I agree what a testimony!
Mark is answering his call.

I still remember the lovey dovey days back in the 60's and I don't think it played out too well. I had an old timer tell me that if I was going to stand for God I would need skin as thick as a rhino. We have to constantly fight to go upstream. Dead fish only float one way, down stream. We have become a society that likes the feel good religion. Some of us have the brylcreem religion and a little dab will do ya. We still have a few people that still don't waver like a reed in the running water. In times like these we need people that know what they believe and willing to practice it. Many churches now days have more back seat drivers than actual drivers. I think they like the risk reward ratio. They risk little and take the benefits when things go right and when things don't go right, then blame the preacher!

We have too many not willing to stand by God's fundamentals. That's the reason why when the gays want in the pulpit, there is no moral majority so it has to be brought to a vote. Really, does God no longer have any conditions. Most of the time when God says "if" then there is a condition. God uses people out on the front line and he uses people like the young, weak and old to stay behind and take care of the stuff. And when everything works to God's praise then all will share in the bounty equally. We are living strange times and the poor seem to have wood god's and the rich have their gold and silver god's. Where some would like to turn this world upside down with the tearing down and upheaval to turn us to strange god's. I don't think we need lovey dovey people with pacifiers but men who are willing to stand for their fundamental beliefs!

Thanks be to God!

I enjoyed this post.
It's pretty gosh darn accurate.
I just had a neighbor stop by day before yesterday who wanted to chat theology with me. We grabbed a couple chairs and sat in the shop and Dave said, "Mark, are they teaching you the Old Testament at your school?" I told him we learn all 66 Protestant books. Dave replied, "You know, I had to stop reading the OT years ago because I love the Lord and there's now way a loving God of the NT would command all that stuff. Wipe out people. Invade other lands. Get mad so often and flood the place. Stuff like that."
I smiled and wondered, how am I going to help David, a solid Texan, named after one of God's Anointed kings, who attends our church, understand how culture has permeated religion in ways that are not holy, but entirely of man's origin? At least as far as the fundamental Christian faith has existed for thousands of years.

It seemed to me Dave was humbly, earnestly seeking an answer for the complexity of the OT, so I offered the explanation of one of the Early Church Fathers, Augustine of Hippo (north Africa) in the 3rd and 4th century; The Old (Testament) contained is in the New (Testament) explained. . I also offered to Dave that God in the fundamental Christian explanation of faith (dogma and doctrine) a God of Rigtheousness and Justice on one hand, and Love and Mercy on the other. We as the American church like to pluck out love, so much so that the Jesus only movement took on legs during our lifetime because Jesus is Love and the Father is demanding. I like Jesus. I renounce the Father. Stuff like that.

Foxpaw is accurate. Very. There is so much to debate in a respectable manner as we seek, but too many have driven their own version of faith off the fundamentalism rails. It's not by coincidence that many of the cults and sects of the historical faith were reinvented during the late 1700's and 1800's, the era of Enlightenment and rational humanistic thinking at every level. Did God intend to reveal a new Christianity during that era, all of whom discount Scripture (or parts of it), and the orthodox (tradition) Triune God? Where Jesus has been reduced in many new forms of Christianity to "just a really good man." A moral man. But just a man. Or did man just step in and rewrite what he didn't like? When we rewrite theology, we discount it. The Doctrine of Salvation and the Doctrine of Grace = minimize the cross and the atoning sacrifice, are the two usually attacked when man elevates himself and reduces Scripture and the Trinity.

Foxpaw is also very accurate that the rules of the Heavenly, Eternal plan are not ours to adjust and reconfigure.
Some don't like that way of thinking.
I pray they do ok in this life cause that's all they have to look forward to.

Blessings y'all!
Grandkids are over this week and papa is having a super duper time teachings them papa kind of things.
Bait making. Arrowhead identification. Pulling weeds. Saying, "please" and "thank you." And stuff like that.

Mark

Thank God for Jesus.

As a gentile myself Bruce, I couldn't give this statement enough Amens brother!

Amen and Amen.

You’re a lawyer, you’re sensitive to everything. lol JK

Good one, Jim.

I have a copy of the Vulgate edition of the bible which pre-dated the first King James edition. In it, Jesus is written as Jesus, not Iesous.
The Vulgate came next after the Hebrew & Greek original manuscripts.

I agree with you also, Jim.

