Jump to content

S.A.Laffin

Members
  • Posts

    36
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

3 Neutral

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    http://godworshippers.blogspot.com/

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male

Recent Profile Visitors

974 profile views
  1. It is sad that churches are leaving where their people live. Even though some in these churches are from the suburbs, which is harder; someone who lives in the suburbs and drives to work in the city to get to church on Sunday in the city, or for someone who lives in the city and walks to church to find a way to get out to the suburbs to go to church. These churches are leaving behind those who need the church the most. They are "movin' on up" and leaving the poor, sick, and needy behind. This seems to be the opposite of what Christ did. I am not opposed to churches being in the suburbs, but I do not think a church should move to the suburbs to get out of poor inner-city. Churches should be located in the communities they serve, if they serve the community of the inner-city they should be in the inner-city, if they serve the suburbs they should be in the suburbs. If this exodus is taking place on a large scale, I guess it just provides more ministry for us who are willing to live in the inner-city.
  2. We are complete in Christ alone, I know this is difficult to believe at times but it is true. After several failed dating relationships I finally came to this conclusion and decided that I was no longer going to look for a wife. I decided to commit myself to Christ and guess what, Christ brought a wonderful woman to me who became my wife. Don't take this as a way to find true love, finding completeness in Christ doesn't mean you will find your spouse, but you will have found your true love, the one who will always love you, Jesus.
  3. This is a recent post to my blog, however I think it can be useful to discuss it here. (When I refer to "Americans" it could apply to many people of many nations) In the last decade or so there has been much critique on the consumer driven culture in which we live. Many people have spoken out against this vast expanse of consumerism. It finally seems that the message has been heard (well maybe) and it is being viewed as a horrible thing. It is actually being viewed as something which we should actually fear. Many news outlets are reporting that for the first time since records have been kept, Americans are spending little on Christmas retail. This is being interpreted as a horrible thing because it is seen only as a result of a poor economy. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that the slump in sales at Nordstrom is because so many people have finally gotten the idea that consumerism has gotten out of control and we should cut back. But I am surprised that this decrease in consumerism is only being seen as a bad thing. Now why is this of any importance. I think it is time we rethink our measurement of economic strength. Our economy is seen as good when it is growing and people are spending more and more money, whether they have it or not. If most Americans started spending wisely (ie. not buying in excess or on excessive credit), it would appear from an economic standpoint that we are entering a recession or even a depression. I think it may be time that we look at economic strength not by GDP, but by whether or not people are able to get the products they actually need. The economy should not be considered bad because many people cannot purchase (with or without credit) the newest biggest products out there. It should be considered bad when people cannot purchase the food they need to feed their families, or if they cannot afford their mortgage. We ought to rethink how we measure the strength of the economy. You might be wondering what this economic editorial is doing on this blog. Well, God calls us to be good stewards of the resources he has given us. The way we view economics will affect how we steward those resources. At this time of economic slowdown do not worry about liquidity in the market, or if you are no longer going to be able to make money off the speculative market. At this time of economic slowdown look at your pocket book and look for ways to become a better steward of the resources God has given you. These "hard" times may actually turn out to be a great time of spiritual development in the area of stewardship.
  4. This is a very surface (read not deep) response. Morals are the determined good virtues. Morality is the acts which are good. Ethics are slightly different. Ethics is the choice to remain within morality. An ethical decision or action is one which leads someone down a moral path. They are very closely related and often used interchangeably. However, I see a slight difference between the two. Morality tends to be more limited than ethics. I could say that it is immoral to murder someone. However it may be ethical to murder someone. Let me give you an example. If someone enters a bank with a gun and begins shooting people at random, I could ethically enter that bank and murder that person. I would say that this is ethical because the result is the saving of more lives which is a moral thing. However the act of killing another individual may be viewed as immoral. So an act which may be determined ethical may not always be moral. This is where things get sticky so I will leave it to the more intelligent. This may not help anything, but I hope it does help some.
  5. Embryonic Hypocrisy This happens to be an issue which has bothered me for quite some time, however I have yet to discuss it or write on it, until now. There is a gigantic gap in the logic of many evangelical Christians on the issue of biochemistry. Many evangelicals are in adamant opposition to embryonic stem cell research. They are in opposition to these because they believe that life begins at conception. They believe that life begins when a single sperm enters an egg, life has begun. Since, embryonic stem cell research destroys fertilized eggs they are destroying life. However, almost all evangelical Christians are content with in vitro fertilization. The process of in vitro fertilization results in an excess of fertilized eggs. These eggs are either frozen, destroyed or given over for scientific experiments. In vitro fertilization destroys more fertilized eggs each year than stem cell research. Yet, there are no protests, or "special" radio programs, or bills