SO YOU WANT ME TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN?
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147. If someone accepts Jesus, and is "saved," but then turns away from Jesus, is that person still saved?
I would subscribe to the teaching "Once saved, always saved". That aside, the Holy Spirit does chasten us when we sin, so that I John 1:9 can take place (repentance and prayer for forgiveness). This corresponds with Jesus' parable of the lost sheep (a believer that has fallen into temptation and is brought back by the Good Shepard, Jesus Christ).
So, if you have ever come across a "Christian" that has gone back to drugs, other religions, drinking, gambling, etc, there can be two conclusion:
1) He was never saved at the first place.
2) He is saved, just that God is holding His time to struck him with something big in his life to bring him back to Him. -
148. Where did your god come from?
He didn't come from anywhere. He is, was, and always will be. I know this is difficult to understand; it certainly is for me! Eternity and matters of infinity are by their very definition difficult for us finite humans to understand. However, that is what the Bible says in John and Genesis. -
149. What are the requirements for being saved? Some sects says that faith alone is enough; others say that faith without works is dead. The Bible supports both these viewpoints. What does your sect think?
I believe that it is based on faith in Jesus + nothing. That aside, when the bible says "Faith without works is dead." it doesn't mean:
salvation = Jesus + works.
it simply means:
rewards in heaven = Jesus + works
in heaven but no rewards = Jesus + no works
this equation is also very important
works = fruits of the Spirit
fruits of the Spirits = serving the Lord, witness for Christ, keeping good testimony.
thus, works = serving the Lord, witness for Christ, keeping good testimony.
So what are rewards? The Bible only mention crowns that you may wear on your head or keep in your heavenly mansion. -
150. If I decide I like the answers to the above questions, where can I get in touch with you? (Give name, address, phone and email if available).
From the original author:
My name is Chris Hobeck, and I live in Virginia. Please e-mail me at [email protected]. My Web site is http://www.the-truth.i-p.com/ . Since I am posting this on the Internet for the whole world to see, I am not planning on posting my phone and mailing addresses here -
151. What is the name of your sect?
From the original author:
I don't belong to an organized denomination; I consider myself a Christian, in the original New Testament sense of the apostles. -
152. How is your sect organized?
See question 151. -
153. How can I get in touch with a priest (minister, etc.) of your sect?
From the original author:
Technically, since I don't have a specific denomination, there are no ministers. However, I would be glad to give you any information I can. There are also several good books and Internet resources out there:
The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
The Case for Faith, also by Lee Strobel
Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell
Who is Jesus? http://www.whoisjesus-really.com/
Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry: http://www.carm.org/
The Christian Research Institute: http://www.eQuip.org/
My Web site, The Truth: http://www.the-truth.i-p.com/ -
The author ends at question 153. Looking through crazymonkey's 157 question, i think the author merged the remaining 4 questions into his 153 answers.
so, that's it. -
Wow, you are done.
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i don't mean to bash fandago, sorry if you're offended but...
being still a little christian myself, most from my church feels that one shouldn't be presumptous about God. Sometimes we say things with the intent to be spread e faith...at the same time we could be putting ourselves above God's without knowing. Many people can feel and see this arrogance from many christians, hence, christians have taken much bashing from other religions and gained much distaste and disgust by what some christians say or do.
in any case, godspeed. -
i see where u are coming from. but fandango was just trying his best to answer crazy monkey's questions.Originally posted by wa|th3r:i don't mean to bash fandago, sorry if you're offended but...
being still a little christian myself, most from my church feels that one shouldn't be presumptous about God. Sometimes we say things with the intent to be spread e faith...at the same time we could be putting ourselves above God's without knowing. Many people can feel and see this arrogance from many christians, hence, christians have taken much bashing from other religions and gained much distaste and disgust by what some christians say or do.
in any case, godspeed.
but yes u r right. we must nv be presumptious. but in this case, the scenario's different. and it does make an interesting read
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Mr fandango...
Though I won't quite agree with many things you've written in your answers, but I do 'admire' you for your PATIENCE and PERSISTENCY... MAY you be CLOSER with YOUR GOD one day...? -
Wrong information.Originally posted by fandango:To my knowledge, the Catholic Church accepts some of the OT Apocrypha simply because they were inserted during the 1500s. They should be able to understand this part of the question.
Try doing a research on 'Septuagint' and you will know when the Apocrypha were in the OT and when Christians started to use the bible with Apocrypha. -
"From the majestic pontifical High Mass in St. Peter's to the quiet simplicity of a Quaker meeting, from the intellectual sophistication of Saint Thomas Aquinas to the moving simplicity of spirituals such as "Lord, I want to be a Christian," from St. Paul's in London, the parish Church of Great Britain, to Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta... all this is Christianity."
