Deadworm

The OP's question is particularly acute in the case of Hitler because Hitler was extremely "lucky" to escape Von Stauffenberg's assassination attempt through an explosive case that someone in the room moved simply to get it a little more out of the way--and that saved Hitler's life!" Biblical theology teaches that at creation God brought order out of chaos, but never took total control of the forces of chaos: e. g. "Under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful: BUT ALL ARE VICTIMS OF TIME AND CHANCE (Ecclesiastes 9:11)." So here are 3 crucial questions: (1) To what extent can and does God intervene in human affairs? After all God has a plan for our lives and for the future of our world and the church. (2) To what extent can God circumvent His deliberate lack of control over free will? (3) Can answers to petitionary prayer violate or overcome the laws of nature and the forces of Chaos? To what extent should the forces of chaos limit our expectations for the power of prayer (whether for physical healing or stopping Putin's aggression? I like the analogy of a Grand Master playing a novice in Chess. Early in the game, the Grand Master can't control the novice's choices in moves, but he can counteract the novice's moves to gradually impose limitations on those choices and thus make the game conform to his overall plan for victory.

The phrase is best translated "I will be whatever I will be." This nuance has 3 implications: (1)''I will be whatever I will be for you" but I reserve the right to be expressed in different imagery for peoples of other cultures." "Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel, says the Lord? Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, but also the Philistines from Caphtor (in Crete) and the Arameans from Kir (in Iraq)?" (2) "Naming me can be trap because it might create the impression that you understand my essence." ''Why do you (Jacob) ask me my name (Genesis 32;29)?" "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways thoughts are not your ways, says the Lord (Isaiah 55:8)."(3) "Know me not as an abstract concept but by my gracious acts I have performed for my people throughout history." (3) "Know me not as an abstract concept, but in terms of what I have done for my people and what I can do for you" So God tells Moses to tell the Israelites: "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has sent me to you (Exodus 3:15)."

Tony, you apparently are unaware of the biblical basis cited by Catholics for prayer to deceased saints. Do you even want to learn what this evidence is? Are deceased saints still members of the Body of Christ? If so, why assume that they can no longer pray for us in response to our request that they do so? That doesn't make them "mediators" in any sense different from our intercessory prayers, now does it? A Catholic told me his wife had congestive heart failure. So he took her to the tomb of a saint in Italy and asked for prayer for her healing and the requested miraculous healing occurred! So, Tony, have you or any evangelical you know experienced healing of congestive heart failure in response to prayer?

When I was a pastor, our church hosted a monthly potluck dinner and movie night on Fridays. So we saw a lot of movies with Chrisitan themes and discused each briefly afterwards. Three of my favorites are: (1) "The Mission" starring Robert De Niro Based on the true story of Jesuit efforts to convert Amazon Indian tribes at the same time the Spanish and Portuguese were enslaving them. This movie won the Palm D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It contains my favorites conversion scene in any movie of all time. I rank it my 2nd favorite movie of all time, Christian or secular--2nd only to "Schindler's List." (2) "Les Miserables" starring Liam Neeson (3) "The Shadowlands" starring Anthony Hopkins and Deborah Winger Based on the true story of famed Christian author C. S. Lewis falling in love late in life. It is the best movie on grief ever produced. The most moving story put to film I ever saw was "Beyond the Next Mountain," the true story of a young Thjungle boy in northeast India, who left the jungle to track down a missionary who suddenly abandoned his work there. The boy wanted to find out why he abandoned them. But the missionary had been fired for his inability to bring the natives out of the jungle to mission headquarters. The boy grew up and created the first Bible translation in his native language. The story is incredibly moving, but the movie's production values are substandard.

There is a more serious aspect of the modern slight of the dynamic role of the Holy Spirit. Many evangelicals believe they are saved by grace through faith in Christ's atoning death, but they don't believe in the need for an intimate personal relationship with Christ. Other evangelicals blindly accept that they must have a personal relationship with Christ, but it is merely a doctrinal tenet, not a lived experience.

ny translation but the highly corrupt KJV and NKJV which are based on the latest and most error-filled manuscripts!

Nothing is worse than Catholicism at its worst. But no spirituality is better than Catholic spirituality at its best. My friend Dick was miraculously healed of torn tendons and bad arthritis in his knee by pouring water on it as a dare from the healing spring of the Virgin Mary at Ephesus, this despite his scorn for the healing efficacy of this spring.I know a Catholic who took his wife to the tomb of a Catholic saint in Italy and she was miraculously healed of her congenstive heart failure. I'd wager you guys don't see miracles like these in your fundamentalist churches. btw, have your seen the "Jesus Revolution" movie? It's based on the testimony of Greg Laurie and is largely factual about the Jesus revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

There is a measure of the Spirit in the sense that there are different measures of faith given to us: "Think with sober judgment, each ACCORDING TO THE MEASURE OF FAITH that God has given to us (Romans 12:3)." Some believers with the Spirit are not actually "filled with the Spirit."

Jayne: "[2] The Bible says that the spiritual gifts are the Holy Spirit's business. In other words, He decides what gifts we should have. The two verses you cited don't say "seek" in my Bible - they say "eagerly desire the greater gifts". That's different than "seek". I also looked on biblehub.com and can't find any Bible that says "seek"." I know Greek and you don't: the Greek in 1 Cor. 12:3 [3] How to walk in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit? It's not rocket science, Deadworm. Start by obedience. "Walk" mean your daily life. Live out the fruit of the Spirit that the Bible clearly defines. To say that the Bible leaves us dumbfounded as how to obey the Holy Spirit's direction just wrong.

