Hobbie, I hear that a lot about everyone sins on here. Don't you think there is degrees from wilful sin to infirmities. There is even sin in the church and Jesus died for that too.

If someone says they have no sin they are usually speaking of wilful sins of commission. When we bring up the sins of omission that's a whole new field.
If I know to do something (within my means) and choose not to then wouldn't that be wilful sin?

When we make choices there is a cost, don't think its a free ride. When we take a stand it involves finances, family, time, and even dealing with things we just don't like.
But on the other hand we have to count the cost should our soul be lost.

One last input and I'm out of here.
3 fishermen went on a fishing trip and bad weather had them locked in a small cabin for 3 days. After 3 days they began to fight. The moral is: when fishermen don't fish, they fight!

And now I’m trying to figure out how we got here from repentance and faith being individual things. lol

I am referring to religion as a whole. As you say, its premise is faith, and includes God.

I'm kinda glad that I've stayed out of this one. Too often talking about the "End Times" is more divisive even than talking about politics. It's a shame really, because there is some really fascinating and profound stuff within the prophetic literature in the Bible. Our (primarily modern American) obsession with the Revelation being merely a secret code about a future event, distracts us from what it can tell us about how we live in the world today, which is, I think, what the Bible wants us to consider (and change). Wisdom from the past and hope for the future that gives us purpose and direction for today. Jesus said that the purpose of life is to love God and love your neighbor. Too often we follow our traditions more than we follow Jesus; we love our doctrines more than we love God and our interpretations more than our neighbor. That's an indictment of myself as much as it is of anyone else. I can't pretend to be ignorant or innocent. All that to say:

I hear you Wolfie. You're not alone in that, and I'm sorry. I wish we didn't live in different parts of the country, because I think we could have some really enjoyable conversations about this stuff.

I think the discussion is profitable. I enjoy nothing more than talking about in the bible. Nothing gets me more excited.

Kinda jacking the thread, even more than I already have but...


Kitty number 14 here, the 8th I've harvested

Epistemology, the theory of knowledge and where truth "truly" comes from.... is given to us in Scripture.
Proverbs has two bookends that reveal to us that knowledge and religion emanate from the very same place: God.

Those bookends are;
Proverbs 1:7: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 9:10: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Praise God for His Revelation for us!

Blessings,
Mark

I disagree.

I believe Dr Fauci is the definition of science, and to be worshipped.

Same here.

I am debating bringing my good friend Jan Markell into this conversation.

I thought you were being serious in your previous post.

Why? Wolfie claims to be a believer and one would think he knows what believes. I've never found the perfect church and don't expect to but I have congregations with like-minded believers. None of the churches I've attended over the last thirty years experienced contentious doctrinal debates. I'm often the odd man out with emphasis on doctrines of grace but it never got me booted from a church and I've never felt the need to leave one.

She always has guests on her blog that are credible and insightful and I especially enjoy the shows about Replacement Theology's pitfalls.
I read one a while back, and I remember the pastor commenting that people quite often give context to dispensational theology in much the same way they define capitalism.... with a very.broad.inaccurate.context brush.

Blessings,
Mark

T-Rex,

You asked about logic and religion. Here is Jordan Petersons take on Logos as he spoke a few weeks back at Ephesus. Enjoy, I promise it is worth your time.

Pretty deep in here

I don't think Rex has been serious the whole time, funny some tho

Chancey, for those of us who continue to thirst for learning, it is our lament is that our culture is running quickly away from academic learning in its purest sense. The philosophy of the Greeks Dr. Peterson speaks about, known as an underpinning (in addition to Judea-Christianity) of the Western (USA included) epistemology, and even theology, is being rapidly replaced by our culture's thirst for media sound bites, Google truth, Youtube truth, and a prideful, gleeful mockery of "higher learning."

I'm of the camp that this running away from a sincere quest for learning is also tethered to a conscious, concerted effort by those who collaborate to control people groups. There are strong thesis's related to the fact that when people as a culture rely not on their own ability to learn and think critically, but rather turn their focus to the leaders of government to fix, save, heal, or rescue them, these same people are more easily controlled by the politico that governs them. It's called power and it resonates in the hearts of those who seek it for illicit purpose.

We most certainly have institutions of "higher learning" but the style of learning that was been taught historically for millennia (Aquinas in the 1200's wrote of the Greeks two thousand years before him) has changed quite remarkably since the 1960's especially, replacing debate with questions and the pursuit of answers, with more simplistic memorization of whatever the academic testing system tests on.

It's all quite fascinating and for those of us who enjoy history, the pursuit of pure higher learning related to thesis, debate, dialog, argument (not how culture now defines it), and a thirst for true knowledge (epistemology) it's not as easy these days to grab a cold drink, pull up a chair, and chat about anything at a deeper level. Swords too quickly come out and iPhones start showing up with Google truths pulled up and.....

But the beginning of knowledge begins with a fear of our Lord, which doesn't exactly mean fear as in "tremble," but rather an obedience to and awe of the One whose got all the right answers.
Our prayer is that God's Face still shines upon our nation and its people and helps return us to a thirst for that which is worthy and honoring to God.

I enjoy your posts always!
Blessings!
Mark

Yes it's interesting that you say this about modern education, and you are 100% correct. This is exactly what the system has done to religious learning starting in the 1800's

See they could have never degraded society without first attacking the foundation that held it together. Faith. So they destroyed the ability for man to learn the Bible through simple Bible reading by changing what man believed they needed to do to be saved first, by adding works(i.e. repent "of your sins") rather than teaching biblical repentance, they then filled the learning institutions with lies and bad doctrine so everyone who taught at the local level didn't have the right spirit. And now we see this same result playing out in society as it has in religious institutions for nearly 100 years.

I for one am glad George Washington had the right faith, and spent so much time daily on his knees or we wouldn't even be here to discuss it.

Ken, after some research on dispensationalism, I align with your thinking on it. One thing I haven't figured out is, why? Why did it even come about, what do dispensationalist have to gain from it? Is it like another sect of religion ie Baptist, Methodist etc.

Anyone?