grapeseed

While the "world" may have been exposed to Christ, I seriously doubt that all people who have ever lived have been exposed to Jesus Christ. grapeseed

I find Henry to be very insightful and a help for me in scripture study. I would not go near the Grand Pubah status at all. He's one of many helpful teachers I have turned to in the past to help me understand the word. I wouldn't discount Henry too much based on the times he lived in. The gospels themselves can be seen similarly anti-jewish. Henry, though, even points to Gentiles having a murdering hand against Christ. Your point about men being judged by their own conscience is good. This may indeed be the light people have when they come into the world. grapeseed

I don't believe it is false and I read that is not false. The verses you list basically say that we are sinners. This is true. We are born. We are human so we will sin. However, each of us, unless there is some sort of genetic defect, is born and generally know right and wrong even without having known of Christ. (And even then we don't know the full effect on those even with genetic disorders.) Else, how will people be judged who never had an opportunity to know Christ in their lives? This does not mean that we cannot push the light out at some point. People do indeed do this. At that point, their whole life is filled with darkness. Ultimately, the scripture says this... See John 1:9 , http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx...mp;byte=4760421 "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Matthew Henry puts it like this... "But how does Christ enlighten every man that comes into the world? (1.) By his creating power he enlightens every man with the light of reason; that life which is the light of men is from him; all the discoveries and directions of reason, all the comfort it gives us, and all the beauty it puts upon us, are from Christ." grapeseed This is entirely false. The Bible says man is inherently evil (Jeremiah 17:9; Genesis 6:5) and is born dead in transgression (Psalm 51:5; Ephesians 2:1, 5). Men

I actually believe this myself. Are these personal opinions or do entire denominiations hold this belief? Growing up I had always heard it put that that everyone was born into the world with the light of Christ within them. They may choose to propogate and keep oil to that light or let it burn out. grapeseed

Just wanted to pose this question. There appears to be much discussion on it from various sects. I am interested in knowing what other Christian denoms/Christian religions, believe regarding those who have never had a knowledge of Christ. For instance, what about someone who has died without ever even hearing about Jesus Christ? Islamists, Hindus, and other peoples easily fall into this category. Seemingly, through no fault of their own, they have not heard the good news. Many are long passed from this world. I was looking this information up on the Internet a few days ago and I never expected to see such a diverging thought in Christianity. I am fairly well versed on what Mormons believe here and now I know what the United Church of God believes on it, as I read their statement of beliefs. Some apologists on the net say that these souls are just lost. What say ye? grapeseed

I certainly believe that there is something about home church here. I don't believe that going to a dead church, in hope of finding some other Zadok seekers, is what we ought to do. If a church is dead get out and find some living water. Of course there is no church that is perfect. Perfection does not come by the hands of people leading anything. I will give an example here of a church I attended. It was a Church of God-Anderson Indiana church. When I started going there it seemed too large for me but since we were tired of looking we decided to stay. We did enjoy the Sunday School and worship services after a bit. It was not what we were exactly used to, there was a lot of standing and a lot of "broadway" sort of things going on. After a while, this church brought in a new Pastor. He was younger but had been around. He fired the Youth Pastor and shook everything else up. I think his goal was to get gigantic and each week I felt I was watching some actor up on the stage. He put on quite a show, really. Then, the unveiling of the "crystal cathedral" concept came into play. All of a sudden we were in the throws of a building plan to make this gigantic architectural wonder and grow to an ever greater size. What happened was that the church started to get larger. We had more people coming and we had to open up a third Sunday service and they started doing a Saturday night service. However, what I saw coming into the Sunday School started making my stomach turn. People were coming in who thought homosexuality was no big thing really, and everyone wanted their own sort of ministry. The Pastor then became a sort of air traffic controller guiding the ministries that others wanted to do. If a guy came in who "felt" a call to go minister to some tribe in South America then the Pastor worked with him on that. When another came in who wanted to minister to musicians downtown then he worked on that. So, I felt he let a lot of things go in trying to lead these fairly dynamic people to their ministries. All the while these things took money...lots of it. Fund raising became the main thing. We left. We attended a Baptist church for a while but the preaching there was a bit much for us. Once you are saved that's it. You can't lose it...and the fire and brimstone preaching was an ear ringer. We just did not synch up with the doctrine. We attended a Presbyterian church for a while and we just got tired of hearing about John Calvin. We were more interesed in hearing what the scriptures had to say rather than what John Calvin said they say. This Pastor would mention Calvin in every other breath and I actually heard visitors attend that said this church didn't really teach Calvinistically. Wow! We have attended a few other churches since Calvin's church and Church of God. Holy Hannah, do churches ever get tired of singing "Open the eyes of my heart Lord", "Bow Down", "You are Holy", "Here I am to Worship", and "Shout to the Lord"? Incredible the boringness of church worship music. There are so many wonderful worship hymns to sing other than a group of 10 popular church praise songs from the radio. (Once in a while I listen to a Christian radio station here. In the space of three hours I heard three different artists sing the same "Open the eyes of my heart Lord". I think Christians just have these songs in memory like a rosary prayer. Sure, no church is perfect. Home church sounds good at this point and basically it's what we have been doing. We'll likely continue onward and have been thinking about starting a Bible group up in our home. Just the Bible...taking turns expounding the scriptures.

LawyerForGod, My apologies for being out of the forum for quite some time. I've been away and now have recently moved. I am living in Central Indiana. Feel free to pass along any recommendations. grapeseed

I am asking for some advice from any of the seasoned Christians on this forum. Trying to find a new church is very tough indeed for me. I have researched hours on end church web sites and attended numerous churches but am so tired of going to churches just to find out how they work and then end up not liking the worship style or something or other. I'm also tired of looking up churches on the internet to find dead ends. I consider myself a New Testament Christian. I am a former Mormon and have attended a moderate denominational Christian church for a few years but it is now going to the megasize "Crystal Cathedral" ranks and now I am looking for something smaller, maybe less flashy, and less interested in moolah. I never really cared for their services all that much but it was something and better than nothing I thought. I feel the following are important: 1) Weekly observance of the Lord's Supper. The church I had been attending did it whenever they felt like and I disliked that. I want to be able to fellowship with others and remember the Lord's sacrifice each week via the Supper. 2) I am a very conservative individual and issues such as abortion and homosexuality acceptance in a church is important to me. I would avoid such a church. 3) I do not believe that women should be ordained as pators in a church. The Disciples of Christ have the weekly Supper but they are too liberal for me. The Reformed Church can have weekly Supper but may not at many churches and the leadership base seems fairly liberal. The Lutheran Mo-Synod comes fairly close to what I think is important but I do not believe that one must be a member of the church on order to partake of the Supper. They will not offer it to those not a member of their church. They also make a big deal about other churches being in full fellowship with them. My wife is sort of turned off by the robes and confession thing in the Mo-Synod, too. I have never been to a Catholic Church but I already do not believe in the priesthood vows, confessionals, absolving, or the office of a Pope as God's representative here. Does anyone have any suggestions to help guide my search? I do not think that I am hypercritical of a church. I can take a number of things that might seem somewhat odd to me. I visited a PCA church once that had members, in the middle of the service, start going over to others and praying with them right in the middle of the service or Sunday School lesson. That was sort of distracting and odd for me. grapeseed