Uber Genius

Great topic! Although I became a Christian when I was almost 14, it wasn't clear at that time that I had any natural gifts. Over time however I developed the ability to teach. I was teaching to audiences of 300-400 in my late 20s. I could access public speaking skills whenever I wished. God used it to help me minister to cult groups, international outreach, ministry to the poor, college ministry. It took a significant amount of study, practice and presentation experience to develop my capability. On a separate track I received the gift of tongues at age 15. It required no development whatsoever. I can speak in tongues whenever I choose. Occasionally I have had the gift of words of knowledge. The first time I was 24. The next time I had a word of knowledge was 37. Then at 53-56 I received words of knowledge at least weekly. And then not a word for almost 4 years. I prophecies one time over 6-8 individuals. Each prophecy had about 5-8 specific factual claims that could be clearly dili rated as true within 6 months. The ones that self-reported all had high degrees of fulfillment within a month or two. But I have not operated with that gift since. Finally, I have been able to discern names of demonic spirits that are oppressing people who have asked me to pray for them. What little I know about gifting is that it is a function of our trusting in God's goodness and helping others access that goodness. Secondly, it work marvelously in community. God intends us to live in close community (not a common feature of church life in the US currently), strive to be in a small group that is willing to help one another develop their ability to operate spiritual gifts. Finally, after one has developed a confidence, bring these gifts to the street (out into public). I have giving specific words of knowledge to people at bars, smoke shops, coffee shops, in executive offices of Fortune 100 companies, grocery stores, prisons, and on the street. Be bold, but get some experience before diving into the deep end of the pool. So natural gifting can be developed, and some spiritual gifts can be fine-tuned ministry-wise. While tongues, interpretation of spirits, and teaching are always available, words of knowledge and prophecy have not been always available to me. God's administration of gifts is beyond my understanding. But when helping others to enter into practicing spiritual gifts, helping people reflect on all the goodness God had done in their lives seems to increase their faith and open them up to being used in this spectacular way.

Well here is where the confusion is. The use of the term figurative by an author always has a clear message. So to restate your opening post: The author always has a clear intent of what they want their audience to understand, sometimes they use figurative language, other times they use literal language. Who can argue with that statement?

From biologos site above: "One significant source of human genetic variation comes in the form of what are known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or “SNPs” (pronounced “snips”). “Polymorphism” simply means “having many forms”. SNPs are single DNA letters that are variable among humans, and we have around 300,000 common SNPs in our genome of 3 billion DNA letters. In other words, the majority of our genomes are identical to each other, but a small number of DNA letter positions on our chromosomes are variable." So there are estimates of occurrence of SNPs that suggest a minimum amount of ancestors needed to produce these variations. One would need to determine the maturity of the science. This is new, and I imaging that there the method of tying SNPs to generations is highly controversial.

Francis Collin's Language of God book made allusions to this concept. Then in 2011, Christianity Today published the view. Here is a resource for further investigation: https://biologos.org/articles/series/genetics-and-the-historical-adam-responses-to-popular-arguments/adam-eve-and-human-population-genetics I find it dubious due to the fact that evolution is false. So attempts of harmonizing the creation accounts in Gen 1 and 2 with evolutionary theory seem hopeless. I could no sooner believe that the Earth is on the back of a turtle than that evolution produced Adam and Eve. Now there are special creation models that suggest that hominids coexisted with Adam and Eve, but that seems strange that no such ancient human culture represents such a thing.

Fair criticism. I read, "Everything in the bible is meant to be literal, even the parables and and "figurative" language that is used to convey a complex Idea is still literal as the Concept is meant to be literal." I read it too quickly and didn't catch the fact that you were using the first "literal" and the second "literal" differently. first meaning- without figurative speech second meaning - clear and exact meaning. i edited my earlier post to reflect my misunderstanding.

