting point. You are analyzing what happened and is happening as a "demonstration" to men and angels that they are not able to rule by themmselves. That makes a lot of sense to me, and luckily the Kingdom of Heaven is a "Kingdom", with a King, and I'm so glad that no human being or angelic being will rule, because I'm quite convinced that we are not able at all Apparently, we are not even able to admit our incapacity and the failure of the project, and ask to be rescued, and here comes the second point: Amazing, I'm looking forward to your further posts on this! Well, talking about "adversaries", you'll find that when it comes to praying the Lord's prayer with the intention of hastening the coming of the Kingdom (2 Peter 3:12, Luke 18:1-8, Lord's prayer, last prayer in the bible, 1 Cor 16:22 ), there are plenty of opposers within Christians themselves. The situation reminds a famous Gospel verse: "But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, 'We don't want this man to be our king.' And talking about doors, as in the Scripture you quoted: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." The intention is usually blocked with naive considerations, like the one mentioned in the starting topic "there is first needed a certain number of conversions", or the fact that we "don't know the day nor the hour" (which is true for any other prayer, and should be a further demonstration that we can hasten the day, but weirdly for some people it becomes an argument against the power of the prayer with no apparent logic connection), or even more naive errors about the compatibility between foreknowledge and free will that people like Boethius should have clarified long time ago. The latter kind of objections I quoted say that "since the day is already known by God, it is fixed, and since it's fixed prayers have no effect". Now, it is true that God already set it, but He set it also according to the prayers that He has foreseen, therefore prayers still have an influence, as any other prayer has influence regardless God's foreknowledge. Funnily enough, you won't find such opposition against any human-invented prayer, only against this very Scriptural and useful one. I attach some sources on the topic, but looking forward to your posts! Let's make the Bride ready again! http://learnbibleprophecy.blogspot.it/2010/12/come-lord-jesus-maranatha.html https://www.oneplace.com/ministries/love-worth-finding/read/articles/can-we-hasten-the-second-coming-of-christ-15204.html http://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Timeline/Hastening.Lords.Return.html http://christianteaching.org.uk/blog/eschatology/hastening-the-return-of-christ/#comment-32538 http://folkslisten.blogspot.it/2010/06/can-i-speed-up-return-of-jesus.html https://nathanaelflock.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/scriptural-conviction-hastening-the-day-of-the-lord/ http://quailandmanna.com/god-justice/ https://peteenns.com/why-jesus-hasnt-come-back-yet-according-to-the-new-testament/ http://ifollowjesusnow.tk/hastening-ready-day-lord/ https://www.worthychristianforums.com/topic/215434-an-unprecedented-event-would-you-join-this/?page=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIdjGyMTAds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM67orv8VkYF

There are many forms of fastings, for instance fasting from social media, fasting from news, movies, distractions. You could use some of these forms of fasting and use that time to read the Gospel or help others, if actual fasting seems to be your Achille's wheel. You may find yourself strengthened in faith and more motivated for physical fasting.

I'm glad that you clarified your position. In the future, you could use a more precise terminology. Because differently from your clarification here above, the sentence right below is at least ambiguous: Nobody HAD to make the choice to disobey. Not adam and eve, nor their offspring, nor nobody else. That sentence is simply wrong, regardless the correct following sentence that the choice was individual. I am glad that, indeed, you corrected by saying: This sentence, which I consider right, is the negation of the previous one above. In fact, basic logic tells us that if someone affirms "someone had to sin", that is another way of saying "sin had to happen", because of the basic principle that sin happens when someone sins. Luckily, you corrected with "sin DID NOT have to happen". Can you tell me where did I've ever tried to say that? On this forum and in my posts in this thread, I've always defended the compatibility between foreknowledge and free will. I've defended not only in posts, but even in a couple of questions I opened. https://www.worthychristianforums.com/topic/215549-do-prayers-have-no-practical-effect-since-the-father-knows-the-future/ (read the description) https://www.worthychristianforums.com/topic/215434-an-unprecedented-event-would-you-join-this/ (here in particular, some users seem to confuse the simple concept of compatibility between free will and foreknowledge, even when they don't confuse it in the above question) And in this same question I've defended free will: So what you say above about what you think I'm trying to say, comes really out of the blue This is completely correct. I've never doubt it, and I'm happy you are aware of these basic concepts. However, this thread wasn't about foreknowledge at all, foreknowledge and free will are taken for granted and considered the minimum level of understanding before facing the other topics discussed in the opening thread, which are something further.

Amen. "8 “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. "

You are right on this point. Sorry that I attributed you and @ayin jade surprise even if it wasn't the sense of your comment

You see, @shiloh357 and @ayin jade? You seemed so surprised that I heard the sentence that original sin was "necessary" somewhere. You was surprised and wondering where did I heard that, maybe from Mormons? (whose beliefs I barely know) I personally don't believe original sin was necessary (contrary to the quote above: "somone HAD to do it "for sure""), but here in the quote above you have a demonstration that this is a common belief, not only among "mormons". Therefore, it's worth talking about it and thanks @Rick_Parker for bringing it in a form maybe easier to understand than my starting thread. @Marilyn C maybe you'd be interested in reading this too. According to "other one": I don't know if @other one means that in the sense it was necessary, like @Rick_Parker said, for us to get the knowledge, or if he recognizes that God could have had many other ways to give us the knowledge of good and evil without any sin. In fact, the Scriptures describes how did we get that, but they don't exclude that God could have used other ways with time if men should stay obedient. Thinking that sin was the only way, I think is speculation, if not even glorification of sin.

Thanks Marylin for understanding what the question was about, and its purpose, in the first place. Here lies the core of the question. When you said "factored", do you mean it was necessary for His plans, or that even if men wouldn't have sin, it would have been perfectly fine (even better) for His plan? I believe the latter, but wanted to be sure. This is a very interesting perspective. I don't have a strong opinion on this, but yours is interesting and makes more sense than the others who talk about "right number of conversions to reach". On your point 3, my idea is that the body of Christ will be ready again only when we'll come back on ASKING (Matthew 7:7, John 16:24) for God's deliverance from evil, (instead of passively waiting for it and teaching others that we have only a passive role and should instead invent worldly prayers), with the prayer that God Himself taught us, the Lord's prayer and the last prayer in the Bible (Maranatha). I've already published dozens of sources of this idea which is not mine in other posts. "Yet you have not called on me, Jacob" Isaiah 42:22