I sometimes wonder what in the jimminy crickets I'm doing studying in Dallas (not my cup of tea), with folks about 1/2 my age (it's pretty neat), 8 months a year? We all have many opportunities in front of us every week, if not more often. I decided to seriously study our Lord, not to figure Him out really, but to learn more about His Kingdom and His Redemptive Plan for all of us. Wish I hadn't waited so long, but 6% of us on DTS campus are over 60 years of age. Many are from other countries, so we talk about all sorts of interesting stuff. The Chinese tell me about their persecuted church. The African tell me about how his village saved for years to send him to seminary. It's magnificent to see kingdom work in progress versus the nightly news. That stuff comes and goes. So does $$$.

While most of the world doesn't read much anymore, other than in bits and pieces, I've always enjoyed a good book, so I figured why not learn more about the Book of Divine Truth with 66 books in it. And I think about the legacy I'll leave my family? What will they depend on for truth? Politics? Government? That's on me as a leader of a traditional home. Serious stuff we prolly think more about as we get closer to the end of this life than the starting blocks we came from.

I encourage all y'all to think deep about all that is meaningful to you and yours and plot a course accordingly.
I've had so many blessings so far I never anticipated. Our oldest, Mathew (38 years) has recently led his wife and 4 kiddos back to church, and on an on.
God is a good, good Father.

Blessings
Mark

Agree 100%...
Thanks Mark...


Donnie

God would likely know if Jesus is black, white, yellow, red or other ethnic colorations, we should ask him instead of others. He may also know if he feels Jesus is racist instead all of us trying to read between the invisible lines to figure it out by ourselves. We should also ask God if his choice to leave the harden practices of the old testament, like taking his own brother up to the mountain to take punish him and die there and replaced by a savior that will forgive us when we sin has worked out like he had hoped it would.

Bryce

I sometimes wonder what in the jimminy crickets I'm doing studying in Dallas (not my cup of tea), with folks about 1/2 my age (it's pretty neat), 8 months a year? We all have many opportunities in front of us every week, if not more often. I decided to seriously study our Lord, not to figure Him out really, but to learn more about His Kingdom and His Redemptive Plan for all of us. Wish I hadn't waited so long, but 6% of us on DTS campus are over 60 years of age. Many are from other countries, so we talk about all sorts of interesting stuff. The Chinese tell me about their persecuted church. The African tell me about how his village saved for years to send him to seminary. It's magnificent to see kingdom work in progress versus the nightly news. That stuff comes and goes. So does $$$.

While most of the world doesn't read much anymore, other than in bits and pieces, I've always enjoyed a good book, so I figured why not learn more about the Book of Divine Truth with 66 books in it. And I think about the legacy I'll leave my family? What will they depend on for truth? Politics? Government? That's on me as a leader of a traditional home. Serious stuff we prolly think more about as we get closer to the end of this life than the starting blocks we came from.

I encourage all y'all to think deep about all that is meaningful to you and yours and plot a course accordingly.
I've had so many blessings so far I never anticipated. Our oldest, Mathew (38 years) has recently led his wife and 4 kiddos back to church, and on an on.
God is a good, good Father.

Blessings
Mark
[/quote.

He works in mysterious ways!
We have a young family in our church that are going to the Dominican Republic to be missionaries. Sold a thriving HVAC business and their home.
Are now taking the steps to get there.
Some people question the call, like are you sure ?
Everything has flowed since then, like the house selling without listing? and many others.
What a leap of Faith!

dkrug,

How true!
For 40+ years I used stinkin thinkin to figure out; "Man that was lucky." Or "what a coincidence."
I've got a better focus not the big picture screen now = it's all Divine.
Every thing we see.
And don't see.

Blessings
Mark

This will likely fall on deaf ears, but if anyone is truly interested in sourcing why the imagery of Jesus presents as it does, then doing some reading on the name Cesare Borgia and the connection to modern depictions of Christ might be a place to start.

I'm not saying this is right or the only answer, but it was a starting point for me.

When we look at the world as made by design, we maybe still don't always get the results we think we want. Still its better than random chance, if there was such a thing. We think we need or want something and out of God's grace he may say no. An instance would be going to take a plane trip and your car breaks down and you are mad because you miss your plane, then you hear it crashed, your car being broken down suddenly is a mute thing and can have a profound affect on a person.

In Job's case when a catastrophe would happen and there would be one survivor to go tell the story, that one was not necessarily any better than the rest, just happened to be the one God chose to tell the story. When I look at the world by design and can see from the Fibonacci view that every part is part of the creation and its no accident, it tends to humble me and most of the time I am more thankful when I understand I'm here for a reason. God is Good even when we are not!

Well said brother.

Good is waiting patiently for each one of us to turn to him.