My thinking is that we should read the Bible literarily. That is, in such a way that we get to the original meaning conveyed by the author. I have two resources that have helped me get to the authorial meaning when figurative language is confusing. See below. Companion to The Bible E.P. BArrows "1. When the psalmist says: "The Lord God is a sun and shield" (Psa.84:11), he means that God is to all his creatures the source of life and blessedness, and their almighty protector; but this meaning he conveys under the figure of a sun and a shield. When, again, the apostle James says that Moses is read in the synagogues every Sabbath-day (Acts 15:21), he signifies the writings of Moses under the figure of his name. In these examples the figure lies in particular words. But it may be embodied in a sentence, thus: "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" (Acts 26:14), where Saul's conduct in persecuting Christ's disciples is represented under the form of an ox kicking against the ploughman's goad only to make the wounds it inflicts deeper. Figurative language, then, is that in which one thing is said under the form or figure of another thing. In the case of allegories and parables, it may take the form, as we shall hereafter see, of continuous discourse." https://www.amazon.com/Figures-Speech-Used-Bible-Bullinger/dp/161640759X Above is a book that I have used since the mid-1980s to help me understand figurative language. I think there I should an online version at Biblehub.com or Bible gateway.com in the "Study" section. It is an exhaustive 125+ year old standard reference guide on use of figurative language in the Bible. My brother and one of my Pastors said that this book was one of the best resources their seminary professors recommended for understanding the thousands of figurative references found in the Bible. Walter Keiser, author of Kingdom of the Cults, said this book was essential to proper Biblical understanding. Hope this helps.

I think this gets at the broad brush or strawman of Hawkings representation. As science is a method of understanding the physical world, and religion deals with origin of the world from nothing, nature of spiritual world, God's plan for man, how man gets meaning in life, why compare methods of such dissimilar knowledge areas? Hawking might have sooner tried to measure the width of an object with a stopwatch arguing how accurately a stopwatch measure time. Hawking is an idiot.

Yes. I had a couple neighbors who were avowed atheists. One would mock my family when we would help the elderly by cutting their yard or shoveling snow off the driveway. "You do-gooder," the neighbor used to shout. I replied, "Is helping an elderly person who is your neighbor such a bad thing, how the heck were your raised anyways?" His son befriended my son and would hangout at our house for the next ten years until he went to college. He went to church with us often and gave his life to Christ his first year in college. His father engaged once in any meaningful fashion, but was still an atheist the last I checked. Your post reminded me to pruy that God soften his heart and poor his grace into that man's life.

Bravo! Loved your bold action. Way to lead. We are to teach our kids how to influence culture not be influenced by it. How are we going to usher in the Kingdom Of God, without being in the world but not of it?

Loved the Night Stalker! And remember Star Trek where Kirk would go into his chambers with some...well female something or other, and the next scene would be Kirk on his bed pulling back on his boots, lol.

I was 12 at the time and lived in Columbus Ohio. My dad took our family to Xenia to help wherever we could. I was stunned, whole town seems leveled, miles of debris.

Completely missed those somehow. Was a Looney tune junky as my troublesome aviator would suggest, love bugs bunny and road runner, foghorn leghorn. Huckleberry Hound, woody woodpecker,yogi bear, the jettisons, Rocky and bullwinkle, , later scoobie doo. golden age of educational television right there!

My wife says she would have been much better off being raised by my parents than hers due to their Christian discipleship approach as opposed to what she describes her parents doing which was flowing with culture and Christianity in name only. When I talk about my parents bringing my brother and I to minister to the poor at age 10 or volunteering us at nursing homes for the summer at age 13-15 ( criminal offense right), memorizing scripture at 7-12 grade, prayer meetings and bible study several days a week. Torture. Curfew of 12:00 on Friday and Saturday as senior in HS. That's just shy of a concentration camp. But I went to college with self-discipline and avoided the mistakes that trapped many of my friends for decades. And my church family was priceless! Great teaching, demonstration of God's love, great fun working together to serve the Lord and expand the KOG. Those were heady, formative years.

Great point. I pulled my oldest child out of public school and started home schooling when she was in second grade. The incident was my daughter brought home a permission slip for her to receive two hours of training into eastern meditation (TM where she would learn how to yoke herself to demonic beings and then learn to converse with those beings as spirit guides)! The teacher, and principle, as well as all office staff, destine closed doors, got to hear me fire the teacher and principle for gross negligence, the following day! Galatians 5:22-23 is a high standard but the right one.

Lol. Loved Batman. Wild Wild West was one of my favorites. My parents were more lenient about engaging pop culture than I was. Of course, my parents nixed, "Love, American Style," after having to explain to two 8-year old twin boys why men were continually laying in bed with women that were not their wives! So pop culture was tamer then. Within twenty years I needed to add a language filter to my tv (not even cable). I think longingly about the sixties, but I was ignorant of the leftist anarchists (Black Panthers, Weather Undergound), and the riots taking place in Watts and Detroit, Boston. And the BLM riots over the summer actually had a smaller death toll, although similar financial ruin for poor communities that will take decades to recover from. I would like to return to Saturday mornings in the mid-60s eating Cap'n Crunch and watching Jonny Quest cartoons. Alas, there are barbarians at the gates. No Cap'n Crunch for me.