The Bible is most incomplete. (1) The Bible contains verses about the sanctity of human life, but never directly condemns abortion. That omission is striking in view of the first-century condemnation of abortion in Didache 4:2: "Thou shalt not procure an abortion." (2) The Bible urges us to seek "spiritual gifts (1 Cor.12:31; 14:1)," but gives us no specific guidance on how to do so. (3) The Bible instructs us to "walk in the Spirit" and be "led by the Spirit," but does not offer specific instructions on how to do this? Countless other important examples could be given. This problem illustrates why Catholics reject Sola Scriptura in favor of reliance on both Scription and Tradition guided by the Spirit.

You refuse to give specifics here on the grounds that you have done this in many other posts. Could you identify threads where you do this? I will read those specific posts carefully and try to offer helpful replies.

The day after I received the first Pfizer jab, I felt prompted by the Spirit to walk into a believer's office and urge him to get the jab. He vehemently refused to do so. Shortly thereafter his wife got Covid and it took her life!

Beliief in Christ's deity is no excuse for ignoring God's Word on prayer. Nowhere in Scripture are we advised to pray directly to Jesus. To do so is to trivialize Jesus' role as our divine mediator and advocate. Perhaps this is one reason why your prayers generally go unanswered. The Lord's Prayer is Jesus' model for prayer and it teaches us to address "Our Father!" More specifically, Jesus teaches that after His resurrection we are to pray to the Father in Jesus' name: "On that day (i. e. after the Resurrection) you will ask nothing OF ME. Truly I tell you, if you ask anything OF THE FATHER IN MY NAME, He will give it to you (John 16:23)."

Most believers are aware of Paul's willing embrace of arrest and imprisonment if and when his entourage makes their final visit to Jerusalem (Acts 20:23-24) and of the prophet Agabus' prophetic warning about this fate (21:10-14). What most believers overlook is Luke's claim that Paul's final trip to Jerusalem directly defies the expressed will of the Holy Spirit: "Through the Spirit they (disciples) told Paul: "Do not go up to Jerusalem (Acts 21:5)!"" This point gets overlooked because, for Luke, Paul is his travel companion and hero apostle. Paul's defiance may help explain why Luke doesn' bother to recount Paul's ultimate martydom. From Luke's perspective Paul could have avoided or postponed such martyrdom and continued his awesome missionary work, the most effective of any apostle. Unlike Jesus, Paul was neither perfect nor sinless. What do you think about the sobering implications of 21:5? Th

THE MOST EDUCATION SURPRISE OF MY FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL TOUR: Our tour entered the ruins of ancient Corinth, stopping first at the museum. The most shocking artifacts in this museum were all the small clay figurines of phallic symbols that were created as part of the healing ritual used in the Cult of Asklepius, the most effective source of healing in ancient Greco-Roman religion. Askleplius temple walls are full of inscribed testimonies of healing miracles performed on people from all walks of life! Priests made clay figurines of the body part in need of healing and meditation on these figurines was part of the healing process. A more fascinating part of the process were the patient visions induced by unknown means there in which either psychic healing was performed on the body or herbs were prescribed to aid in the healing. Clay phallic figurines were by far the most frequent because sexually transmitted disease was the greatest health problem experienced by Corinthian men as a result of their routine sex acts with prostitute priestesses working for the Cult of Aphrodite, whose temple ruins tower over Corinth on an adjacent small mountain. When I saw these clay figurines, I gained fresh appreciation for Paul's special warnings against sexual promiscuity to the nascent Corinthian church (e. g. 1 Cor. 6:16-19).

"A wind from God moved over the face of the waters (the Hebrew term for the vacuum of space). Then God said, "Let there be light, and there was light (Genesis 1:2-3)." Ancient Israel had no concept of the vacuum of deep space, but thought "waters" filled the realm above the "firmament." But if we imagine their picture of what happened, we get a neat approximation of the Big Bang. In the poetry of this creation narrative "wind" means "expansion" resulting in light. The movement was not an explosion but an expansion, not an expansion into a preexisting space, but the creation of space-time. Thus, poetically, the result was "the first day," not a continuance of endless days prior to the Big Bang.

THE GREATEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF MY TOUR OF ISRAEL (IMMANUEL TOURS): We visited the bogus Garden Tomb (Gordon's Tomb) instead of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the authentic location of Jesus' tomb and Golgotha. Eusebius and other clerics (c. 323 AD) were eyewitnesses to the rediscovery of Jesus' tomb under the rubble there of Hadrian's Temple of Venus in Jerusalem. Constantine orders the construction of the original Church of the Holy Sepulcher over Jesus' tomb. The tomb had been buried there since the early 2nd century and ancient Jerusalem church leaders were eager to get the tomb uncovered. The 13 foot pile of rocks that was the remains of Golgotha is in this ancient about 40 yards from Jesus' tomb. John 19:42 locates this tomb "nearby" Golgotha. Only 13 feet of the original Golgotha remains because Hadrian had it virtually leveled to lay the foundation for the massive Temple of Venus. The church stands just outside the location of the Garden Gate (see Hebrews 13:12) and there is archaeological proof that a garden once stood at the site of Jesus' tomb.

Remember, Peter--not Paul!--is revered as the first bishop of Antioch, even though he, like Paul, is a traveling missionary! So I think the Gentile Christians at Antioch sided with Peter in his temporary respectful withdrawal from table fellowship with them. Even Paul's mentor and defender, Barnabas, agrees with Peter. As for Paul's other hissyfit with Barnabas: "The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company (Acts 15:38)."