rchristian

rchristian

24p

21 comments posted · 0 followers · following 0

9 years ago @ Faith Footprint - Opinions and Advice · 0 replies · +1 points

Colin, Actually over the years Donna and I have relied on others who are more knowledgeable about budgeting, etc. to guide us on our family budget--both in setting our "family policies" and in structuring our lives in order to carry out those policies.

I am not saying we cannot learn things from those who aren't "professionals", or that 24 year-olds cannot teach us anything--only that the reality is many people have little of value to teach on a given subject. The 24 year old clearly was not able to teach what he thought he was able to teach--only that he was in fact not qualified and that others should ignore his opinions. As for the kids, you are correct, they taught us great lessons on love--but in reality it was God teaching us through them, and through our interactions with them. The kids themselves had little understanding or mastery of love. Their love for us was entirely dependent on how they felt about us at the time--which was frequently not positive:-) (all discipline is unpleasant for the moment...). On the other hand, today we see them teaching us a great deal about love as they have matured and shown themselves to be able to love others as God loves us.

10 years ago @ Faith Footprint - Please don't shoot me. · 0 replies · +1 points

Rick, thanks for the comments and questions. I don't know that I agree with the generalizations re: gender, but the question you ask about protecting others seems to be the question most people ask in response to my post. It is important to me that we draw a distinction between Biblical teaching and personal opinion--one has authority over any Christian's life, the other is just an opinion. The scriptures specifically address self-defense and retaliation--and tells us to turn the other cheek instead. I don't see anything that would support the supposition that men are given a protector role that includes physical violence "if necessary" (my quotes). On the other hand, I don't see any specific prohibition of this either (such as the "turn the other cheek" passage).

Like most people today, I find myself appalled at the genocide commanded by God in the Old Testament. I think I understand why He did, but my understanding is not necessary. God is God. He is the standard of righteousness, and I have learned that this "pot" can't judge the "potter". Now, how does that differ from our circumstances? First, and most important, God isn't doing the commanding in the American army. In fact, it isn't necessarily even someone who follows God who does the commanding. Second, the reasons we go to war and kill people certainly aren't the reasons God had for his people. His plan was always centered on the fulfillment of his plan of salvation through the Messiah. Everything that happened in the OT led to this. That certainly isn't true of any army today. Finally, God commanded His people--a nation chosen by Him for a specific place in history that would literally be crucial for the salvation of every person who comes to Him. No modern nation can claim this (many Americans' opinions not withstanding). So, is it ok for a person to defend himself as a soldier in war? I would ask first, why is that person a soldier in war? I can envision scenarios where a case could be made that it is "righteous" to go to war. However, I don't believe we can simply say that any soldier is automatically in God's will simply because he is serving his government. I believe Christians have a responsibility to their King first, and should make no commitment to a worldly government that might lead him to disobey his King.

11 years ago @ Faith Footprint - About Me · 0 replies · +1 points

Great to hear from you Sandra! Say Hi to Jim for us, and anyone else who remembers us:-)

11 years ago @ Faith Footprint - Does prayer "work"? · 0 replies · +1 points

Thanks Sue. It's good to hear from you!

11 years ago @ Faith Footprint - Does prayer "work"? · 0 replies · +1 points

We miss you too my friend!

12 years ago @ Faith Footprint - The problem with worsh... · 0 replies · +1 points

Chris,

I think you\'re mixing truth with untruth personally. No question the church can get sloppy--and to worship God in a way that is \"sloppy\", not giving our best, is like offering the lame bull as a sacrifice--it just shows that God isn\'t important.

However, you seem to be saying that worship is ONLY individual (our personal life given to God at all times--the living sacrifice of Romans 12:1). This simply doesn\'t fit scripture. Worship is both individual AND corporate. To separate myself from the body and not worship with the body, OR to say that Christian gatherings are only for the purpose of \"connecting with other like minded people, not to worship God\" is just wrong. It ignores the value of corporate worship (NOT corporate connecting) and makes our times of corporate worship times of self-focus. If the Holy Spirit is driving the bus, the bus isn\'t about us.

12 years ago @ Faith Footprint - What exactly is "faith"? · 0 replies · +1 points

I agree, and actually I think your aside is very much to the point. Whether this man's original "belief" was limited to intellectual agreement or trust, he acknowledged the universal need to deepen those (our ascent still harbors doubt and our trust is incomplete) and move to faithfulness. And as you said, in the end, the point of all these is believing IN Jesus. Believing things *about* Him are only useful if they lead us to believe IN Him (trust). Otherwise, we are left with either a sterile academic "faith" or a more limited set of superstitions separated from the person who is the object of our trust and faithfulness.

12 years ago @ Faith Footprint - We really don't believ... · 0 replies · +1 points

Fact is a statement of reality. Metaphor is a figure of speech intended to help a person understand an aspect of that reality. However, since it is a figure of speech, it not intended as a statement of reality. While there are (in my opinion rare) instances where it is not immediately obvious whether a statement is metaphor or fact, in most cases this not the case. In the case of heaven and hell, the metaphorical nature of the scriptural descriptions becomes obvious both by the context and by the fact that different statements make perfect sense as metaphors but are contradictory if taken as "fact". An example would be the pictures of hell (e.g. a garbage dump, a bottomless pit, a lake of fire). These are different, and are obviously representative of things which we consider horrible (the garbage dump imagery from scripture goes infinitely further than our experience of a garbage dump). The "fact" (statement of reality) is that hell exists (the metaphors are meaningless otherwise) and we don't want to be there.

12 years ago @ Faith Footprint - We really don't believ... · 0 replies · +1 points

The word "Lord" is an English word. It is used to translate words from both Greek and Hebrew (in Greek, typically the word "kurios"; and in Hebrew, typically the word "adonai", though there are other words in both languages which can also be translated "lord"). As for the use of the male gender, the short answer is that the scriptures typically refer to God as male (God the Father and God the Son being the two most obvious examples). Personally, I don't believe this is intended to communicate that God is limited by gender as we are. I suspect this is simply a literary convenience since God chose to preserve portions of his communication with us in written form. There are portions of scripture which refer to what I have called the "maternal nature" of God, where God uses maternal imagery to refer to himself.

13 years ago @ Faith Footprint - We really don't believ... · 0 replies · +1 points

Cari,

I’ve never been comfortable advocating for Satan, but I’m good with taking the opposing thought for discussionīŠ.

A complete answer to your question (exactly what does the Bible teach about hell?) would be a book, not a post. However, I think there are several points that are hard to argue with:

1. our word “hell” refers to several Biblical terms: Hades, Sheol, Gehenna among others, and what God has revealed about hell has increased over time (progressive revelation)

2. hell is real—it is referred to too often to believe otherwise

3. hell is a really bad place—seems absurd to put it that way, nevertheless the one common thread to all the references to hell is that it is basically the worst we could imagine (examples: fire—Matthew 5:22; a garbage dump [gehenna] Matthew 23:15; a pit [falling] Psalm 5515). In fact, I think it would be fair to say that both heaven and hell are described with imagery in scripture something like this: think of the best thing you could possibly imagine—heaven is better than that. Think of the worst thing you could possibly imagine—hell is worse than that.

4. hell is a terrible place and is a place of punishment (Matthew 5:29-30; Matthew 8:11-12; Matthew 10:28 to cite a few passages). Jesus himself (in each of these passages) uses the threat of hell to motivate people (something many contemporary preachers seem to feel is beneath us).