A poll taken by George Barna called, "6 Reasons Young Christians Leave Church," suggested that, "Churches seem overprotective, or Churches are too concerned that movies, music, and games (pop culture), are harmful." I raised my children in the mid-1990s through 2010. We never owned cable tv, we had a language filter on our tv, and for a few years, when our kids decided tv and video game watching rules didn't apply when I travelled for work, (which was every week), I took the tv power cord with me. So it is fair to say that I'm on the extreme side of the bell curve when it comes to measuring overprotection from pop culture. My three kids all remain in the church to this day. They thank me for forcing them to read and memorize scripture, ask questions of every idea or hypothesis by every author (of course they complained vociferously when they were kids). What is others experience of protection by church against pop culture? Where should we draw the line?

The shema is an example God's unchanging purpose, thanks. When theologians say God can't change they also include that he can't have emotions. Thoughts?

Wow so you didn't read my bio to the left under my avatar? MINISTRY TO POOR, INT'L STUDENTS, PRISON MINISTRY, You think that exposing people to the apparent contradictions, and helping them think and discuss those ideas among Christians before they are trapped by atheists is a bad thing? Or even more absurd that bringing them up at all makes one an atheist? wow. you need to read before you comment.

Nonsequitur. I asked you why you CHOSE to discuss atheism in the middle of a discussion about God's moral nature. And who become "children of God," in John1:12 accordong to your argument those who God chose But the scripture continues "As many as received him, he gave the right to become children of God" in fact the inferences that man has no free will didn't appear in church history until Augustine changed his mind about the matter under Manechaian influence in the 5th century! The first four centuries of church writing was completely free of any church father affirming your point. But there are other places that would be more germane to have this discussion. Please focus on the topic or answer my question about atheism if you like. Just don't troll please.

So I don't get that last part, the discussion has nothing to do with atheism. Why did you think that?

Changelessness has been and essential attribute of God for almost 2000 years. GOd is changeless in his existence, faithfulness, character, and his purposes. Is God's repenting of certain actions or relenting judgements show mutability? ---------------------- Due to recent events I now have a zero-tolerance policy for those who attack me personally (although I have never turned anyone in to-date that will change going forward). If you don't care about a subject please move on to one of thousands of discussions, instead of harassing those who do care about a topic. As always those who don't share my views are most welcome.

Please read opening post.

Lol. Whether an evil spirit is invited to help God govern or not doesn't matter here. While I think people are dismissing the context, let's assume for argument's sake, An evil spirit steps forward and offers God to tell a lie. GOd says, "That will work, go lie." How have we in any way addressed the conundrum? God is always free to reject immoral plans by immoral agents! We still have to determine whether God can lie just like he can murder. He is the author of life and has sovereignty over life so we don't call it murder. It seems that lying would fall into and easier case to justify.

Yes. We get added into that divine council as per Rev. 2! We see many intertestimental books writing about it including most of 1 Enoch. 7 and following. Daniel 7, psalm 82, 89, and a rebellion of same in Gen 5 1-4 I think. And yes we see specific individuals of the heavenly host are called to share in governing. One book on the subject is called, "The Unseen Realm," by Dr. M. Heiser. There are thousands of scholarly articles on The Divine Council over the last couple centuries. The book above has over 500 references. Unfortunately Evangelical scholarship is almost non-existent. Heiser is one of the few. Most commentaries have no idea about it and just make stuff up.

Great point. What I have said 5 hours ago to Debra: "I think we have hyperbole in the first passage about God not lying. That it was getting at the truth-telling nature of God. But that he wasn't constrained by that aspect, apparently, and searching his own moral nature determined that there are cases that allow him, a morally perfect being, to lie without impugning his moral perfection." So it is certainly the case that God's moral command to humans are not always necessary restrictions or duties for God. We operate out of revealed moral commands found in scripture and in our conscience. Particularly, all humans have moral intuition preprogrammed by God. So an example would be I am prohibited from mudering my enemy. God I see not. He is the creator and has certain rights I don't have. So what we now have to do is ask is truth-telling a moral perfection that is contingent, that is to say, not necessarily required of God based on the particular situation.