--Huston Smith, The World's Religions -
This is gonna be a long thread.......... I don't know how long I will go
A professor of certain university asked several questions. They are really tough questions. The couple told the professor, if they could answer all his questions, will he come and believe God (or perhaps learn more about the One True God)? The professor answered straight away with a "NO". The couple asked why. The professor confessed that he asked these questions for his acadamic purposes.
Putting it in another way, if u come out with 101 questions about people who do not believes in christ and if they manage to answer all of them well, will u drop your faith of being a christian ? I think if u answer the question satisfactory, then u will clear more doubts about your religion.God didn't want us to sin, but we did. But He still wanted to walk with us, and for us to be in heaven with Him. In His infinite Wisdom, He knew that by sending His Son Jesus to die, that same Jesus' Blood would cleanse all who believed in Him from their sin, allowing them free access into heaven.
If he don't wanna us to sin, since he is omnipotent he could have simply made us not sinning If he is omnipotent, he could just clense all our sins and give us free access into heaven. However he do not and he go through an elaborate painful process with no apparent objective (compared with him simply just remove sin or forgive us immediately) So u r not really answering the question why does his son have to die when he could have prevented tat. -
No. All those who died before Jesus and still believed in the one True God went to Paradise, a sort of holding area. It took the Blood of God's own Son to open the gates and cleanse all sinful people, so that all who believe would go to heaven and be with God. Luke 16 describes this in detail.
I look at Luke 16 and it described a few parables. I do not see any holding area or opening of gate or clensing all sinful people there. If wat u say is true, tat all men will go to heaven, then why do people have to be christian ?
In a way, the Blood of Christ cleansed the Old Testament saints as well; they looked forward to the prophecies of the cross, while we today look back to what happened on the cross. -
SIS is back
hahaa... u gonna rebutt the 100 over answers?
oh man.. the fun has just started -
3. If a Catholic, justify the Inquisition and other persecutions of "heretics" throughout the centuries, concentrating on why the Pelagianists, the Priscillianists, and the Manichaeans were persecuted; if a Protestant, justify the witch trials and the way that Protestants constantly hunted down native Americans until there were so few that the government could simply take their land; if a member of an Eastern Orthodox church, justify the persecutions of the Old Believers after the reforms of the seventeenth century.
If u felt tat there r actions tat were did wrongly by the church, then why does some people insist the church r always correct or they have holy spirits to guide them etc
I can't justify any of them. I believe that they were wrong. In fact, I know that they have not even apologized for these actions, and I do not approve of them at all. Often, they do things "In the name of 'sometime'" but you have to question their political motives that are hidden beneath. -
6. Explain why I should believe that your god is all good when the only real information we have about him is the Bible, which clearly describes him as both good and evil. (See Isaiah 30:32, Luke 14:26, Numbers 31:17-18, Matthew 10:34, Amos 3:6, Deuteronomy 18:8, Deuteronomy 20:16, Exodus 20:5, Exodus 32:27, Isaiah 45:7, Psalms 52:5, Luke 22:36, and Jeremiah 18:11 for a small sample of Biblical passages which describe Jehovah as having an evil morality at times).
If a mum go around and beat a child or burn him just because he make a noise, I am gonna call her "evil" and call the police to catch her for child abuse. He allocate severe punishment for no good reasons. He do not show the people of his existence, he inevitably created many other religions so why does people get punish for him being unclear ?
This isn't evil; it is just His punishment for those who will never accept Him, no matter what. You cannot label you mother as 'evil' just because she slaps your hand with the ruler due to your failure to listen to her.
The Jewish Pharisees alive when Jesus was on earth saw incredible miracles, but yet, they did not (and probably never did) believe in Him. -
7. Explain why, when racism is clearly wrong, Jesus was clearly a racist (see Mark 7:25-29). NOTE: under no circumstances will I believe the idea that racism is morally acceptable.
I don't think mentioning people to be dogs and eating crumbs under a table is not derogative. If I say chinese/indians/caucasians/japanese/korean r dogs and eat crumbs under a table, do u think they will take it lightly ?
"[T]he dogs" He refers too are the Gentiles. At first, He came to save the Jews, God's chosen people. God chose them because their patriarch Abraham was most loyal to the Lord during the time he lived in. After the Jews rejected Christ, God decided to send the gospel to the Gentiles, a mission of which Paul was most influential in. It would appear to me that He was not speaking derogatorily toward the Gentiles, but in fact was speaking metaphorically. -
8. Explain why, when discrimination against women is clearly wrong, the Bible clearly supports the oppression of women. Answering this question entails refuting 1 Cor. 11 and 1 Tim 2:11-15. NOTE: under no circumstances will I believe that discrimination against women solely on the basis of sex is morally acceptable.