being pushed by evangelicals in opposition to in vitro fertilization. In this post I'm neither supporting nor opposing in vitro fertilization or embryonic stem cell research. What I am doing is pointing out the hypocrisy widely found among evangelicals. This embryonic hypocrisy should not be. People should either hold to the position that life begins at conception and therefore embryonic stem cell research AND in vitro fertilization are immoral. Or, they should hold to the position that life begins some point after conception and therefore embryonic stem cell research AND in vitro fertilization are morally acceptable. It is inconsistent to claim that many fertilized eggs can be destroyed so that a 20-50% chance of a woman carrying and giving birth to a child, is moral; but experimenting on fertilized eggs with the hope of keeping people alive, is immoral. With hypocrisy like this, it is no wonder that people stereotype evangelicals as a bunch on brainwashed ignorant people. (Taken from God Worshippers, with permission from author)
  6. damo, I am not suggesting that we start a false prophet hunting ministry, or spend a special time each week in church listing off all of the false prophets. I do not think that we should fear pointing out false prophets, I believe that the scriptures are very clear that false prophets should not be ignored. If we ignore false prophets we are allowing the corruption into the church. To answer your question "how on earth can some one pick a false prophet?" False prophets are any prophets who claim to be speaking the word of God and are not. Any "prophet" who makes a prophecy and it does not come to pass, or is shown in some other way to be false, that person is a false prophet and should be removed from God's family. Is repentance possible? Probably, but that person cannot continue to prophesy falsely and simply repent every time they are shown to be a false prophet. It is time we respect God and his word. Ignoring false prophets does not respect God or his word.
  7. i hear you but it's just God's children talking. i remember when i was in love, my lover was all i ever wanted to talk about. i think this is pretty much the same. we never get tired of talking about our Father. we get talked out for awhile over the things we know and so move on to things we can only wonder about and soon we'll be back into the things we know and they will still feel fresh. it's kind of amazing when you think about it. I have put part of your quote in bold letters, because this is precisely the point I was making, it's just us kids talking. However, we kids seem to get farther and farther from the Scriptural point of view in our "talking". This leads to false doctrines and heresies being developed within the very family of God. As soon as Jesus delivered His Gospel, Satan came around and tried to twist it to mean something entirely different. All the serious false doctrines and heresies (those who really impacted the Body of Christ such as the Gnostic heresy) have come out of us kids talking amoung ourselves. This is the very seedbed from which the most destructive false doctrines and heresies have sprung. If we don't keep the Scriptural viewpoint in mind when we kids "talk amoung ourselves", all kinds of trouble springs up. We need to keep focused on what's important when we "talk amoung ourselves". If we truly do love our Heavenly Father, we will support only those views that Scripture supports, especially when we kids talk amoung ourselves. For Scripture is nothing more than what our Heavenly Father has said and to veer away from what He said does not show our love for Him. We can talk about God until the cows come home, but to ignore what His Word says on any given topic and go off on a tangent does not really show our love for Him, rather it shows our ignorance of His Word on the topic at hand. For those wondering what the Gnostic heresy was, it is still with us. It can best be described by the old schoolyard taunt "I know something you don't know", implying that you are more special than the other person because you know the "secret things" that they don't know. And this heresy heavily depends upon "secret writings" that are beyond the Scriptural viewpoint, last seen in the "Da Vinci Code". I agree that we need to "keep the Scriptural viewpoint in mind" however Scripture is not always as clear as we would like to be. If it were there would not be multiple forms of the Orthodox church, Catholic church, or the thousands of denominations in the Protestant church. When discussing doctrine we are attempting to do the best job explaining what God has revealed to us. There will be instances where this cannot be done. However where we can discuss an understanding of God's word, we should. Quoting scripture is not always the best way to do this, because we have different ways of interpreting scripture. This does not mean that all the ways are correct, but it does mean that in our discussions about scripture we will have to use more than just scripture. We will have to use language which explains scripture without abusing scripture.
  8. Christmas trees do have an origin in Pagan history, however Christians have redeemed this symbol and have made it a symbol to represent what Christ has done for us. I hope that we do not give back what has been redeemed for Christ. The same would be true of almost every aspect of the Easter (even its name) celebrations. It is very common in some churches to give back what has been redeemed, but I don't see any good in this. By the way, we decorate our house as a way to worship God. The center of our Christmas decorations is a light covered cross which I welded together which is around nine feet tall. It would be a sad day if Christians everywhere stopped celebrating what God has done in our lives, for our lives. We have even won decorating contest in our h.o.a. If you would like more info. on the pagan origins of many of our Christian origins pm me. If I get too many pm's I may start a new topic giving this info.
  9. What is your opinion? As they are "awaiting judgment" do you believe they could be souls of terrible humans or the fallen angels? Is there another possibility? It is an interesting topic! .......Whirlwind As I stand now it appears that demons are the fallen angels. I have yet to be convinced that the gap theory can be supported very strongly, so I will not easily accept a theory that demons come from a pre-adamic race or something else in that theoretical time period. Nor am I completely convinced that demons are from the nephilim, although if they were not fallen angels the nephilim would be interesting to look into. I do however, find it interesting that in the passages I mentioned above do indicate that the demons know their fate and it is destruction, which would be a parallel to the experience of fallen angels.