U have not answer or refute the quotes from 1 Cor. 11 or 1 Tim 2:11-15. In fact your answer does not say tat the bible is not opressing women. If u look at 1 Tim 2
Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." You cannot use today's idealogy and criticise the bible. Male and Female are created equally, but the essence and function is different. The bible, in no way, supports the oppression of women. This must be clear.
11A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15But women[a] will be saved[b] through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
They already clearly stated full submission and no authority over a man. If tis is not oppression wat is opression ? -
9. Explain why, when slavery is clearly wrong, the Bible clearly supports slavery. Answering this question entails refuting 1 Peter 2:18. NOTE: under no circumstances will I believe that slavery is an acceptable way to run a society.
If i do not read incorrectly, u r not answering the question on whether does the bible support slavery. The bible do support slavery and slavery of watever reasons r really wrong. And u r also avoiding the slavery of negores in south america where amputation and physical torture is employed (even jesus recommend physical punishment to slaves who do not obey)
Here's a quote from a packet I'm using in American history:
"Like America's old South, ancient Rome teemed with slaves who labored in their master's fields and houses. But unlike their counterparts in America, Rome's slaves also could be ship's captains, bankers, business agents, and doctors. They could be of any skin color, well-to-do, highly educated and, given the state of negotiations with their master, eventually free. What emerged centuries later in the New World shed such ancient flexibility for a modern harshness."
Because the Romans didn't have bankruptcy laws, if you got into financial trouble, selling yourself and/or your family into slavery was, in most cases, the only choice you had. There were people of all races and nationalities enslaved. But in America, all blacks and only blacks were slaves, and that was the part that was wrong. You must also ask: how did the slave trade stop? In the beginning of the 19th century, evangelical Christians rammed through the British Parliament the necessary laws to stop the slave trade, and enforced them with the gun boats. This happened not only on the western African coasts, but in the Persian Gulf, where 13 million slaves (as opposed to 11 million the Americas) were shipped for use by the Arabs.
Once again, this question entails trying to apply modernistic idealogy to biblical teaching. -
10. Explain why children should submit to their parents' decisions even when those decisions are clearly evil. Answering this question entails refuting Deuteronomy 21:18-21, Proverbs 13:24, and Hebrews 12:7-8.
Wat if your mother ask u to cut off your or your arm and leg
Even so, they are your parents who raised you. Remeber the commandment, Honour thy father and thy mother. Also "Obey your parents in the Lord" Ephesian 6:1. If your mum ever ordered you to "Kill our neighbour", you have to say no because murder is not of the Lord. Tis does not goes against the 10 commandments. In fact I can say many different kinds of evil acts tat does not go against the 10 commandments. Anyway if u read the bible, god himself do ask men to go out for wars and kill people. SO wat is the response of his people ? -
11. Explain why, if your god loves us all, more than half of us are going to Hell after we die. Specifically, refute or explain the following words of Christ, as presented in the New Testament: "Many are called but few are chosen," and "Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto salvation, and few there be that find it." If your god loves all of us, couldn't he find a better way?
When we r borned, we have already sinned and r already comdemn to hell. Why r we blamed for things we cannot control ? And u still have not answer the question why does he torture more than 50% of the population ? Is a person who decided to be a buddhist at fault and deserve to be in hell over his personal decision of believing in buddhism ? Even if u r a christian, u may very well end up in hell as well. Is tat a good example of how god love the world ?
For reasons known only to Him, He gave us a free will, to worship God or reject Him. It is your choice. A big part of the problem is that people's hearts are hardened, usually by their love of sin or by the devil himself, to the gospel message. Don't blame God when we only have ourselves to blame. -
13. Explain how your god can be both just and merciful, when these terms apparently contradict each other.
If god shows himself clearly then maybe he has the right to punish people who rebel against him. But god hide himself tat believing in any other religion seems to be perfectly understandable.
As I said above, God wants people to be near Him, and if they don't, they should be punished for rebellion against their Creator and willful rejection of the One that loves mankind so. I don't like it either, but it's the truth.
In fact, everyone of us can be 'just' and 'merciful' at the same time. For example, say you witness a snatch thief. Being 'just', you chased the thief and caught him and return the handbag. Being 'merciful', after hearing the thief tragic story of his cancer-stricken son, you gave him $50 before letting him go.
Actually, on "just" and "mercy", if u r the magistrate, much like wat god is really playing, can u be just and merciful at the same time ? Being merciful to some people already make u unjust to the others.