  10. Interesting thread. However I wonder why this passage has not been brought up yet. Matthew 8:28 When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. 29
  11. First I want to say thank you all for the discussion thus far, it has been really helpful to me. I feel the comment about "getting all philosophical, it seems to get so academic and stuffy" is justified. I, being a student of academia, can get caught up in the clouds with the scholars and speak in their language not common language. This brings me to the title of this post "Say what you mean." I feel I have not done this, well at least not in a way which is accessible to all. Maybe I should stay away from Latin, or Greek, or Hebrew and speak in clear English, so that I am not misunderstood. Thank you for showing this to me. The reason I wanted to present a new way of speaking about how we view creation is because the terms do not seem to fit what actually happened. In an attempt to clarify the terms I may have simply created more confusion. However, when we look at the biblical account of creation, God did not create from nothing. He created from himself. He spoke creation into being and formed creation into being. When God spoke into creation that was an act of creation flowing out from him, not from nothing. This is not to say that when God created he took his substance and created from it, making everything "deified" substance, as this would be pantheism. This does say that the source from which creation came about was God and not nothing. Hopefully this clears some things up, if not continue posting.
  12. Yes, semantics should not exceed what is in scripture, but on this topic creation neither ex nihilo nor ex dei are terms given in scripture. Our semantics should be used to help us explain what is said in scripture. Now to deal with Lenord's statement, "A creation ex dei would mean that God made the universe using material of His own Substance. That is NOT what Scripture teaches. The substance of God cannot sin, therefore in an ex dei creation Adam could not have sinned, and any talk about the plan of Redemption becomes meaningless drivel." and EricH's statement, "Ex Die is simply a precursor to the Hindu view that God is in all and everything makes up God " Ex Dei is not saying that God makes up everything, it is not pantheism. When God created matter out of himself he was not reproducing himself, he was creating from himself. Therefore, the matter which he created was not "God." Since it was not God it the creations made up of that matter to sin. I do understand that if someone thinks that that which God created from himself was himself, they are in danger of pantheism. However if we realize that creation was an outflowing of the trinitarian relationship we will have a better understanding of creation and its meaning. Redemption becomes much more meaningful if God created ex dei. If as an outflowing of the relational attributes God created, his purpose for creation was to be in relationship with his creation (us). Redemption is restoring that relationship.
  13. Ex nihino, no, no. This article can be looked at as a double sided dagger, that is it is cutting two different ways at one time. I will be bringing up a new way to look at creatio ex nihilo while also exposing the importance of semantics in Christian theological discussion. Let us begin with the problem of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing). The phrase is commonly used to describe how God created the universe. The argument goes that God created everything from nothing, he did not use any other material. As Genesis says, God spoke and it came into being. This language is not only misleading it is wrong. God did not create ex nihilo he created ex dei (out of god). God has always triunly existed (father, son, spirit). Creation was an outflowing of this eternal relationship. Creation did not come from nothing, it came from God. It is time we give credit where credit should be given. God, not nothing, should be credited for the universe. I do not believe that those who hold to a creatio ex nihilo theology of creation, would think I am saying anything wrong. They might however say, "we are not saying that God did not create, what we are saying is that God did not use any outside material when he created." To this I would have to suggest that we use the language creatio ex dei since it captures what actually happened. God created from himself, not from nothing. This brings us to semantics. The old cl'ech'e goes "let's not argue over semantics," needs to be put to rest. Semantics are what allow us to communicate clearly. When we discuss semantics we are usually discussing the smaller meanings behind what the greater message is. In the argument of creatio ex nihilo vs. creatio ex dei the big issue is that God created, and the smaller meaning behind that big issue is how he did it. While in discussion among other Christians the semantical issues may seem meaningless (or at least not critical), although to those outside the Christian culture, semantics are huge. As stated earlier, semantics allow us to communicate clearly. As Christians when discussing theology it is imperative that we are careful to say what we mean. For, if we do not we run the risk of being gravely misinterpreted. (This was taken from my blog, but I think it can be of good discussion here )
  14. Lists or no lists of "false prophets" is not what I am hoping people will turn to after considering this question. I just want to know why false prophets are overlooked. Many times, solid Bible teaching preachers are found on stage or "station" with false prophets and seem o.k. with it because "at least a good message is getting out." This is ridiculous, why is it that so many false prophets are almost protected from being rebuked because "some are being saved through their ministry." It is about time Christians confront these false prophets and purify the body of Christ.
  15. I have only one question to this comment: Have you or most (if not any) Christians completely abstained from all sin since you began living in faith?
×
×
  • Create New...